Photo: AB KARINE CHARETTE, COMBAT TRAINING CENTRE GAGETOWN
CFB Halifax players headed to CAF National Squash Championship
By Ryan Melanson,
Trident Staff
The CAF Regional Squash Championship was recently held in Gagetown, and after settling for the second place last year, the team from CFB Halifax was able to step up and take the Championship banner for 2018.
While squash is an individual or doubles sport, team points are accumulated round-robin style from the various divisions, including the Open male and Open women divisions, along with Senior (40+), Masters (45+), and Under 30. While Halifax was at a disadvantage due to fielding a team of seven players rather than the maximum of nine, they were still able to beat out the second-place Greenwood team by a total of 90-83 points.
Five members of the team qualified individually for CAF Squash Nationals, taking place during the first week of May in Borden – CPO1 Stephane Gagnon of FMFCS in the Masters division, Lt(N) David Weatherall of HMCS Ville de Quebec as the Open 2 player, Lt(N) Fergus Lavelle of NFR in the Open 4 spot, OS Darren Mullins of HMCS Montreal, who won the U30 Division, and LS Ashley Fletcher of HMCS Montreal in the women’s Open 2 spot.
Lt(N) Lavelle said the Halifax team fought hard to take this year’s Regional team title, and that the five qualifying members are excited to join the rest of the Atlantic team to hopefully bring home gold from Nationals. One goal is to put some extra attention on the sport in the Halifax region to help drum up interest for the coming years. While it takes place on a small court, squash is a high intensity and high exertion sport that provides a strong cardio workout, he added.
“We still feel like the sport of squash is a bit of a secret as far as the regional and national level sports go, and we can always use more players.”
