Dragon Boat West

Here's something we never talk about. Juniors. What did everybody think of the junior teams this year? Once again, laoyam dominates. Just wanted to know what everyone else thought.

poors kids, soem of them almost missed their first race of the day cuz the skytrain didnt open till 730am on sunday

yeah. and it must suck to not get into the beer garden too . . .
I was hoping JDA would get into the finals . . .

finals for what? juniors?  we're not in that division. :?

I think there was a Jr A, as well as a Jr B division final . . .

yeah, there is a jr A and B division... but umma, jda is in the mixed adult division, so that pretty much rules out any of that jr A and B stuff. was that what you meant? you thought we were in the jr division?

yeah that's right i did . . . that is what i was told and that is what everyone here thinks . . .including their coach Nook . . .
http://www.dragonboatwest.net/viewtopic.php?t=1435
sorry if I offended you if my information was wrong.
perhaps some help from your part would be better than this tug-of-war we seem to be having.

hahaha, dude, i'm not offended at all. no worries.  :D  JDA is represented by quite a few highschools, so i can see why it would seem like we're in the junior division. but even though we probably should be in the junior division (because most of us are in highschool), we were put in the adult division. we made it to rec C, which was pretty cool. but yeah... it appears that the tug-o-war rope has snapped. and i apologize for seeming defensive. that was not my intention. i was just confused myself.

I think "dominate" is the wrong word, as Laoyam won the Junior A final by only 1.5 seconds.

Congrats to them for winning though, and it was a great showing by all junior teams this weekend.

that's cool, i'm glad to hear that.  :D
at least now we know the right info on jda, thanks!

apoloies, im rash n i don think b4 i do stuff

On behalf of the Eric Hamber Eternal Dragons, I would like to apologize for the comments directed towards the Laoyam teams.  Those comments were not a representation of what the team stands for and believes in and that individual who made those comments will be dealt with accordingly.  

Congratulations to all the junior teams who paddled this weekend.  It is nice to see so many youths are getting into the sport.  

The Eric Hamber Eternal Dragon coaches

I've always believed it morally wrong for laoyam, or any other jr team,  to double dip. but at least they only went home with 1 set of medals this year.
just my humble opinion and critiscm of "the system".

nah, nothing about double dipping.

They are a Junior team that should have new crew rotated in each year and definately deserve to compete with the Juniors.

I mean, I think that's how it works.  Highschoolers join the Falcons where the focus is on fun, starting out, then they go to the Eagles,  and after that, some have ended up on the Bald Eagles.

I dunno, I'm just guessing here.

Anyways, the Eagles will have paid a seperate entry fee to compete in the Adult mixed division.  There's nothing to stop the other Junior teams from doing the same.

At any rate, it's more fun to compete with a larger pool of teams

hmm. those are good points, but i'm still skeptical.
#1. are the Eagles comprised of Mixed Adults?
#2. define Division
in my view, jr's racing in the Adult mixed division is like men racing in the womens division, or vice versa.

maybe this little excerpt from the ADBF registration package will help clear things up...


My interpretation of this is that the junior division is just the mixed division with age and/or high school requirements.

The race package I took this out of may be out of date, though. I was going through the race format section of it and realized it differed a little from the race format used this past weekend...

thanks for the info, but like I said before,

So in my opinion, again, you should be either a Kid or an Adult. You can't be both, though some of us truly are (myself included).  :wink:  :lol:

The junior division for the last couple years has pretty much been pretty predictable with the Laoyam Eagles coming in First and Hamber placing either 2nd or 3rd... I'm not taking anything away from the teams but I would say that the majority of the junior teams are pretty much there for fun and probably don't take their training as seriously as Laoyam and Hamber.
What I have to ask is what other high school sport would you be able to do well and earn a chance to represent your country in an international level event? In dragon boat, junior teams can enter into the World Club Crews Championships... And with the Club Crews in Toronto in 2006, that should be a great reason for current Grade 9 and 10 students to jump at the opportunity to pick up the sport. I'm surprised that high school students haven't yet jumped at the chance to strive for this. The Eagles are pretty much established as a favorite for the event and Hamber's got quite an impressive program that I can only see bigger and better things coming from that school.

i believe there are too many variables involved to blame everyone else for not striving.
for example, the quality of the coach, and the school population - it is fair to say there is a smaller crop of potentially great athletes in schools with lower populations - for this exact reason, school teams such as tennis and football are split into divisions based on school population.
As for Laoyam, they're a miracle bunch of kids led by an olympic medalist right?  :D

I thought my eyes were deceiving me a few weeks ago at Alcan when I saw Laoyam Eagles place 1st in Comp B, and 1st in Junior A.  Never knew a team could do that and be entered in the Junior and Adult division. Just wanted to say it's an amazing feat for these younguns!



