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Minor Officials Clinic Tonight 7:45pm Sportsplex
As we look forward to hosting the Titan's Cup January 27th-28th and the Titan's Cadet Invitational Tournament February 1st-3rd, parents are expected to volunteer as minor officials. It's a lot of fun to be on deck, and it's a great way to get to learn the game better if your family is new to the sport. If you haven't done this before and are able to attend the minor officials clinic tonight at the Nepean Sportsplex, this is the best way to learn what to do. Alternatively, for game clock and secretary positions, for the more confident you may simply be able to arrive one game early and observe the person doing the job prior to you.
An abbreviated version of rules of the game for minor officials is available on the club website www.titanswaterpolo.ca under About > Water Polo > Rules > Overview of Rules for Minor Officials .
High school water polo athletes are also most welcome to volunteer as minor officials and earn high school volunteer hours.
How to Volunteer as a Minor Official
For Titan's Cup Jan 26th-27th: contact Boris Hristov at borishristov@rogers.com or (613) 271-0273. There are 2 minor official positions: game secretary and game clock. Let Boris know what position you are volunteering for and which games you will do. The game schedule is available on-line on the club website under: Competitive Programs > Tournaments > Titans Cup 2008 > Schedule . Boris can also forward you the current volunteer schedule on request. If you are unsure which team your son or daughter is on, contact Sue Sidebottom at ssidebottom@gmail.com .
For the Cadet Invitational Feb 1st-3rd: contact Paul Hebert at hebert.jjp@forces.gc.ca and paul-hebert@rogers.com (best to email both). Watch for the game schedule to be posted on the website under Competitive Programs > Tournaments > Cadet Invitational or the volunteer schedule to be circulated by email. Paul I'm sure would accept names of volunteers prior to the schedule being published.
Parents- Are You Interesting in Playing Water Polo? Keep Fit and Have Fun!
Titans have two adult programs that may be of interest, both offered at the University of Ottawa pool. If you are new to the sport, we have an introductory/ instructional program on Sunday evenings, 6-7:30pm. Half the evening is dedicated to learning/ refreshing skills and the other half to scrimmaging for fun, in a non-intimidating environment. A coach is provided.
For those who have some experience (even if your skills are rusty!), you may be interested in our semi-competitive B/C program on Thursday evenings, 9-11pm. These 2-hour sessions include some instruction and coaching as well as friendly scrimmages.
Ottawa Magazine Profiles
David Hart
Carolyn McGill reports that our club's head coach, David Hart, is profiled
in the current edition of Ottawa Magazine in The Big Read:
Author Dayanti Karunaratne profiles seven area fitness
gurus, including Pilates "posture queen" Jacqueline Ethier, sport
climber Peter Slivka, water polo coach David Hart
, figure skater Elizabeth Manley-Theobald and trainer Tony Greco.
Senior Developmental National
Team Works Hard in Cuba
Pierre Fiset, Titans Boys NDC coach as well as coach of the Senior Developmental National Team sends us this report from sunny Cuba:
Bonjour / Hi all,
Here the sun is always there and it's killing me. We are working hard and the players as well (poor them). The Cuban team are bigger then us and it's true for both levels (A & B). The "B" team (Senior development national team) are learning a lot here. We have a few players still sick. Nobody who came from Ottawa/Hull are sick yet, they are all from Vancouver!!!!! The bench is cut and the players get more play time. We will have an official game Saturday and I will send an update afterwards.
Ici il fait chaud et il ne pleut pas. Les joueurs commencent a être fatiquer et certain sont malade tous de Vancouver. Ils ont beaucoup a apprendre sont la pression. Bye! je vais marcher sur la plage, c'est très difficile pour moi.
New Titans Bathing Suit Design Selected By Club Members
Pierre Fiset, Titans Boys NDC coach as well as coach of the Senior Developmental National Team sends us this report from sunny Cuba:
Bonjour / Hi all,
Here the sun is always there and it's killing me. We are working hard and the players as well (poor them). The Cuban team are bigger then us and it's true for both levels (A & B). The "B" team (Senior development national team) are learning a lot here. We have a few players still sick. Nobody who came from Ottawa/Hull are sick yet, they are all from Vancouver!!!!! The bench is cut and the players get more play time. We will have an official game Saturday and I will send an update afterwards.
Ici il fait chaud et il ne pleut pas. Les joueurs commencent a être fatiquer et certain sont malade tous de Vancouver. Ils ont beaucoup a apprendre sont la pression. Bye! je vais marcher sur la plage, c'est très difficile pour moi.
