Oliver Sport Canada Atlantic Regional Championship Recap

Hi everyone,

First off, congratulations to our winners, runners up and consolation draw winners. It is nice to see all of the Provinces represented in the winning circle. Special congratulations to those who were prize winners in two divisions you played a lot of exceptional squash to get there!

Division       Winner          Runner up             Consolation
BU13      Owen Smith, NL Andrew Klein, NS Benjamin Woo, NS
BU15      Will Maclean, PEI Jack Foerster, NS Jack Comeau
GU15.     Alexa Fleming, NL Brielle MacLean Zoe Boody, NS
GU19      Sophia Tulk, NL Adele Workman, NS Emily Gallant, PEI
BU19      Garreth Beckles, NS Emmet Workman, NS Ajout Balasundaram, PEI
Women Leah Boody, NS Niamh Campbell, NS Alexa Fleming, NL
Mixed 45+ Greg Platt, NB BJ MacLean, PEI Brad Beckett, NL
Mixed 1 Matt Bishop, NS Liam Jinks, PEI JM LeBlanc, NB
Mixed 2 Sam Gallant, NS Leah Boody, NS Richard Khan, NS
Mixed 3 Niamh Campbell, NS Jim Kennedy, NS Emma MacGillivray, NS
Mixed 4 Michael Howard, NS Agit Balasundaram, PEI Steven Hart, NS

Secondly, many thanks to all the volunteers, referees, our sponsor Oliver Sports Canada, and the provincial squash leadership teams from the Atlantic Region who all contributed to making this a successful event.

Also many thanks to Thomas Hori and Barb Cooper who conducted evaluations of Referees and Coaches respectively to help advance referees and coaches in their journeys. Congratulations to all of the coaches and officials who completed assessments! Also thanks to Squash Canada, Squash NS, Squash NB, Squash PEI and Squash NL who worked together to support the coaches in their qualification upgrades!

It was especially nice to see the 43 juniors, particularly the 30 U15s who participated in the tournament. It bodes well for the future of our sport to see so many youngsters competing. Good luck to you all in the future. Hoping to see some of you play for your respective provinces in the Canada Games coming in early 2023 in Charlottetown.

And finally, thanks to everyone who entered and competed for supporting the event, with special thanks to those entrants who traveled long distances to participate. We hope that you had safe journeys home!

Check out some pics from the tourney here  https://m.facebook.com/SMUfitsquash/posts/4645478175564527

From your friendly neighbourhood Tournament Co-chairs Phil and Craig

 

Congratulations to our new leadership!

On behalf of the Board and the members of Squash NS I would like to congratulate:

Dave Thomson on his assumption of the role of President of Squash NS

Marwan Abouelela on his assumption of the role of Vice President and

John MacPhail on his acclamation as a member at large.

Phil Jourdeuil on his assumption of the role of Treasurer and

Cameron Reid and Evan McNichol on their return as members at large for another two year term.

Dave and Marwan agreed to co-lead the Board after the call for volunteers and the AGM produced no candidates.  They and the Board will continue to lead the sport in its recovery post covid and will be refreshing the strategic plan for Squash NS in 2021-22.

In other news the AGM approved a restructure of membership classes and fees that eliminated the recreational class of membership and reduced membership fees. Details are here.

We are also actively planning the 2021-22 Competitive season.  We plan to restart the HSL in September and expect that Premier League will also start in the fall. I would would ask clubs/individuals who are planning tournaments to indicate their interest and tentative dates to Mallory. So far we have no news on tourney dates in the other provinces but for NS we have tentative bookings for the:

    • Cole Harbour Team Tourney – 14-17 Oct
    • NS Jr Open – 19-21 Nov
    • Dal tournament planned for 13-16 Jan
    • NS Open 24-27 Mar

Also we would like to start a four tournament Junior Circuit for new, improving and competitive juniors. With tourney dates in Sep, Oct, Jan and Feb and each held at a different club in the province.  Details of the circuit can be found here.  Again Clubs should indicate their interest to Mallory.

I would like to thank the board and the squash community for your support over the last three years and hope you will work as hard to support our new leadership going forward.

Signing off,

Phil

Congratulations to Ashley Cullis – The Team Manager for the 2023 Canada Winter Games Squash Team

The Board of Directors of Squash NS are pleased to announce that Ashley Cullis has been selected as the Manager for the 2023 CWG Squash Team for Nova Scotia, joining Head Coach Josh Rudolph.

Ashley Cullis has been playing squash for 19 years and credits her passion for the sport to the inclusive and social squash communities on the East Coast. She started playing in Mill River, PEI in 2002 but has been playing out of Halifax, NS since 2008, with a few years spent in Ottawa and Vancouver.

Ashley is currently ranked No. 10 in the Nova Scotia Women’s Rankings.  She represented Nova Scotia at two national tournaments and has been involved in various volunteer roles locally and with Squash Canada. A highlight of hers was serving as the Volunteer Coordinator for the Women’s World Team Championships in 2014. She was the recipient of the 2019-2020 Support 4 Sport Senior Female Athlete of the Year award for squash.

Ashley brings her professional experience in Human Resources and Operations management, primarily in start up environments, to the team, which will help document and build the processes and policies for the team.

Looking to improve your game in 2021?

Then Cole Harbour Place has the program for you!

Squash NS Provincial Coach Janet MacLeod is offering a program of group lessons at Cole Harbour Place

The six week program (Saturday Jan 23th to Saturday Feb 27th 2021) offers three sessions limited to 8 entrants each:

  1. A mixed gender session for players of all abilities from 12:30 to 1:30 pm
  2. A women only session for players of all abilities from 1:45 to 2:45 pm
  3. A mixed gender session for Junior (U19) players of all abilities from 3:00 to 4:00 pm

Players can register for up to two sessions. Each adult sessions costs $120, and the junior session costs $90. There is no multi-session discount.

All skill levels are welcome. Racquets and eye guards can be provided if required – please contact Janet directly to request.

Register at https://clublocker.com/tournaments/12349/info

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