Leander Boat Club

In This Issue:

Gratitude from our

president

Summer programme

Property News

Regatta Results

History Corner

Dates at a Glance

June 2017 Issue Eighteen

A message of thanks from our Committee of Management President, Bill Jackson: I would like to express thanks to all the high school coaches and parents who supported the past season. The club exists partly because of the vibrant youth program.

Is there a meeting? Why….YES!!!! :)

Where is the meeting? LBC in the Member’s Lounge

What programmes?:

Junior (athletes and parents please) 5:30pm

Senior (U23) 7:00pm

Please see the dates on the last page—dates at a glance for summertime regatta dates

*Notez-bien: The Dominion Day Regatta on Canada day has been moved to Welland. Leander will plan to send crews.

Please contact Jake Thomasen via Facebook request to be added to these programme facebook groups. This will be the mode of communication ffor the summer.

You mean I can still row in

the summer and fall too?

Hey Leander! Try It Day is happening June 24 from 10 am to 2 pm We are looking for volunteers who are willing to take people out into a boat to show them what row-ing is all about. If you require volunteer hours, please note that we can sign your sheets for this!! Contact Andrea Jansen at lbcrowing@gmail.com asap and let her know you can help us out!!

Please post this to your social media accounts

LBC FACILITIES REPORT:

Recent Projects:

FRONT FLOWER BEDS: 26 FT FLOWERBEDS ALONG FRONT OF LBC TO BEAUTIFY OUR CLUB

MANY THANKS TO CON ANDREYCHUCK, BRIANNE DELLA SAVIA, FRED TOY, AND JEANETTE BRIMBLE

FOR MANY HOURS OF WORK TO GET THIS DONE BEFORE THE 90TH

THE ROSE AND THE DUCK WERE SAVED!

MEMBER’S LOUNGE: ALMOST DONE NOW, AND LOOKED FANTASTIC FOR THE 90TH – OUR ALUMNI WERE VERY

PROUD!

MEMBER’S INFO BOARD: FRONT ENTRYWAY BOARD FOR NOTICES TO MEMBERS

THANKS TO PAUL CIRONE AND BRIANNE DELLA SAVIA

PAINTING IN WOMEN’S WASHROOM

THANKS TO MARY ANN REPA AND TRACEY AKITT

REMOVING COVERS FROM MEN’S CHANGEROOM WINDOWS

COMPOUND FENCING TRIAL Upcoming projects:

Build a second hardwood lifting platform – have the supplies, need a volunteer! (about 2 hours)

Install floodlights on side of building to illuminate parking lot

Parking lot lines are getting repainted

High-water update:

Thanks to everyone for your patience and adaptability in making the new setup work. I can happily say

that our rowing programs have been largely unaffected. This is thanks to a lot of work from our mem-

bers, and good support from the City of Hamilton Park North Department.

If anyone has any ideas how to make things better, please approach Karl or Jake.

Any facilities concerns/ suggestions: Karl Zimmermann (leander.facilities@gmail.com)

Make LBC Great Again Day has been moved from Father’s Day to

the following Week. June 24th. Please view the flyer attached

along with this newsletter

Gold

Jr W 1x Abbey Maillet St. Mary's

Silver

Sr W 1x Lauren Gadson Westdale

Jr W 59 kg 4+ Alicia Bowles, Natalie Murphy, Jessica Dekker, Caelin Kuder, Sophie Cor-radini St. Mary's

Jr W 63 kg 4+ Alicia Bowles, Natalie Murphy, Jessica Dekker, Caelin Kuder, Sophie Cor-radini St. Mary's

Bronze

Sr W 4x Lauren Gadson, Victoria Collins, Kat Ciupka, Sadie Boyter Westdale

Sr M 1x Lucas Austin Westdale

Jr W 63 kg 4 + Shayda Rahmatyan, Serena Sawatzky, Sequoia Deathe, Madeline Batters-by, Rebecca Henderson Westdale

Sr M 66 kg 4+ Sarah Leppinen, Ivan Cunko, Owen Popowich, Lukas Stys, Sean Madden

St Mary’s

Mother’s Day regatta

SCRC—Henley Island

Gold

Jr W 1x Abbey Maillet St. Mary's

Sr M 1x Lucas Austin Westdale

Sr W 63 kg 1x Abbey Maillet St. Mary's

Jr W 59 kg 4+ - Kyle Greener, Natalie Murphy, Jessica Dekker, Caelin Kuder, Sophie Corradini St. Mary's