New Titans Bathing Suit Design Selected By Club Members
A survey to choose the design for our new Titans bathing suits was conducted in December. We received a total 91 responses. The new designs are shown below (both mens and women's versions, front and back views). Quotes are being obtained and our objective is to have the new suits available for provincial championships. The black Nike suits will continue to be available through Titans merchandise sales as 'training' suits. We will continue to offer Titans red/ yellow checkered club suits at a discounted price until they sell out (great prices on Turbo suits for training). Thanks also to everyone who had input into the designs we presented, and those who took the time to respond to our survey. Many thanks to Christine Taschereau and Sharon Lapins for their work designing the options and organizing the survey- this was a bigger job than we had anticipated!
York Invitational Tournament
Reports, January 11th-13th
The club had four Cadet teams travel to York this past weekend for their first tournament of the season. Here are some reports from a few parents and chaperons who were on the scene.
Marlins and Flying Fish Kick Off Competitive Season at York Cadet Tournament
Submitted by Greg Sidebottom
The Ottawa Titans sent the Marlins and the Flying Fish teams to the Mavericks Third Annual Cadet Invitational on the weekend of January 11th - 13th. In this early stage of our team training, it was a short bench of 10 Marlins and 9 Flying Fish, lots of bantam aged players, and with Alison and Jen coaching and Sue (Taylor's mom) and Bernice (Katrina's mom) chaperoning. The drive down on the coach bus was comfy and smooth, beating the rush hour traffic through Toronto, so we had time to check into our hotel and swamp a little Subway with two people on duty with 50 people for dinner. Amazingly, they were able to make subs at a rate of about one per minute and we were on our way in less than an hour.
The Marlins were in the Red pool with teams from the York, Hamilton, and Ann Arbour Michigan. The Flying Fish were up against teams from Scarborough, Kitchener-Waterloo, and London in the black pool. The tournament format was a round robin among the two pools and then two play-off games with the top two in each pool competing for first through fourth and the bottom two competing for fifth through eighth.
The Marlins started the tournament with a Friday night game against Hamilton. The slow start in the first quarter saw the Marlins go down 4-0 but they matched Hamilton for quarters 2-4 for a final score of 8-3 Hamilton. The Flying Fish Friday game was a heart breaker, with London scoring the winning goal in a 6-5 loss in the final thirty seconds. We then retired to our luxurious suite hotel rooms where I heard chaperons boasting of fire places in their rooms and some girls enjoying a snack of Kraft Dinner prepared in their in-room kitchens.
Saturday was a decent schedule for the Flying Fish, sleeping in a bit and taking the bus over for a 10:25am first game, but the Marlins were not so lucky, needing to take the early bus with the Hammerhead Sharks, who had an 8:15am game. The Marlins had a tight game with Ann Arbour with a last minute goal giving Ann Arbour a 6-5 win, and a loss to York. The Flying Fish weren't close in their Saturday games, but were able to get two and three goals, respectively, against powerful KW and Scarborough teams, who ended up going on to play for first place in the tournament. So both teams ended up in fourth place in their pools, but that didn't really tell the story because our small, newly formed and younger teams, when really clicking, were able to hold their own against older and more experienced teams. The girls had an early dinner at Kelsey's and then we were back at the hotel early enough for some of us to catch most of the Sens beating the Wings, which we thought of mentioning to Ann Arbour the next day until we thought better of it.
As good as we felt about our play, not winning does have its disadvantages, and in this case it meant a 6am wake up call for the Flying Fish, a 7:15am game causing them to be unable to enjoy the included hotel breakfast as the restaurant was not open until 7am. The Marlin's got off a little easier with an 8:20am start and breakfast at the hotel, but this was still too early to start our bus driver with the possibility of boy's games until 4:00pm and then the drive back to Ottawa. Many thanks to Jelena's, Natalie's, and Katrina's parents for volunteering their shuttling services to help us through. One of the girls' coaches fell suddenly ill, so it was up to Jen to take the full girls coaching load this day and she did a superb job.
The Flying Fish took a cue from the Sens and topped Ann Arbour 9-8 in a back and forth game that went right to the last second of regulation time. The Marlins game was equally exciting, but unfortunately ended in an overtime 7-6 win for London. This set us up for rematches of the tight round robin games, Marlins vs. Ann Arbour and Flying Fish vs. London. Unfortunately, the Marlins didn't hit their stride this time and could not match Ann Arbour's offense. The Flying Fish got behind London 5-2 but fought their way back 5-4 with momentum on their side before time ran out, giving them a 6th place finish in the tournament.
It turned out that the boys didn't qualify for any of the late games, so we found ourselves suddenly done at 2pm and ready for an early ride back feeling good about how we performed and looking forward to the next time.
Submitted by Sue Jones, chaperon:
The girls fought hard and played well, especially since some of them were at their first or second tournament ever!! They had never played as a team, most had actually not even practiced as a team, and they really gelled quickly. It was great to see. You can tell there will be more great things to come.
