Final Day of competition

Well today was the final day of competition, and congratulations to Kevin Caouette on his gold medal in 16U Friendship Cup - Well done!

Congratulations to all the athletes from Canada, I have heard that you had some very tough matches and that you all played hard.

Keep practising, and get ready for Junior Nationals in Regina.

Wishing all of you a safe journey home - and all the best of the Holiday Season.

Geri Powell
VP Development
Racquetball Canada

14 yr Girls are tops in their pools

Michele Morissette & Brittany Nelson have both placed 1st in their respective pools.
They will be ranked #1 and #3 in the main draw now.
They are both playing quite strong and doing Canada proud.
Brittany overcame 14-8 and 14-13 deficits to win both of her games in her last match vs Mexico. What an exciting match !!!


Mike Fuerth is also doing well in the Boys 14 Challenger Cup and will be playing in the semi-finals on Friday.
Our family is quite proud of our 2 competitors. I think Brittany & Mike are fighting it out between themselves for biggest bragging rights.

Day one

First off Uncle Trevor has sent best wishes to all the Canadian players but especially to three special ladies from Saskatoon, Danielle, Callie and Abby. He says that he is thinking of you in -43 temp.



The balance of the day had some great results for Team Canada.



First round wins in their singles go to Denise Haynes, Samuel Murray, Anthony Schonberger, Mike Fuerth, James Slamko, Pedro Castro, Kevin Caouette in B16U, and Sean Barclay.

Brigitte Richard,Taylor Blue, Nicolas Bousquet B14U, Sebastien Boissonneault, and Nina Markovic did not do as well in their first round, but tomorrow is another day.

On the doubles side Denise H and Christine R, Michele M and Brittany N, James S and Pedro C, Sami H and Coby I, Samuel M and Taylor B, Sebastien B and Derreck West all won in their first round. Frederique L and Brigitte R, Nicholas Leung and Connor C lost in their first doubles rounds.

There was not one hour today that a Canadian player was not on the courts playing for Canada, the coaches had a tough job today and from the looks of it did an excellant job.

Three cheers for a great first day of competition.

First Day results

I am watching online from Canada so will try and keep all up to date with how our players are doing.

18U mixed D Anthony and Nina lost in their first round.

12u Boys Esprit

Sami Harb lost his first round, Coby Iwaasa won in a tie breaker. Devin Halko, Connor Culhane and Nicholas Leung lost in their first round of singles of 12U boys, Nicolas Bousquet won.

14U Girls World
Brittany Nelson and Michelle Morrisette both won their first round.

14U Friendship/Challenger
Danielle Drury won, this is great as this is a combined 14 & 16 U group.

6u Mulitbounce (6U & 8U multibounce)
Abby Drury won her first game of the worlds decisively over an 8 year old - way to go Abby.

Frederique is currently on the court and just won her first round.

Updates to follow

Racquetball Live

The worlds are being streamed on Globall.TV

if you go the Racquetballonline.tv and sign in you will be redirected to the site, or if you go to the IRF site you can also link from there.

to all the athletes

Wishing you all the best in your games. Play hard and play well. Have fun.

Looking forward to reading the stories, remember to hit the publish post at the bottom for your information to be posted to the site.

Cheers

Geri P

Arizona arrival

Brittany Nelson & Mike Fuerth have arrived in Tempe.
The weather was great here compared to the snow, rain & wind we had in Windsor.
Palm trees, mountains, cactii and SUN!!!

Looking forward to some sight-seeing (Grand Canyon) and some shopping before we hit the courts. ASU is alive and well...EVERYBODY is wearing their colours. We better get a shirt or 2 if we want to fit in here.

Brittany & Mike are getting pretty excited about seeing the courts as we've heard they are spectacular. A light work out tomorrow is in the plans.

See you all when you get here.

Team Photos

I have moved the team photos to the bottom of the page, this will allow new photos and also slide shows to be added during the event.

All the best to each player from Canada

GO CANADA GO

Challenger Cup participants from Canada

Canada is sending a further 12 athletes to play in the Challenger Cup.

10U Boys - Brian McKenzie from Alberta
Brian and Brittni will be play 10U mixed doubles

12U Boys - Nicholas Leung from BC
Connor Culhane from BC
Nicolas Bousquet from Quebec, also playing 14U Boys
Nicholas and Connor will be playing doubles

14U Boys - Anthony Schonberger from BC, also playing mixed 18U doubles
Mike Fuerth from Ontario

16U Boys - Kevin Caouette from Alberta, also playing 18U boys
Mathieu Grand-Maitre from Quebec, also playing 16U mixed Doubles

16U Girls - Valerie Fallu from Quebec - playing mixed doubles with Mathieu

18U Boys - Sebastien Boissonneault from BC, playing doubles with Derreck
Derreck West from Saskatchewan

18U Girls - Nina Markovic from BC, playing mixed Doubles with Anthony

Please cheer on all of our Canadian Athletes and wish them the best!!

Go Team Canada Go!

Just over two weeks to Worlds

The countdown is happening - seems like Christmas to some. I have been getting emails from some of the athletes telling me how hard they have been working.

I have updated the blog with the rest of the Team photo's.

I wish you all good luck, focus hard, do your best and have fun.

Geri P
VP Development
Racquetball Canada

Count down to the worlds

I know that all the athletes are training hard getting ready to represent Canada at the Junior Worlds, and they are getting excited to compete. A month from now they will be there playing their hearts out, so watch the updates as the days complete.

Entry form is active

Hey all

I am told that the IRF web has the entry form active. Remember to send in your signed forms and cheques payable to Racquetball Canada to the National Office.

Geri

Count down to the Worlds

It is a little over a month and a half till the Canadians take off for Arizona and the Junior Worlds. The athletes are training hard and getting ready for this event. Some have played in both the Canadian Classic and the US Open in preparation.

I am trying to ensure that the last minute details are available for our athletes.

The IRF does not have the entry form on line as of this morning, I will keep looking for this and let all know when it is posted.

Cheers to all of our Teams, World, Esprit and Friendship.

To help support our programs please enroll in the shop and support program of fundraising that we are doing or buy those Penn Balls, every bit helps keep the sport alive.

Junior Worlds Team

Our Junior National Team for World Cup are:

18U Sean Barclay
Mathieu Messier

Denise Haynes
Christine Richardson

16U Pedro Castro
James Slamko

Frederique Lambert
Brigitte Richard

14U Samuel Murray
Taylor Blue

Brittany Nelson
Michelle Morrisette

Head Coach - Rino Langelier
Assistant Coaches - Sue Swaine and Marc Caouette

Esprit Cup Team (Junior Development Team)

12U Sami Harb
Coby Iwassa

Danielle Drury


10U Trevor Webb
Devin Halko

Callie Drury
Brittni McKenzie

Junior Worlds December 14 - 20, 2008

Canada will be sending 12 athletes to play in the World Cup, 8 athletes to play in the Esprit Cup and other athletes that will be playing in the Friendship cup.

This blog has been started to allow the athletes to share with Canada their days of competition.

Posts will be in both English and French. Add your good wishes to our young stars and their coaches.

Enjoy your experience, play hard.