Mixed 8+ - Meaghan Hines, Sadie Boyter, Kat Ciupka, Kieran Ray-Daniels, Erik Heinbecker, Victoria Collins, Lauren Gadson, Harrison McCann, Lucas Austin - Westdale

Silver

Sr M 72kg 8+ Sarah Leppinen, Ivan Cunko, Owen Popowich, Kilian Roller, Daniel Salvucci, Zachary Wood, Nathan Greener, Lukas Stys, Sean Madden St. Mary's

Jr W 63 kg 4+ Kyle Greener, Natalie Murphy, Jessica Dekker, Caelin Kuder, Sophie Cor-radini St. Mary's

Sr W 4x Daria Matire, Jessie Drzewicki, Paige Hutchinson, Brianna Reed Bishop Tonnos

Jr W 4x Sophie Corradini, Caelin Kuder, Jessica Dekker, Abbey Maillet St Mary’s

Bronze

Sr W 1x Lauren Gadson Westdale

Sr M 4x Harrison McCann, Kieran Ray-Daniels, Erik Heinbecker, Lucas Austin - Westdale

Sr M Club 1x Jack Corradini St. Mary's

South Niagara High School Invite

SNRC—Welland

St Mary’s

Abbey Maillet SrW 63kg 1X Silver

Abbey Maillet JrW 1X Gold

Alicia Bowles, Natalie Murphy, Jessica Dekker, Caelin Kuder, Sophie Corradini JrW 59kg 4+ Silver

Bishop Tonnos

Brianna Reed, Jesse Dziewicki, Daria Martire, 4X Finaled

Westdale

Ella Morreale, Becca Henderson, Maddy Battersby, Serena Sawatski, Sequoia Deathe

4+ Bronze

Lucas Austin SrM 1X Bronze

Kieran Ray Daniels, Harrison McCann, Erik Heinbecker, Lucas Austin 4X Finaled

Lauren Gadsdon SrW 1X Finaled

CSSRAs

Henley Island—Port Dalousie

Leander moved into the brand-new boathouse in 1962. The building of the Centennial docks at the foot of John Street had forced the move. The Hamilton Harbour Commission-ers made land available at the foot of Bay Street North. The construction of the building took up all the reserves of the Club and required 10 of the prominent members to borrow $10,000 each to complete the build-ing – not, by any means, a small sum in those days. Fortunately, the “state of the art” floating dance floor attract-ed patrons almost immediately and in short order the Club was able to cov-er the debts incurred by the mem-bers.

Through the early and mid-sixties the University of British Columbia crews coached by Frank Read continued to dominate heavyweight rowing in Can-ada. A Leander crew that included Con Andreychuk competed in the Olympic trials in 1960 but were beat-en by UBC.

In 1962 the head coaching duties at Leander passed from Paddy Cline to Shorty MacDonald for a brief time and then to Jim Roche.

Jim coached the 155 pounders and the heavyweights while Wayne Alldis coached the 135 and 145 pound class boats.

The sculling section continued to be coached by Glen Murphy. The lightweights and scullers both did well and earned several Henley championships in all classes of boats. Until 1968 though there was a drought in the heavy section of the Club.

The 155 lb lightweight category was particularly competitive through the sixties and early seventies. Leander, Argonauts and St. Catharines all had very strong and competitive crews and crews from Potomac of Washing-ton and Vesper of Philadelphia typi-cally travelled north to compete. Rac-es were close with no one program being dominant over the others. In 1967 the Canadian Association of Amateur Oarsmen (CAAO) organized Centennial Races which were effec-tively North American championships. Mexico sent a strong lightweight crew to compete. On the day it was the Le-ander crew that prevailed – Ross Morrell, John Bones, Jon Francis, Mike Pittaway, John Tice, Don McLeish, Ron Folkes, P. Cooke and coxie R. Reid.

His

tory

Corner

The Sixties and the Early Seventies

In 1968 the heavyweight drought ended when Al Morrow, Gord Leigh-ton, Jim Walker, and John Kelly combined in the straight four to win Henley Gold. Leighton was a prod-uct of the McMaster program whereas Morrow and Kelly came

from the strong Westdale high school program coached by Bruce Hall. Walker was a star basketball player at Westdale who decided to take up rowing in Grade thirteen at the newly formed Hamilton Colle-giate Institute.

