West Island athletes off to Canada Games

BY MICHAEL PIASETZKI

The Canada Winter Games, one of the largest and most competitive domestic sporting competitions in the nation, officially begin Friday in Whitehorse with strong West Island representation featured.

No less than 21 area athletes or coaches — an increase of 13 from the 2003 Games in Bathurst-Campbellton, N.B. — will take to the snow, ice, water, court or mat for Team Quebec during the 14-day event that will feature 2,700 athletes from all the provinces and three territories. Week 1, which begins this Sunday, will see Kirkland’s Louis Leblanc and Mark Barberio along with Pointe Claire’s Jordon Southorn stickhandle in the men’s hockey discipline, Beaconsfield’s Camille Bowness and Kirkland’s Catherine Powell strut their stuff in synchronized swimming on a Quebec team that will be coached by Dollard des Ormeaux Synchronized Swimming Club assistant coach Lynn Piché, Pierrefonds’ Raphaëlle Viau twist and twirl in figure skating, Kirkland’s Eric Gauthier kick and scream in judo and Notre Dame de L’Île Perrot’s Cortney Keeble spear the ring on a ringette team that will be coached by Dollard resident Stephan Blackman.

Week 2, which gets underway March 4, will feature Pierrefonds’ Shawn Moskalewski going hard on a men’s curling team that will be coached by his father, Kim Moskalewski, Senneville’s Guillaume Rodrigue and Kirkland’s Gabrielle Tétrault plying their trade in the ancient sport of fencing, Beaconsfield’s Camille Dumais, Leslie Oles and Laurianne Rougeau along with Ste. Anne de Bellevue’s Stacie Tardif and Pointe Claire’s Alexandra Garcia facing off in women’s hockey, Senneville’s Marie-Michelle Bélanger-Timothy swooshing down the hill in alpine skiing and Kirkland’s Ken Flynn, who will serve as a coach on the squash team.

The Games will be a reunion for Dumais, Oles, Rougeau, Tardif and Garcia. All were part of the Lac St. Louis women’s hockey team that became the first ever to win gold at a Quebec Winter Games two years ago.

“We’re very excited not only to be back together, but to be representing Quebec at the Games,” Rougeau. said. “I believe if we work hard as a team, we stand a good chance of winning gold.”

Bowness, a member of the national 13-15 team, competed for Canada last summer at the ASUA Pan American Age Group Synchronized Swimming Championships in Oaxtepec, Mexico, where she won gold in the 13-15 figures, solo, duet with Camille Thuot and team events. She will compete in the solo and duet competition with Marie-Lou Morin at the Games. Morin and Lisa Mikelberg, who will also be swimming for Quebec, are not from the West Island, but are members of the Dollard Synchronized Swimming Club.

Six will be the magic number to break in Whitehorse. That was how many local athletes captured medals at the last Games. Those included Dorval native Brent Lakatos, who won gold in wheelchair basketball, Hudson native Sacha Grenier-Pokulok, who captured silver in men’s hockey, Pointe Claire native Geoffrey Goodman, who earned silver in the men’s slalom while his sister Anna also picked up silver in the women’s slalom, Dorval native Lolita Dagher, who captured gold in the women’s judo 44-48-kilogram weight class and Dorval’s Carly Hill, who was part of the Quebec women’s hockey team that won silver medal.