Tag: Obscure sports

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Sports

The sudden popularity of roundnet

We’ve all seen people playing this game at parks across Montreal, and now with its sudden popularity organizers want it to be recognized as a legitimate sport

Charles Henri was in California when he first saw people playing roundnet. Curious, the Quebec native asked them what game they were playing. Soon after, he bought a spikeball set and returned to Quebec. Every time he would play, people would stop and ask what the game was called. 

“I started playing and everyone would stop by and try it. They all wanted a spikeball set,” Henri said.

A mix of his love for the game and with clear interest from onlookers prompted Henri to become a global ambassador, partnering with the Spikeball Roundnet Association (SRA), a position he has now held for over six years. 

Roundnet is a sport that consists of two teams of two players. Like doubles in volleyball, the main objective is to send the ball into the other team’s zone. The only difference is that the ball is smaller, and instead of a net, a mini trampoline is positioned in the center of the playing surface.

Also a roundnet competitor, Henri jumped on the opportunity to grow the sport in Quebec by creating the Fédération québécoise de roundnet. In the summer of 2017, a provincial tour Henri hosted consisted of roughly 300 team registrations, which jumped to over 700 before the pandemic in 2019.

As a flopped product originally introduced in the 1980s, spikeball was a product re-released for consumers in 2008. Attempting to turn the game into a legitimate sport, the SRA was introduced as the governing league in the United States. Known to many as spikeball, the association had to change the sport’s name in order to keep their trademark, thus changing the name to roundnet.

Nora White, senior sport development manager at the SRA, mentioned that though spikeball hosted occasional tournaments in 2012-13, 2016 saw the SRA introduce four regional tournaments and one national tournament, propelling the league and the sport’s popularity.

“Our first nationals had around 75 teams. To put it into perspective, the Ohio State Roundnet Club alone just hosted a 70-team tournament just a few weeks ago,” White said.

White described the rise in popularity and competition over the past year amid the pandemic as pure insanity, as they just held their biggest national event to date.

“Our national championship that happened a couple of weeks ago had 400 teams. […] To grow from 30-40 teams for one event to now over 400 is insane.”

Current organizations that once needed assistance from the SRA like Utah Roundnet and Texas Roundnet have now become so popular in their respective regions that they now host their own events without the association’s involvement. The SRA has been offering ambassadorship programs to grow the sport at an amateur level but is now set to present it professionally.

Over the past year, the International Roundnet Federation was formed to oversee international play. Like FIFA for soccer, this international committee would govern other international governing federations to uphold the same rules in order to legitimize the sport. According to White, the next big step is to get recognized internationally. With a world tournament already planned in Belgium in 2022, over 30 countries will be represented, attempting to legitimize roundnet as a serious sport in the eyes of governing competition committees.

Unlike the SRA’s original role of being the international governing body, the league wants to take a step back and become the official competitive pro league for the sport, as well as offering sponsorships to pro-tour players. 

“In the beginning, our word was the Bible, we don’t want that position,” White said. “We have helped and supported other organizations to grow like the International Roundnet Federation who will decide their own rules for international play.”

The sport’s growth has been on such a positive incline that the SRA also provides televised tournaments for the world’s leading sports broadcaster, ESPN. 

“We’ve done three broadcasts per year for a couple of years, and we have three to four on the docket for 2022,” White said.

Henri is extremely optimistic about the future of the sport. He has personally seen such growth, and has decided to cut ties as chairman of the Fédération québécoise de roundnet to host independent tournaments in Quebec in order to advertise his own roundnet set. “I think it’s very bright, the 360 degrees of the sport make it so unique, and I think its uniqueness will bring it very far.”

The goal for the SRA is to spread the sport to an international audience. The ultimate goal is representing the sport internationally in the Olympics; however, it’s still too soon to know when — or if — that will be.

 

Photograph by Robert Austin

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Sports

Concordia cheerleading put on the map

Concordia University's 2021-2022 cheerleading team.

Cheerleading team will perform at Stingers home games donning new uniforms

Before Monica Knaapen and Arianne Bellerive ushered Concordia’s cheerleading team through their first halftime show in over a year on Oct. 23, the pair took a moment before showtime to reel in their excitement and reflect on how far the club has come.

