...be sure to wear some Maple leaves in your hair..."

Seriously, Canadaians dominated last year's SF Festival. Will they again? Who's going? Predictions?

who knows..

Here is a quick list of Canadian teams heading to the Kaiser Permanente San Francisco International Dragon Boat Festival 2007. By the way, whoever is going, don't forget to post some pix of the festival.

http://www.cdba.org/team_bio_dsp1.php

AIR CANADA JETSTART


CALGARY RACE CLUB


CDBC CREW YAHOO


EYE OF THE DRAGON


FLUID MOTION


SSSTEAM HEAT


VO2 MAX


XTREME REACH

those are weaker seed teams, some are fairly good, no one in the top bracket though.

To see Xtreme Reach in the upper bracket. From what I've heard, it's a bit of a mix of some top Victoria teams. There will be a few Navy people on board and at least one GD.

at any races near the end of the season, seeing these 'mixing pot' teams are much more common, that's not surprising.

I just heard there are only 75 teams registered this year while last year there were over 100.

race is sold out.

Their press release states over 100 teams competing. They must be counting multiple crews from individual clubs as separate teams.

The SF folks state that there are 54 rec/comp crews, 30 novice, and 18 high school. In addition they have some other one-off mixed crews racing in special races such as BCS and college. All mixed crews. This excludes mens and womens which are often composite crews and mixed crews racing in more than one division (e.g. masters, mixed and visiting team).

Don't forget this team.. .which, if it really has some FCRCC folks... could be pretty heavy duty.

WEST COAST JAMBALAYA
According to Wikipedia "Jambalaya is traditionally made in one pot, with meats and vegetables, and is completed by adding rice." What more can I say. Describes our team perfectly. This is a team from Vancouver made up of paddlers from Dragon Zone and False Creek. Some beefy, some delicate like spring vegetables and definitely loaded with rice. We are looking forward to having some fun in the sun and enjoying the great hospitality and competitive racing in San Fran. Thanks to BAD for hosting us again this year and thanks again CDBA for all your hard work.

You might want to bring something warm. SF is pretty cold this weekend.(by California standards) And Treasure Island is pretty windy in the afternoons.

Results anyone?

Maybe check out the website?

http://www.cdba.org/documents/2007_sfidbf_final_race_results.pdf

1st Place Womens Championship: West Coast Jambalaya/Calgary Race Club
1st Place Mens Championship: West Coast Jambalaya/Calgary Race Club
1st Place Mixed Comp A Championship: West Coast Jambalaya
2nd Place Visiting Team Championship: West Coast Jambalaya
3rd Place Mixed Rec A Championship: Fluid Motion
2nd Place Mixed Comp B Championship: Eye of the Dragon

Notable mentions:
4th Place Mixed Comp A Championship: Calgary Race Club
1st Place Mixed Comp A Consolation: Xtreme Reach
3rd Place Mixed Comp A Consolation: Air Canada Jet Start
5th Place Mixed Comp A Consolation: CDBC Crew Yahoo
4th Place Visiting Team Championship: Air Canada Jet Start
5th Place Visiting Team Championship: Calgary Race Club
4th Place Mixed B Championship: VO2Max
5th Place Mixed B Championship: ssSteam Heat
3rd Place Masters Championship: Air Canada Jet Start
5th Place Masters Championship: Xtreme Reach/Sssteam Heat

Jetstart was 13th in Vancouver and 9th in San Francisco. Meanwhile at home in Toronto they were 26th at GWN.

Elite west coast teams like FCRCC, Roli and Gorging can play with anybody. But the west coast seems to lag a little in terms of the overall competitive depth. Is the sport just more popular in Ontario? Are only the elite west coast teams taking advantage of the 12-month paddling season? Or are they losing competitive paddlers to other paddling disciplines?

This message is to Miami and JetStart...

To those who I met with and raced with in San Francisco, thank you...it was a pleasure being on your boat...

I hope to see you all again soon.....


Thanks

Puppy.

Longer finishes. Who knew?

Thanks Puppy.

Having paddled in both areas of the country, I would have to agree that the depth of competitive teams is greater in Ontario. I would also agree that the sport is more popular in Ontario strictly based on numbers. If you count them up, there are almost 40 festivals that take place in the province of Ontario over the year. Compare that to approximately 13 in British Columbia. The base population is also greater in Ontario, so that somewhat makes sense. I think you can also attribute the greater emphasis on flatwater clubs in Ontario, compared to coastal (Outrigger and ocean kayak) paddling you get in the Vancouver and Victoria areas (and of course California).

As far as the 12-month paddling season goes, yes, it's mostly the top level crews that paddle year round, and the off season is outrigger. Some teams will lose paddlers to other disciplines as well, again, mostly outrigger.

Once the outrigger community starts to really grow out in Ontario, and from what I understand, it's underway, you'll start to see more move to that discipline as well.

It is interesting.

The sport has grown in Ontario simply because of the availability of oodles equipment and expertise provided by GWN. They do 3, sometimes 4 festivals a weekend. If GWN located a new center in Arkansas the sport would flourish there too. Simple as that. Seems they're focusing on Florida now so we'll see what happens down here. Tampa (GWN client) is hosting 2011 worlds I heard. Go figure. Call me a conspirasy theorist but GWN may be controlling more than we think.

Talk about the tail wagging the dog!

GWN exploited a DEMAND for equipment, they didn't create the demand simply by existing.

If I started a skittles equipment rental company here, does it follow that suddenly there's goig to be a huge demand for skittles equipment?

The demand is everywhere. The sport grows because of the proximity of the equipment and expertise which keeps the delivery cost of boats and staff reasonable. Toronto and Vancouver are huge simply because free boats came from Hong Kong in the 80's. Ontario got a huge head start in the sport because of TCBA and GWN.

Its all about the population base that you have to draw from. There are more people in the GTA alone than ALL of BC combined. It only stands to reason then that there would be more teams in Ontario. More teams = more competition = faster teams.