It
was a full weekend of water polo with 44 games played over 20 hours at the
WRMC. The event consisted of 23 teams competing across 4
divisions which made for another fantastic Winter Classic!!!
All teams gave a full effort and played competitively in each and every game! All our players this weekend did the Inferno proud in the pool and on deck!!!
The story of the this tournament at the U12 and U14 level was mentorship. The coaching staff divided our most experienced players evenly across 5 teams to help lead our less experienced players through this competitive event. With each game over the weekend you could clearly see the progression of each team as our newer younger players stepped up to follow the example set by the team leaders. This experience will help set the tone for all our players as they move through our program. Thank you to our team leaders for supporting your younger team mates.
On Saturday, the U16/18 Mens team provided an amazing opportunity for our U12 players to watch higher level water polo. What motivation to continue to practice hard! The Men battled against Toronto, Hamilton and London. These games were a treat for all the spectators to enjoy! The U16/18 Womens team tangled with Hamilton, Toronto and Guelph and set a great example for our young female players at the U14 and U12 levels.
After this tournament every year, we reflect on how many people are involved in making it a success and how fortunate our club is to have such an amazing culture that encourages our current members to contribute and our past players to continue to give back and support our club!
Referees - A special thank you to Casey Pottier for being Referee in Chief for the WC and co-ordinating our referee schedule which included mentoring some new recruits for this years WC: Brodie, Claudio, Matt, Aleah and Missy. Referees returning to help out this year: Paulo, Max, Chloe, Hogey, Stevie, Kennedy, and Sinisa. A thank you to Casey, Paul and Dorel for providing guidance to our new referees.
On Deck Volunteers - What an amazing bunch of parents and players that stepped up this year!!! Our new volunteers included Oleg, Bob, Kyle, Chris, Said, John, Jen, Brian, Minos, and Mason. This group of volunteers were impressive how quickly they caught on and managed the responsibility. (Including an extremely quick recovery after a stray ball took out one of our score clocks mid-game). Returning volunteers are truly appreciated as they are up and running without coaching and help train our new volunteers. Thank you to Dan P., Julio, Ramona, Calin, Dariusz, Deleana, and Stefan for helping again this year.
Store Volunteers - Our store was a huge success again this year! All our visiting teams look forward to the opportunity to buy unique water polo merchandise at our WC. Thank you to Heidi, Carolyn, Heather, Rachel, Sonja, Sarah, Wesley, Ramona, Emilija and Marco helping with store activities. The store is a great fundraiser for our club that helps subsidize our fees.
50/50 - Wow!! Joyce and Angelos out did themselves this year generating $433.50 in fundraising for the club. The winning green ticket # is 0024852....still to be claimed.
Hospitality Room - A special thanks to Sonja who co-ordinated the room this year. We received several compliments from visiting coaches on what a great offering we provide. Thank you to all those families who generously donated items this year and to Eleonora, Janice, and Angelos for delivering the meals to the suite. The coaches, officials, and volunteers truly appreciated the hospitality!
Communications - Thank you to Calin and Andrea for the live updates and electronic display of the game results and the professional signage for the event. Also, thank you to Angelos for supplying the monitor and lap top for the Rotunda display.
Photography - Thank you to Calin and Scott for the pictures taken on deck this weekend. We look forward to viewing in the website photo gallery.
Coaches - We can never thank our Coaches enough....they do such a great job with all our players. Paul, Casey, Max, Ricardo, Glen, Luis, Stevie, Marius, Brodie, Aleah all helped with coaching duties this weekend for our 7 teams. Your leadership, efforts and dedication is truly appreciated by the players and parents! Our club is so fortunate to have Paul and Glen who do such an amazing job of nurturing our other coaches and all our players.
Lastly, a sincere thanks to Brock for being our tournament director. His responsibilities started long before this weekend and ramped up once the event began. His efforts were rewarded with an exceptional event enjoyed by so many!
Congratulations on another successful Winter Classic!!!!
Mike Ciciretto
KW Water Polo - President
U12 - KW Black
U12 KW Red
U14 KW Red
U14 KW Black
U14 KW Gold
U16/U18 Girls KW
U16/U18 Boys KW
Referees