“When I started, the cheerleading program wasn’t very stable,” said Knaapen, who currently studies political science at Concordia with a minor in human rights. “Once I started getting more involved with the team, my aspirations started to grow and over the years, [and] so did the club.”

When the co-captains of the club for the second year in a row first set foot on campus back in 2017, they were coming from competitive cheerleading backgrounds at Dawson and Vanier. As first-year students, they welcomed the notion of participating in Concordia’s cheerleading club despite the university’s lack of enthusiasm for the sport.

“Other universities have bigger cheerleading programs that are backed by their schools,” said Bellerive, who graduated from Concordia with a degree in sociology in 2021. “But it didn’t bother me because I was competing for so many years, I figured I could use a break.”

Concordia Cheerleading co-captains Monica Knaapen and Arianne Bellerive

At the time, the team coordinated outfits but did not have a uniform they could call theirs. The girls would make appearances at sporting events but wouldn’t perform. The club merely existed, but didn’t push the envelope and left a lot to be desired by Knaapen, Bellerive, and some of the other passionate veterans that are still involved with the team today.

This year, cheerleading tryouts were held in September and saw over 70 students try out for the team, the biggest turnout in the last four years. According to Knaapen, of the 26 girls that made the final team, eight are returning veterans who will steer the team’s fresh talent in the right direction.

“The fitness coordinator, social media and events coordinator, team manager, and treasurer are all positions on the team that are delegated to our returning team members. It’s a lot of work but thankfully we’re up to the task,” Bellerive said.

As co-captain, Bellerive said that her responsibilities go above and beyond allocating the team’s budget and coordinating with Concordia athletics.

“There’s a lot of stuff that Monica and I are constantly dealing with behind the scenes,” Bellerive said. “But I think most importantly, we try to be there for the girls if ever they need emotional support.”

In the last four years, the co-captains have faithfully worked towards putting Concordia on the cheerleading map. When they performed their first halftime show in early 2020, Knaapen said the amount of attention the club received immediately afterwards was unlike anything she’d ever seen.

“People were hyped up, to the point where we were getting students from other schools asking about our team and how they could get involved. The cheerleaders are there to show their support to the sports teams first and foremost, but it felt like people took real notice after that performance,” Knaapen said.

When the pandemic struck, a lot of the cheerleading team’s traction stagnated as the club couldn’t meet in person to practice and interact as a group. However, instead of drifting apart, Bellerive and Knaapen continued to put in the work to keep their tight-knit community alive.

“One of the things we could control was our activity and presence on social media. So, we made a TikTok account, just to keep the team’s spirits up and continue to engage with potential recruits from afar. Once it became clear that the pandemic wasn’t going anywhere, the easy solution would have been to shut things down and wait it out. But we tried to take matters into our own hands as best we could, and I’m proud of that.” Knaapen said.

The cheerleading club has come a long way with their flashy new team uniforms, team sweaters, and eccentric halftime shows to come, but Bellerive’s end-goal hasn’t yet been reached.

“Ultimately, we want to be competitive as a school,” Bellerive said. “I don’t think we’ll get to that point this year, but that’s certainly on our radar.”

When everything is said and done, Knaapen knows she likely won’t be around to experience the better days ahead firsthand. But she finds comfort in knowing that she helped lay the foundation for Concordia’s cheerleading future.

“When Arianne and I are gone, our hope is that the team continues to grow and gain popularity at Concordia. It’s not about us, we’ve already had our time. We want to instill the passion in our new recruits so they can carry the cheerleading torch.”

The last year and a half has been difficult for the team, with the nature of the pandemic threatening the very essence of the club. The road to a fresh start began with their captivating halftime show on Saturday, with Knaapen and Bellerive in the driver’s seat from the very beginning.

 

Photographs by Catherine Reynolds

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Surfers unwritten rules broke amid an increase in riders

Surfers look at each other's performances on the standing waves of Habitat 67, Montreal, Quebec, October 23, 2021. CHRSTINE BEAUDOIN/The Concordian

Surfers in the Montreal region have skyrocketed during the pandemic, however not all new surfers are following the unwritten rules

As he sat on his surfboard floating on the St. Lawrence River, his blonde surfer-style hair dripped with water as he briefly waited for his next chance to catch a wave. Though only a 30-second surf, that small amount of time brought him joy. Whatever problems he dealt with that given day would fade once in the water.