That was last year, so it means the majority of them would be in grade 10 now... somehow I don't think this information is correct. I would say that the majority of them (last year as well) are in their senior years, grade 11 and 12.  Anyone have any info on this?

For rest of the article ...
http://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/pique/index.php?cat=C_Sports&content=dragon+boats+1225

“remember in high school”... athletic abilities varied and perception of a particular sport varied... it's still the same now -  bottom line is to have fun and meet new people.  

Doesn’t work when the team consist of “the norm” and the other of “jocks”. It DOES creates a balance between fun and discipline … but they don’t have the same goals  - db is all about team work and the beauty of achieving something together

everything that applies to becoming a strong adult team div applies to juniors. If you have members not showing up because there was a slight drizzle or squeal when they get splashed , complain when they are tired…and when on geminis all they want to do is play tug a war… can you guess where this team placed? XD

 Someone wise once told me “it’s all about commitment and never giving up”
 The “jocks” gave up when they accepted the fact that they are DFL but stay because they've gotten this far there's no good in backing out[also their cap had a little pleasent sit down chat with them] (heh we're all friends no feelings were hurt :lol: )
The “norm” give up when they see the “jocks” give up
And then the captain who can never give up – reminds everyone why they joined the team and it’s not ALWAYS about winning…but to have a good time

most coaches are teachers...
teacher are trained not to hurt anyone's feelings - younglings have lots of feelings and exteremly are fragile...
a parent e-mailed me demanding why I sat their daughter out 2 out of the 3 regatta races…and why was she not with her friends and why was she on the other team. "everyone shots the messenger!"
There’s the occasional teacher who dragon boats – in the end it’s up to the students to decide what their goal for alcan XX is.

Some schools just don’t have that hardcore commitment that eagles and Laoyam have

it's too bad  *tear*

which is something that i HATE about our system.  we shelter our youth beyond belief.  feelings get hurt in life.  its a fact of life.  we are bringing youth up to think that everything in life is fair and equal and that there are no winners or losers.  we're turning youth into pansies.  they don't need to fight or put in that exta effort to do that much better, cause in the end, "we're ALL winners" :roll:

hahaha, Mr. Colossus, I could not agree more with you.  Some of us are too gentle with children, and we shelter them too much so they don't know what it feels like to get hurt (be it emotional or physical), so when they finally do get hurt, they become overly sensitive and they can't deal.

So I guess it's a good thing I was made fun of and left out back in elementary school!  :lol:  :cry:  :lol:

i'm with you, except it was all the way up until grade 10 when i started smashing heads into lockers :twisted:   people tend to not want to p*** you off when you have a reputation of smashing heads into lockers :)

Oh, I understand now.  You were one of those kids.  :)   The ones that have had a bad childhood, thus, when he got older learned that inorder to protect himself (and his ego), he must wear a mask -- the mask of a bully.   :twisted: And then smash heads into lockers.

I wonder if Mr. Guido has anything to say about this,  he's always got good, interesting input. Sounds like this description might prominately describe his eloquent ways of expressing himself sometimes. Not say to say he is a bully though.  :wink:   :roll:

You guys have to realize that since the sport is open to grades 8-12, there is a drastic difference in the fitness level of the students.  On my team the senior grades usually whop the juniors like whip cream in time trials or work outs, simply because they're over and done with puberty.  The gap is even wider between a grade 12 guy and a grade 8 girl.  Its every difficult to apply the same work outs to the entire team, and if divided, so is the team.  

But then again, there are always the slackers and crybabies that bring the team down... :?

Btw, while marshalling, Laoyam looked a lot younger than last year, not the giants like SunDragons.

haha  no, i wasn't one of those kids.  i only had to smash heads that once.  it was more than enough for people to stop picking on me.  and then i moved to Thailand, so i wasn't even around anymore.  but i did have a "bad childhood" (nothing like you're probably thinking though), and yes, i did have a lot of agression.  thats what i had Judo for.  :D



in grade 8 i could beat up grade 12s, was in better shape than most people in my school and was as skinny as anything.  :)

that it is, when I was a junior way back in the day, we had more fun at all the regatta's that we were in against adults, it gave us more of a goal. A lot of adult teams then and even now still don't like it when jrs racing against them..

If more jr coaches and jrs want to, I'm sure with in a few years there might be more juniors in the adults divisions or a junior comp level..