A dragon boat take from Minnedosa

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This article was published 19/07/2018 (2665 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MINNEDOSA — When Holly Orr decided to pick up a paddle and try out dragon boat racing for the first time, the idea of getting into one was definitely a new concept for the Brandon resident.

“I’d paddled a canoe before,” she said, “but never a dragon boat.”

More than five years later, Orr is still heading up to Minnedosa Lake to paddle alongside the Brandon Blaze dragon boat team. “It keeps you motivated, it keeps you on track,” she said.

Every Wednesday night, paddlers both new and experienced drop in at the Minnedosa Beach campground to practice dragon boat racing, a sport that originated in China and can involve as many as 20 people, plus a drummer to maintain their speed and someone to steer.

Practices started in May and will carry on through to September, when the annual Dragon Boat Festival in Winnipeg will take place at The Forks following the Labour Day weekend.

For most, including Orr, coming up to Minnedosa gives them a chance to join a team sport, without the added pressure that normally comes with it.

As a sign of what to expect, the group normally goes out for ice cream and coffee each week after practice.

“It’s just a great way to get to know people,” Orr said.

After seeing a notice about Brandon Blaze on eBrandon, Noshin Zakerzadeh decided she too wanted to know what it was all about, having never tried it before, and drove out to Minnedosa on July 11 for a Wednesday run.

“I liked it,” she said at the end of practice. “It was very fun.”

That evening saw the most people out at once that coach Tanya Joice had ever seen in the nearly 10 years she has been with the team, with 25 people out, including two new paddlers.

Originally from Bromhead, Sask., near the U.S. border, Joice came to the Wheat City in 1997 to study computer science at Brandon University. Today, she works in the IT department at BU.

Having grown up not playing or having a huge interest in team sports, Joice said what has kept her in the dragon boat all these years has been the companionship.

“I love the people and the feel of having everyone around,” Joice said.

Joice was one of the original members of Brandon Blaze when it was founded nine years ago, following in the footsteps of Waves of Hope, a Brandon-based dragon boat team made up of breast cancer survivors.

The team practised in Dinsdale Park until the floods in 2011 before moving to Minnedosa Lake.

In the years since, the team bought its own red boat which it stores at Minnedosa Beach — the last payment was made last year — and the son of one of their teammates helped build a trailer to transport it.

Their months of practices will eventually be tested at the Manitoba Dragon Boat Festival in Winnipeg, where Brandon Blaze will compete at the Saturday and Sunday races. Last year, the team placed sixth in the mixed recreational division.

“It’s one of those things (where) you throw everything in the boat,” said Chris Church, an assistant coach with Brandon Blaze.

Church recently tore his rotator cuff and has been steering the boat at practices. But the feeling he gets from a race, which can last less than two minutes, is what he enjoys the most. “It’s definitely an adrenaline rush,” he said.

Joice has always played an active role among the team’s instructors, mainly as an assistant coach.

When their head coach moved to Nova Scotia a couple of years ago, Joice took the reins and has been in the role ever since.

Making the transition wasn’t too difficult, she said, having shadowed her predecessor and done three years worth of training camps on the East Coast.

But she finds there is always something to learn. “I’m not huge into sports,” she said, “but this is something I felt I could participate in.”

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