Edouard Beauchamp is a surfer who’s been involved in the surfing community for over five years. Behind the Habitat 67 condo complex, the wave dubbed by surfers as “Habitat” is an intermediate spot that is the most popular surfing destination off the St. Lawrence River. Beauchamp has witnessed this location grow in popularity, creating longer wait times to ride and more traffic than ever before. The catharsis he felt when hitting the water has now morphed into annoyance as of late, as the community he’s been involved with over the past few years has changed. He still sits on that same surfboard, but now his blonde hair is dry as he must wait for over an hour to ride and experience those 30 precious seconds he has longed for all day.

Once tightly knit, the community rapidly grew amid the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a loss of order which created long waiting times for surfers trying to catch a wave. The city of Montreal also successfully promoted surfing as an activity for tourists due to its easy accessibility by public transit, creating an increase in new surfers who would frequent the wave. Surf instructor Antoine Lavigne also noticed an increase in surfers this season compared to previous years.

“It started a year before the pandemic, you would see more surfers and bigger lineups, but it really exploded last year and this summer,” Lavigne said.

Beauchamp remembers what things were like before Habitat became extremely popular. “From 2015 to 2018 surfing wasn’t trendy yet in Montreal,” he said. “You see the same people, and even though you didn’t know their names, you knew they were regulars.” Beauchamp isn’t annoyed with the number of people frequenting Habitat, but is rather frustrated with new surfer’s disruption and negligence towards rules.

“What happens is that the young surfers stay on the wave for most of the turn and it’s kind of like king of the mountain,” Lavigne said. “That’s what bothered locals this season.”

The mix of inexperienced surfers on a more challenging wave like Habitat, combined with a lack of respect towards the rules has caused long-time surfers to sometimes clash against newer ones.

“They don’t hold priority because they’re too concentrated on the wave they’re trying to ride,” Beauchamp said.

Long-time surfer Igor Goni has been active in the surfing community on the island for the past 30 years. Goni said this wasn’t the first time the community grew, and they’ve experienced similar problems in the past. During the pandemic, the initial wave of new surfers prompted regulations to be put in place to combat long waiting lines. The new directives emphasized order, which included shortening the ride time per wave from one minute to 30 seconds to create more fluidity. Its acceptance at surfing spots like Habitat made it easier for many surfers to ride more often on a busy day.

Despite these new regulations, the influx of new surfers over the past year has created traffic like never before. What was once a 15-minute wait time has since worsened to over hour-long waits to ride a wave. Beauchamp described how he now avoids going on weekends because the waiting times have gotten out of control.

“That’s what bothers me because they don’t understand the rules, you keep an order of who’s going next, and you call the person for their turn,” Beauchamp said.

According to Goni, the lack of surfing spots in Montreal and the added number of new surfers has resulted in longer waiting times than usual.

Goni, Beauchamp, and Lavigne believe that this spot doesn’t belong to them, admitting that surfing is open for everyone at all levels. However, they do agree that there needs to be a specific order that must be kept so that not only everything runs smoothly, but everyone is having fun in the process.

“The problem with the new kids is that they don’t understand the importance of these rules. […] If they did what they wanted, the lines would be much longer,” Goni said. Goni urged that these directives must be encouraged so that everyone can have fun surfing while sharing the space accordingly. “If that would require us to go tell 30-40 people to know their place in line, we’d gladly do it,” Goni said.

It’s still too soon to tell whether new surfers will accept these rules going into the next season. However likely it is, until things speed up, Beauchamp will continue surfing at night to avoid waiting, to keep doing the thing he loves as much as possible without being interrupted.

 

Photographs by Christine Beaudoin

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Sports

The sport that’s sweeping the nation

Most Canadians only take an interest in curling once every four years during the Olympics. Photo by Alex Hutchins.

