Tanya Moore beats a southern wrestler.
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The big day was Saturday with the tournament in the morning. Things started off with a good warm-up and some wrestling games to get the kids going. This was followed by an actionpacked few hours of three matches going on simultaneously that had coaches David Halpine and Steven Baryluk bustling back and forth to coach the wrestlers when they were up. Even though, according to Paisley Day, the tournament was “kind of hard” because some of the girls had to wrestle boys, the Demons had a strong showing and each wrestler came away with a medal: 6 gold, 4 silver, and 1 bronze medal!! Their performances and skill level impressed all the coaches who made many positive comments to the Inuvik coaches, and to many of the kids themselves. A trip to the movie theater in the evening was a nice reward for a job well done on the mat.
On Friday the Li’l Demons made a trip to the Calgary Zoo and enjoyed some great weather – as warm as +14 degrees!! The kids spent the day winding their way through prehistoric lands filled with dinosaurs, tropical rainforests gorillas, monkeys, elephants, giraffes, hippos and stingrays and many other animals in their enclosures. “I got to see the hippos poop!” exclaimed an excited Karly King Simpson. After the zoo, the wrestlers went to the University of Calgary wrestling room – home of the U of C Dinos – for some instruction from a couple of the Junior Dino coaches, Casey and Ryan. The coaches put on a fun-filled clinic for the Li’l Demons that had them working on their basics and some more advanced techniques. The practice was topped off with some front and back flips onto the crash mat. Sisters Chelsea and Kristen Elias said they enjoyed meeting up again with Women’s National Team member Britanee Laverdure who had recently been in Inuvik for the Territorial Championships a couple weeks earlier. The Women’s National Team coach and the President of Canada Wrestling also happened to be in the wrestling room and stopped to take a look at some of our northern wrestlers in action. They all had great comments about the Li’l Demons skills and enthusiasm!!
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Neta and Chelsea meet a hippopotamus! Sarah Seward performs a ‘hand turk’ move on a Calgary Wrestler.
The Li’l Demons show off their hardware after the tournament: six gold, four silver, and one bronze!
In the end, all the kids had a great trip and are already looking forward to more opportunities to wrestle in the next season. “It makes me want to wrestle more” said Neta Allen. Asked what they liked most about the trip, twins Tanya and Tamara Moore both agreed “I liked the tournament the most. It was fun!” A big thank you also has to be given to chaperones Karen King and Carly Turner, without whom the trip would not have been possible.
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