Dragon Boat West

Two Vancouver teams competed at the Montreal Dragon Boat Festival held on July 24-25.  Pacific Reach placed 5th in the Mixed Premier Division A.  Concord Pacific Flying Dragons placed 2nd in the Mixed Intermediate Division G.

The divisions are separated into Premier, Intermediate and Rookie.  Each division has levels from A (highest) to G (lowest).

Saturday Results: http://www.montrealdragonboat.com/docs/results/sat.pdf
Sunday Results: http://www.montrealdragonboat.com/docs/results/sun.pdf

Strange how this trip of mine seems to revolve around dragonboat so much.  I was on the 4:30 GO Train from Toronto to Mississauga when this guy sits beside me and in his hand was a dragonboat paddle.  So I decided to strike up a conversation and found out that he was from a Toronto team called C Monsters and was returning from the Montreal festival.  

I really envy the East Coast for their choices of festivals and regattas that they can choose from.  But like it's been said before.. it's more about viable locations out here than interest.

We chatted about the sport and discussed strategies and stuff.  Compared the East and West techniques and the general popularity of the sport. It was pretty interesting to hear what he thought and how he absorbed some of the stuff that I said and pointed out.  He even told me that he would bring it up with his coach next practice...  

Just wanted to say that it's pretty cool that two complete strangers can have a 30minute conversation about dragonboat...

For those of you that would like to see lots of pic's of the montreal event heres a link

http://www.photoreflect.com/scripts/prsm.dll?EventFrame?event=046C003L

  Montreal was awesome and for those teams that like to travel this is one event you should all consider. The competiton was unreal and you can learn alot from this event .We made it into the premier A division final (which was a feat in itself) and placed fifth (out of 160+ teams) and went up against the top teams from Canada & abroad. You guys have to see the size of some of the A division teams ,they were all like portland size.The MAD team from New York ........they were intimidating w/ all their muscle but they didn't make it to the A final.Even teams that made the top 10 in the club crews did not make it ,it was hard racing but well worth the effort .

 These were the times:


1- lane 3 - 2:08.45  GTDBC Senior Mixed B (Toronto, Ont)(canadian national master team on it's way to china to compete)

2- lane 4 - 2:08.47  Wong's Dragon Boat Club Dragonslayers(placed 3rd in club crews in rome   2 yrs ago and are better now ,they were undefeated until this race this yr)

3- lane 2 - 2:08.89  Dragonboat World Imperial Dragons (Toronto, Ont)(known as the IMPS )

4- lane 5 - 2:10.36  Verdun DBC - Adrenaline (very strong Montreal team)

5- lane 6 - 2:10.67  Pacific Reach (Vancouver, BC)

6- lane 1 - 2:10.86  Action Sport (Physio)


 The olymipic basin is as good as it gets in dragonboat racing ,awesome facility and it has a huge display board that shows you instant results and has a timer running to watch the times as they elapse .You can sit on the sides right beside the lanes or in the grandstands. The boats were SRS which are basically a BUK hull design and they are the same size as the gemini w/ almost the room of the 6-16 ,they were awesome .

 1 thing about dragonboat racing back east is they take it alot more seriously than most teams here.Not only is there races almost every weekend but now they have competitive racing every weds night .They also have a ranking system by which you are awarded points by the number of wins and tallied at the end of the yr .

Check out this phot from 1 of the races where the l/side stroke slipped off her seat but kept paddleing

http://www.photoreflect.com/scripts/prsm.dll?eventorder?photo=046C003K1W0030&start=0&album=0&adjust=-1