Mixed doubles curling is attracting a new generation of Canadians

Curling is an old sport with a long history in Canada. But a new form of the game is sweeping across the nation: mixed doubles.

Mixed doubles made its Olympic debut at the 2018 PyeongChang Games. Canadian pair Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris captured Canada’s attention en route to a gold medal.

The skip, the leader of a curling team, tells the thrower where to aim the rock. Photo by Alex Hutchins.

Mixed doubles curling is a faster, new alternative to the traditional game. Curling normally has four players per team, and games last 10 ends (similar to innings in baseball) with each team throwing eight rocks (or stones) per end. Mixed doubles curling, as the name suggests, only has two players on a team, and each team throws five rocks per end, for eight ends.

Neil Gargul, the director of ice and property at the Pointe-Claire Curling Club, said mixed doubles is a great way for people to join curling without having to put together a four-person team.

“It’s a lot easier to make a team,” he said. “At the pro level, a [traditional] game would take two and a half hours, whereas the mixed doubles are done in an hour and a half. It’s a much faster game. There will be a lot of popularity in mixed doubles, and I know the pros are really eager to do mixed doubles, and dedicate themselves.”

The Canadian mixed doubles championship was held in Leduc, Alta., from March 28 to April 1, and saw some of the top curlers in the country form teams. Jennifer Jones, arguably the best Canadian curler of all time, paired up with her husband, Brent Laing, who competed in the 2018 Winter Games.

There are only two techniques to throw a rock: out-turn, which spins counterclockwise for a right-handed player, and an in-turn, which turns clockwise. Photo by Alex Hutchins.

Although mixed doubles curling could attract a new generation to curling, Gargul said a curler needs to be more “technically-gifted” to succeed in mixed doubles.

“You need to be a better curler to be good at mixed doubles than the team sport,” he said. “There are a lot more high-precision shots. The misses could turn into a lot of points, and that’s the exciting part; it’s high-scoring.”

A stereotype surrounding curling is that it’s a relaxed sport, and you don’t need to be in good physical shape to play. Mixed doubles curling challenges that notion, since a player throwing the rock also has to sweep, and they’re constantly moving around.

Even traditional team curling is starting to require more physical strength, Gargul said, whereas in the past, teams worried less about fitness.

“You need good flexibility, good balance and good strength,” Gargul said. “To be a good curler, you have to be in good shape.” He compared curling to golf, a sport in which athletes now focus more on their fitness.

The sweepers then do the hard work; they have to make sure the rock has enough speed to get down the rink. Photo by Alex Hutchins.

“That’s the new generation of curling, where they realize the physical fitness portion of it,” Gargul added. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t go out to curl and just have fun.”

Curling is a social sport at any level. At Gargul’s Pointe-Claire Curling Club, players from opposing teams sit down after their games for a beer.

“We have a great community at the club,” Gargul said. “Win or lose, the teams sit together after the game and you get to know all the different people in the club.”

Curling is unlike other team sports, where you might dislike your opponent during a game. Gargul said there are some rivalries in curling, but opponents at any level still congratulate each other on good shots.

“Because it’s a precision sport, you have to be in control of your emotions, and be calm when you’re throwing your rock,” said Gargul, who used to play high-intensity team sports like hockey, football and soccer. “Having a level of intensity doesn’t necessarily help you in curling.”

For university students looking to try the sport, Gargul said people can rent the ice and equipment at the Pointe-Claire Curling Club by visiting the club’s website or calling.

“Most clubs offer rentals. You could rent the ice, and a group of eight of you could go out,” Gargul said. “You will have a blast.”

Video by Kenneth Gibson.

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Sports

Competing to save lives

By Alexa Hawksworth

A sport made for versatile athletes ready for new challenges

Invented in 1891 by the Royal Life Saving Society of England, lifesaving is an activity that really gained popularity with the creation of the Royal Life Saving Society of Australia in 1894.

The organization was first developed to ensure public safety during daylight bathing on the beaches of Sydney, Australia, according to the country’s Royal Life Saving Society. Volunteers gradually created patrol groups that taught lifesaving, as well as first aid training, to look after the increasing number of imprudent Australian bathers.

