Vancouver Nationals - 2006

Probably one of the shortest trips I've ever taken, to a destination inside of Canada was last weekend. Vancouver was the host site for this years Senior National Championships. Usually held in June, they made the switch this year so that there wouldn't be any comflicting international tournaments - alas...finally some decent planning by the federation!!!
The venue was one of the coldest I've been in. Just an old sports warehouse without any heat to keep out little fingers warm....damn it, forgot my gloves! You can see in the first picture how busy it gets. I took it through a screen on the second floor where the bar is....of course...that's where we hung out during breaks...!! Tarsh Bakos, a good buddy of mine from Saskatoon won that day in the Men's Epee class - NOT my event. He's quite the dude, a part time kendergarden teacher during the winter and a tree planter in the summer and finishes every sentence with..."ya know"....love it, Tarsh!! As for me, I lost in the Quarter finals to Philip Beaudry, the yongest on the Canadian Team. At only 20 years old, he is the future of fencing in Canada, by that I mean a true talent. I have beaten him before, but that day was his. There was no doubt he was in the 'zone' all day and deserved to win. I've been having some concentration problems the last couple of weeks and couldn't put it together in time. No worries though, we were told beforehand that results at national competitions are not very important at this stage, its how we place internationally that counts. The picture is of Wess Ross, trying to gather up his things in a sea of fencing bags. You really have to watch your stuff carefully at these places because things can go missing like that!!SNAP!!! Anyways, they had called for so much snow in Vancouver that week, that many of us were worried about the travel. But when we got there, all I could do was laugh!!! Six inches of snow to them is a blizzard....and still the city can't handle it?? Sally, Sally..tehe, tehe! We only needed a hotel room for one night, since the return flight was leaving only six hours after the last match. So what did we do for those six hours you ask?...well, lets just say that whatever it was helped me pass out on the plane like a baby after its done sucking on a warm bottle of milk!!! I had to add this one photo of the dude 'working' outside the grocery store. Santa Clause to some kids.....but a hilarious, bored and not so cheery man to us!! Awesome. Sorry about the blury photograph, we did a drive by camera shoot...so he wouldn't run after us!