Week two begins with competition in squash, hockey and curling

It was no rest for the weary for Team BC on Sunday as competition started in earnest for squash, curling and women’s hockey after arriving Saturday night from Vancouver International Airport. Day 10 included a CBC interview for Team BC Chef de mission, Jennifer Scott, and a rousing pep rally where cross country skier, Molly Miller (Kimberley) was presented with the Athlete Excellence Award, a $2500 bursary for her outstanding leadership and community involvement, sport achievement, and academic excellence. This award is funded through the Powering Potential Fund established by the BC Games Society.

Outside of sport, Molly started a charity she named “Walk a Mile in Someone’s Shoes”- a mission that raised funds and awareness for people who do not have proper footwear. The idea started out as a barefoot walkathon to raise awareness for people who did not own shoes. Over $7000 in pledges was raised and over $5000 of new shoes were donated for her hometown in Kimberley as well as overseas in Haiti.

In hockey Sunday night, Jenna Buglioni (Port Moody) had a hat trick before the game was even half way over enroute to a 6-1 win over their hosts from Alberta. Buglioni scored with two minutes left in the first period only to have Alberta tie up the game on a power play two minutes into the second period. Her second goal came less than a minute after that to give BC the 2-1 lead. Jen Gardiner (Surrey) made it 3-1 for BC on a counter attack where she punched in her own rebound and Buglioni scored her third goal at 10:15 of the second period after going hard to the net and putting in a goal off her skate.

In the third period Gardiner added another goal and Sarah Paul (West Kelowna) scored the 6th and final goal. Next up for Team BC is a game against Ontario on Monday.

Squash features both a team and individual competition.  The individual competition consists of a boys and girls 16-person draw with the highest ranked player from each Province/Territory receiving an automatic entry and the remaining positions filled at-large with the next highest ranked players. The team competition consists of 4-person boys’ and girls’ teams, each comprised of at least two players aged under 17, the others up to U19.  Teams are placed in two pools for a round-robin competition (all play all) within their pool and then conclude with a playoff format (cross-over encounters between the pools) resulting in a final ranking of all teams.

In men’s individual, round of 16, Matt Bicknell (West Vancouver) defeated S. Leblanc (New Brunswick) 14-12, 11-0, 11-2 and Sam Scivier (Vancouver) defeated Noah Michael Richter (Saskatchewan) 11-6, 11-7, 11-2. In the quarterfinals, Sam Scivier (Vancouver) defeated  Seif Elficky 11-4, 11-7, 11-5 and heads to semi final round tomorrow night. Matt Bicknell (West Vancouver) is defeated by Douglas Kosciukiewicz (Nova Scotia) 7-11, 8-11, 2-11 and moves to consolation round.

In the round of 16 for the women, Sarah Cao (Richmond) defeated Summer Schofield (Saskatchewan) 11-2, 11-2, 11-2 and Lucia Bicknell (West Vancouver) defeated Ella Susan Brown (Nova Scotia) 11-4, 11-1, 11-1. In the quarter-finals, Lucia Bicknell (West Vancouver) defeated  Iman Shaheen (QC) 13-11, 11-6, 11-0 and moves on to semi finals Monday night and Sarah Cao is defeated in her quarterfinal match 12-10, 11-8, 11-8 and moves into the consolation round.
Both men and women defeated Alberta 3-1 in the team event.

In curling, Team BC’s women including Keelie Duncan (Comox), Chanelle Meeres (Courtenay), Gracelyn Richards (Courtenay) and Bryn Woloshyn (Royston) fell to Quebec 5-8 in 9 ends while the men consisting of Dawson Ballard (Surrey), Troy Chong (Burnaby), Joshua Miki (Port Coquitlam)  and Hayato Sato (Coquitlam) defeated Quebec 4-3.

In figure skating, practice took place throughout the day at both the Gary W. Harris Building as well as the Collicut Centre. All disciplines at the Pre-Novice level begin Monday afternoon along with Special Olympics Men Level 2.

The Alpine and Para-Alpine athletes arrived in Kananaskis late Saturday night. Sunday was a training day for all of the athletes. This is the first time on this course for most of these athletes and they got a chance to check it out. After training, the alpine crew was able to virtually participate in the Team BC pep rally. Monday begins with the women’s Super-G at 10:45am followed by them men’s Super-G at 12:00pm. Para athletes have a training day starting at 9:00am.

Trampoline had training Sunday morning and will compete in individual completions and finals on Monday.