Leander also posted a heavyweight win in the sculling section with Jack Lovett and John McNiven earning Henley Gold in the Junior Double event. McNiven, a proud Scotsman, had learned to scull on Loch Lo-mond. When he came to Canada he settled in Hamilton where he secured

employment as a security guard at Stelco and eventually enjoyed a dis-tinguished career with the Hamilton Police Service. After winning the double with Lovett in 1968, John took up the single again and won the Junior single in 1970 and the Associ-ation single in 1971.

Three of the four in the Junior Four came back to row at Leander in 1969 but found that they were not challenged by the in-house opportunities and competition with the result that the following year Morrow, Leighton and Walker made the trek down the QEW to join the St. Catharines Row-ing Club. St. Catharines had a thriving senior heavyweight program at that time. It was a program that included most of the 1968 Canadian Olympic eight.

The 1968 Olympics were the last Olym-pics at which the selection method was by way of Club competition trials. The arrival of European coaches including Martin Beiltz, Tudor Bompa and Peter Klavora signalled a change in approach that re-sulted in the national team concept of se-lection with emphasis on international standards time trials.

In 1971 Morrow, Walker and Leighton all made the Pan Am team. Regrettably, as a result of a pick-up soccer game mishap, Leighton sustained an ankle fracture at the Vancouver training camp that effec-tively ended his rowing career. Both Walk-er and Morrow medalled at the Pan Am Games that year.

For the 1972 Olympics Jim Walker earned a place in the coxless four. After the Olympics Jim continued his medical stud-ies eventually graduating from UWO in 1974 and becoming a leading dermatolo-gist in Ottawa. The other Leander repre-sentative on the 1972 team was John McNiven. John’s main competition in the single in the early 1970s was Peter Barr of St. Catharines. They concluded that their chances of making the team were better in the double than in the single. They moved the boat very well and achieved an impressive victory in an inter-national regatta in Mexico City. They were eventually selected to the team.

Jim Roche had stepped down as head coach at Leander in 1969. He returned to the position in 1973. In the interim Lean-der had boated a number of heavyweight crews that had been in the hunt but not close to the podium. In the heavyweight division Claus Wolter, Mel LaForme, George Gage, Brad Langmead and Paul Mudroch all came out of Bruce Hall’s Westdale crews. They were joined by Pat Croskerry, Walt Krawec and Cole Clifford who came to Leander from the McMaster program and Don Knap who was a Delta grad. About the same time

Leander was gradually moving away from the Pocock shells that they had re-lied on through the sixties and toward the Canadian boat builder Jacob Kaschper. The return of Jim Roche also coincided with a collaboration, promoted by Claus Wolter, with Dr. Duncan MacDougall of McMaster who provided invaluable train-ing advice. The net result was a substan-tial improvement in the competitive re-sults of the heavyweight crews in 1973 (second in the final) and a win in the Jun-ior Eight in 1974.

The heavyweights were not the only ones from Leander to enjoy success in the early 1970s. Coaches Ron Lawson and Ross Morrell put together some very competitive boats during that time that included RCHR wins in the 155 lb. four and eight in 1973.

For the first forty seven years of its lifetime the downstairs of the Leander Boat Club had been an exclusively male preserve. The momentous changes resulting from the advent of women’s rowing at Leander will be canvassed in the next installment. Stay tuned.

Written by George Gage

Upcoming Dates

Long and Short Term

Rowing Canada Junior National Team Trials June 5-7, 2017

Leander Summer programme Meeting June 9th 2017

Ancaster Heritage Parade (LBC float) June 10th , 2017

Tony Biernacki Regatta June 17th 2017

Try it Day June 24th 10am—2pm

Let’s Make Leander great again (fix-it day) June 24th 8am—4 pm

Row Ontario Club Elite Camp (Guelph RC) June 25, 2017

Dominion Day Regatta (relocated to Welland) July 1st, 2017

CORA London July 8th, 2017

CORA Welland July 15th, 207

RowOntario Championships July 29th—30th, 2017

Royal Canadian Henley Masters August 6th, 2017

Royal Canadian Henley Regatta August 8—13th, 2017