The behaviour of the all kids and the way they represent the club was outstanding!! It sure makes a parent/chaperon proud to see these kids make the weekends just a little bit easier. Well behaved, polite, good kids. The club does a great job to instill it's beliefs in the kids!! We had a couple of brushes with the local Emergency Services (health-related) and the kids were very mature and helpful. One teammate was in apparent respiratory distress and the girls stepped up to be of assistance and help to calm and care for her. A coach became very ill and had to be taken to hospital, and her athletes were calling to check on her, concerned for her well being and also very happy to see her later after some rest and was feeling a bit better. Very classy bunch of kids!!
One other point of interest. We had long days, long hours and as some may not be aware, the bus drivers are required to be on duty for no more than 16 hours a day. We wanted to be on the safe side, and of course were looking toward the gold medal games so we had to have parents drive kids to the pool early Sunday morning. When I say early, I mean early! 6:30!!! Special thanks to Biljana and Srecko, Louise and Stratos, Joe and Anita and George and Rhonda who were up early driving kids to the pool, more than once and of course the drives to and from the hospital. With their help we were able to get 36 athletes/coaches/chaperons to the pool in time for games, and with the help of a few cabs provided by the hotel.
Thank you to the kids for providing great entertainment all weekend and for being an easy group to take care of, even if I did give you a hard time now and then! ;)
Go Wildcats... errrrr... I mean Titans!!! ;)
(inside bus joke, Mackenzie, get to work on that screenplay).
Submitted by Bev Davis, Chaperon:
The two boys' teams worked hard in this tournament, one of the teams, the Hammerheads played 3 games on Saturday! Like the girls, this was the first time these teams had played together but under the skilled coaching of Pierre Tremblay and Nick Forster the boys performed well.
The Bull Sharks won their first game putting them in the A division. This was a tough division as they faced the York A team, along with Scarborough, DDO and Hamilton. Despite losing their remaining games, including a close one with DDO, the boys fought hard and the goaltending was strong.
The Hammerheads were in the B division and faced the York 2 team, KW and London, after being defeated by DDO in the first game. The team had some close matches against York and KW losing by only one or two goals. However, they had two great wins against London to finish the tournament! With some "encouragement" ( i.e. incentives) from the coaches, the team played much more offensively against London with several players scoring multiple goals.
As a first time chaperon I was impressed with the organization of the trip, including the great accommodation, as well as the support from the other chaperons and of course the good behaviour of the athletes. I would recommend chaperoning to other parents. it is a great experience.
Newsletter Submissions
If you would like to contribute an item to the newsletter, please send your submission to Sue Sidebottom at news@titanswaterpolo.ca . Any submissions received before noon on Wednesday will go out with that week's news. Photos from tournaments or other club events are always welcome.
The club had four Cadet teams travel to York this past weekend for their first tournament of the season. Here are some reports from a few parents and chaperons who were on the scene.
Marlins and Flying Fish Kick Off Competitive Season at York Cadet Tournament
Submitted by Greg Sidebottom
The Ottawa Titans sent the Marlins and the Flying Fish teams to the Mavericks Third Annual Cadet Invitational on the weekend of January 11th - 13th. In this early stage of our team training, it was a short bench of 10 Marlins and 9 Flying Fish, lots of bantam aged players, and with Alison and Jen coaching and Sue (Taylor's mom) and Bernice (Katrina's mom) chaperoning. The drive down on the coach bus was comfy and smooth, beating the rush hour traffic through Toronto, so we had time to check into our hotel and swamp a little Subway with two people on duty with 50 people for dinner. Amazingly, they were able to make subs at a rate of about one per minute and we were on our way in less than an hour.
The Marlins were in the Red pool with teams from the York, Hamilton, and Ann Arbour Michigan. The Flying Fish were up against teams from Scarborough, Kitchener-Waterloo, and London in the black pool. The tournament format was a round robin among the two pools and then two play-off games with the top two in each pool competing for first through fourth and the bottom two competing for fifth through eighth.
The Marlins started the tournament with a Friday night game against Hamilton. The slow start in the first quarter saw the Marlins go down 4-0 but they matched Hamilton for quarters 2-4 for a final score of 8-3 Hamilton. The Flying Fish Friday game was a heart breaker, with London scoring the winning goal in a 6-5 loss in the final thirty seconds. We then retired to our luxurious suite hotel rooms where I heard chaperons boasting of fire places in their rooms and some girls enjoying a snack of Kraft Dinner prepared in their in-room kitchens.
