The P’fish women and four paddlers from Hearts of Steel trekked to Toronto to compete in the 14th Annual Women’s Festival. The last visit here was pre-pandemic in 2018. We were the only international team. The weather was perfect. Blue skies and fluffy cloudy. The race consisted of a 500m qualifying us for our division, followed by a 200m knock out race, and a 2K to round out the day. We were in the B division….many good paddlers at this race.
The 200m knock out race was a blast and we came in first out of 4 teams. In the 2K, P’fish was the slowest boat and started first but we held off the other boats. We took third in that race.
Due to Covid, we had only 19 paddlers. Our success, putting our grit aside, had an amazing assist from our fabulous steersman Ben and the 3 women from his team who drummed. Skilled and motivating in the front and back. We so much appreciated their contribution and learned some new calls to spur us on…..those in the boat know what they are. After the points were totaled, we snagged the Bronze medal in our division!!
Thanks to: Darlene, Anne, Renee, Leslie, & Janice from HOS; Mina for her flawless logistics; Ben for his superb steering; the volunteer drummers; Cap’n Deb for our new shirts; and Coach Laurie for whipping us into shape!