In the beginning, lifesaving was not a sport but rather a strong rivalry between the more ancient Australian lifesaving clubs, such as the Bronte Surf Life Saving Club, and the Bondi Surf Bathers’ Life Saving Club. The rivalry is what turned lifesaving into a competitive sport, according to Irish Water Safety. With the creation of the Surf Bathing Association of New South Wales (SBANSW) on Oct. 10, 1907, nine Australian clubs and affiliated associations organized official competitive lifesaving events. Later in the 20th century, lifesaving clubs emerged in other parts of Australia and around the world.

Records of lifesaving events in Canada date back to 1894, when Arthur Lewis Cochrane taught his lifesaving skills to students of the Upper Canada College in Toronto, according to the Canadian Lifesaving Society. Following that, lifesaving started to spread in Canada and, in 1904, the Royal Life Saving Society of Canada was created. Since the 1930s, the society has hosted many lifesaving sport events and, today, the Canadian Lifesaving Society hosts its own national championship.

What kind of a sport is lifesaving?

As a sport, lifesaving is an educational activity that mixes first aid training and athletic techniques. There are two main types of contests: pool and beach events.

Pool Events

Pool events are mainly swimming events, but they differ from traditional swimming competitions because obstacles, like mannequins, and flippers are involved. Mannequins represent the upper body of a person. They are one metre long and filled with water. The goal for the athlete is to dive, grab the mannequin and drag it a given distance.

Obstacles are underwater barriers that go 70 centimetres below the surface. They are often positioned in the middle of the pool. Athletes have to dive under an obstacle every time they reach one.

Flippers are feet extensions that a swimmer puts on to increase their speed. There are 11 trials in a pool lifesaving event, including the 200m obstacle swim, the 100m mannequin tow with flippers, and the 4x50m medley relay.

Beach events

Beach or open water events have trials on land and in the water. They combine reaction, running, stamina, swimming, surf skiing and board paddling. A total of 16 trials comprise a beach event. Trials such as the surf race, the beach sprint or the board race test athletes’ different abilities.

The main attraction of a beach event is the Oceanman/Oceanwoman race. It combines all the requirements to be a beach lifeguard in one race. Beach events also have unique trials such as inflatable rescue boat (IRB) events and surf boat events. Beach events are often more spectacular as there are natural elements involved such as wind and waves.

One final event that is common in both pool and beach events is the simulated emergency response competition (SERC). It’s a two-minute event that tests the lifesaving skills of a four-athlete team through simulated emergency situations unknown to them in advance.

Points in beach and pool events are awarded as followed: the relay teams and individual athletes placing among the top 16 in each trial earn points for their club. The club that earns the most points wins the event. At the end of a pool or beach event, the top three teams or athletes of each trial are also awarded medals.

Why should you join a lifesaving club in Montreal?

Lifesaving is a very interesting sport because it is not only physically demanding, but also a useful activity where you learn actual life-saving techniques. In this sport, a good athlete is a good lifesaver, therefore, lifesaving diplomas are mandatory. So, if you’re looking for a physical sport that could lead to a useful and interesting diploma and job opportunities, lifesaving might be for you.

As a Concordia student or a Montrealer, you live in a city that is home to many lifesaving clubs. Within an hour of Concordia’s downtown campus, you can reach no less than six clubs in all parts of the city and surrounding areas. These clubs all provide weekly classes, from beginner to experienced levels. As a student, it could be an interesting opportunity to test your physical capacities.

The lifesaving diploma and first aid training will always be useful in your everyday life. Not only will it teach you to calmly help people in urgent situations, this training will also give you the opportunity to work as a lifeguard at a pool or beach. Overall, lifesaving can make you a versatile athlete, a good lifesaver or both.

Main graphic by Alexa Hawksworth

Lifesaving clubs in Montreal:

Le Club de Sauvetage Rive-Nord (CSRN) in Laval

Sauvetage Sportif 30-Deux in Ste-Julie

Club Aquatique du Sud-Ouest in St-Henri

Club Aquatique de l’Est de Montréal in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve

The Rouville Surf Club with a facility in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve and Ahuntsic-Cartierville

Club les Piranhas du Nord (CAPN) in Ahuntsic-Cartierville

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