Saturday was a decent schedule for the Flying Fish, sleeping in a bit and taking the bus over for a 10:25am first game, but the Marlins were not so lucky, needing to take the early bus with the Hammerhead Sharks, who had an 8:15am game. The Marlins had a tight game with Ann Arbour with a last minute goal giving Ann Arbour a 6-5 win, and a loss to York. The Flying Fish weren't close in their Saturday games, but were able to get two and three goals, respectively, against powerful KW and Scarborough teams, who ended up going on to play for first place in the tournament. So both teams ended up in fourth place in their pools, but that didn't really tell the story because our small, newly formed and younger teams, when really clicking, were able to hold their own against older and more experienced teams. The girls had an early dinner at Kelsey's and then we were back at the hotel early enough for some of us to catch most of the Sens beating the Wings, which we thought of mentioning to Ann Arbour the next day until we thought better of it.
As good as we felt about our play, not winning does have its disadvantages, and in this case it meant a 6am wake up call for the Flying Fish, a 7:15am game causing them to be unable to enjoy the included hotel breakfast as the restaurant was not open until 7am. The Marlin's got off a little easier with an 8:20am start and breakfast at the hotel, but this was still too early to start our bus driver with the possibility of boy's games until 4:00pm and then the drive back to Ottawa. Many thanks to Jelena's, Natalie's, and Katrina's parents for volunteering their shuttling services to help us through. One of the girls' coaches fell suddenly ill, so it was up to Jen to take the full girls coaching load this day and she did a superb job.
The Flying Fish took a cue from the Sens and topped Ann Arbour 9-8 in a back and forth game that went right to the last second of regulation time. The Marlins game was equally exciting, but unfortunately ended in an overtime 7-6 win for London. This set us up for rematches of the tight round robin games, Marlins vs. Ann Arbour and Flying Fish vs. London. Unfortunately, the Marlins didn't hit their stride this time and could not match Ann Arbour's offense. The Flying Fish got behind London 5-2 but fought their way back 5-4 with momentum on their side before time ran out, giving them a 6th place finish in the tournament.
It turned out that the boys didn't qualify for any of the late games, so we found ourselves suddenly done at 2pm and ready for an early ride back feeling good about how we performed and looking forward to the next time.
Submitted by Sue Jones, chaperon:
The girls fought hard and played well, especially since some of them were at their first or second tournament ever!! They had never played as a team, most had actually not even practiced as a team, and they really gelled quickly. It was great to see. You can tell there will be more great things to come.
The behaviour of the all kids and the way they represent the club was outstanding!! It sure makes a parent/chaperon proud to see these kids make the weekends just a little bit easier. Well behaved, polite, good kids. The club does a great job to instill it's beliefs in the kids!! We had a couple of brushes with the local Emergency Services (health-related) and the kids were very mature and helpful. One teammate was in apparent respiratory distress and the girls stepped up to be of assistance and help to calm and care for her. A coach became very ill and had to be taken to hospital, and her athletes were calling to check on her, concerned for her well being and also very happy to see her later after some rest and was feeling a bit better. Very classy bunch of kids!!
One other point of interest. We had long days, long hours and as some may not be aware, the bus drivers are required to be on duty for no more than 16 hours a day. We wanted to be on the safe side, and of course were looking toward the gold medal games so we had to have parents drive kids to the pool early Sunday morning. When I say early, I mean early! 6:30!!! Special thanks to Biljana and Srecko, Louise and Stratos, Joe and Anita and George and Rhonda who were up early driving kids to the pool, more than once and of course the drives to and from the hospital. With their help we were able to get 36 athletes/coaches/chaperons to the pool in time for games, and with the help of a few cabs provided by the hotel.
Thank you to the kids for providing great entertainment all weekend and for being an easy group to take care of, even if I did give you a hard time now and then! ;)
Go Wildcats... errrrr... I mean Titans!!! ;)
(inside bus joke, Mackenzie, get to work on that screenplay).
Submitted by Bev Davis, Chaperon:
The two boys' teams worked hard in this tournament, one of the teams, the Hammerheads played 3 games on Saturday! Like the girls, this was the first time these teams had played together but under the skilled coaching of Pierre Tremblay and Nick Forster the boys performed well.
The Bull Sharks won their first game putting them in the A division. This was a tough division as they faced the York A team, along with Scarborough, DDO and Hamilton. Despite losing their remaining games, including a close one with DDO, the boys fought hard and the goaltending was strong.
The Hammerheads were in the B division and faced the York 2 team, KW and London, after being defeated by DDO in the first game. The team had some close matches against York and KW losing by only one or two goals. However, they had two great wins against London to finish the tournament! With some "encouragement" ( i.e. incentives) from the coaches, the team played much more offensively against London with several players scoring multiple goals.
As a first time chaperon I was impressed with the organization of the trip, including the great accommodation, as well as the support from the other chaperons and of course the good behaviour of the athletes. I would recommend chaperoning to other parents. it is a great experience.
Newsletter Submissions
If you would like to contribute an item to the newsletter, please send your submission to Sue Sidebottom at news@titanswaterpolo.ca . Any submissions received before noon on Wednesday will go out with that week's news. Photos from tournaments or other club events are always welcome.