8 THE DAILY VOICE, THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 2014 EDITOR JESSE LAM S$) orts AMY JONES photo Former Olympian kayak racer Kamini Jain helps coach the dragon boat team with the False Creek Racing Canoeing Club. How to train your dragon Dragon boaters hit the waters of False Creek to prepare for races EVENTS upcoming 2014 FCRCC SPRING KNOCKOUT DRAGON BOAT RAGATTA MAY 10, 2014 Teams will race 200m heats and survive to be the best team standing. FALSE CREEK WOMEN'S DRAGON BOAT REGATTA MAY 24, 2014 A unique regatta with three rigourous 500m races for every team. By MADELYN FORSYTH angara meet dragon boating, drag- on boating meet Langara. The Chinese sport was modern- ized around the 1980s when drag- on boating made its way to Great Brit- ain. It spread to North America after a demo race in False Creek during Expo 86 where the False Creek Racing Canoe Club Men’s dragon boat team placed first. Patrick Couling, a member of the FCRCC, has been dragon boat racing for as long as he can remember and has competed all around the world. Currently, he coaches two health care teams, one of which is related to kidney dialysis. Couling said “people who have kid- ney dialysis or are having dialysis and doctors and nurses and technicians,” are part of the team. The FCRCC is home to 30 dragon boat teams with roughly 25 paddlers on each team totaling about 750 people, not in- cluding the other water sports the club hosts. Couling says what draws people into dragon boating is the social aspect. In competitions, dragon boats typi- cally contain 20 paddlers, a drummer, and a steersperson. “That’s a lot of people and so you get them together and they become very close and they socialize together.” Calvin Kwan formed the Dread- noughts out of the FCRCC, bringing many people from the Strathcona youth team. Kwan says the socializing is what drew him and many others to the sport and keeps them coming back. The team has now grown to include people from UBC, SFU and some who aren’t currently attending school. Even though dragon boating may be known for socializing, the work still needs to be done and it’s not easy. “Everyone has to be perfectly in time,” said Couling. “You got to do that job, you’ve got to get the paddle in time. If you don’t get the paddle in time you don’t get the boat to move.” Currently, the largest festival in North America takes place in False Creek on Granville Island. The Rio Tinto Alean Dragon Boat Fes- tival started in 1989 to show off Vancou- ver’s growing cultural diversity and at- tracts almost 180 teams from the Lower Mainland and around the world. This year, the event will take place on June 20 and run until the 22nd. New adds help ‘Caps Whitecaps FC turn to new signings and new tactics for their early success By CHRIS SLATER to a flying start this season, the coaching staff and critics credit a combination of new players and differ- ent tactics for the improvement. With a 2-0-2 record, assistant coach Gordon Forrest is pleased with how his team’s performance has been going so far this year. “We've got areal good squad of play- ers who are prepared to work hard and express themselves on the field,” said Forrest. “We’ve worked very hard at our games at home. Going away from home where it’s difficult to win A: the Vancouver Whitecaps go off games, again, bg they’ve put in tsi some real good performances.” JI Working on play * ad GORDON FORREST tactics is one of the Whitecaps FC's team’s focuses this year and changing those tactics to suit the different playing styles of op- posing teams has been an important part of improving the Whitecaps’ style, said Forrest. “We analyze our own performance but we also analyze the opposition’s and sometimes we can change little things to suit that particular game that’s coming up,” Forrest said. Despite the team’s success, Forrest said they continue to address issues to work on by examining every game closely with both the coaching staff and the team. “We're always looking to improve. We look at these areas and we continue to work on them on the training field.” Langara men’s soccer coach Marc Rizzardo believes the Whitecaps’ en- ergy has been good so far this year, particularly in terms of working hard on the field. “T think they have a higher work rate [this year]. They’re definitely hard- working in terms of shutting players down if they lose the ball.” Rizzardo also believes some of the team’s new additions have been a great asset to their overall strength, particu- larly new midfielder Pedro Morales of Chile, whom he described as “very, very good.” The team will play Colorado April 5. assistant coach Vancouver Giants look for promising future Giants head coach Don Hay sees plenty of potential for next season after a disappointing defeat against Portland in WHL playoffs By LUKASZ JONCA out of the playoffs, the players and coaches are preparing for the off- season. Three Giants will be joining profes- sional teams after the WHL team was swept in the first round playoff series against the Portland Winterhawks. Forward Cain Franson will be joining the Allen Americans of the Central Hockey League. Brett Kulak who recent- ly signed a three-year entry deal with the Flames will be joining the Abbots- ford Heat. Colorado Avalanche prospect Mason Geertsen will be joining the Lake Erie Monsters of the American Hockey League. Geertsen was selected in the fourth round, 98th overall in the 2018 NN: that the Vancouver Giants are NHL Draft. Head coach Don Hay is already work- ing on next season. “T’m] just trying to put together a plan for next year and start working on training camp,” Hay said. “[Pll] take some time off to get re-energized and then get back at it in August for our Gi- ants hockey school in Ladner and Tsaw- wassen.” The team is building off of this year’s third place finish in the B.C. division and Hay hopes to have greater success with new players joining the system next year. “To see the growth in our younger players like Payton Lee, Thomas Foster, Ty Ronning, Alec Baer are all real posi- tive things for us this year and they’re going to continue getting stronger [and become] better players as they mature,” said Hay. The future also revolves around Tyler Benson, who was selected first overall in the 2018 WHL Bantam draft. “He showed a lot of potential and promise and to have him here for a full year is going to be a nice building block for us,” Hay said. The Giants struggled at the begin- ning of the season and were ranked sev- enth in the Western Conference. They were up against the second place Port- land Winterhawks and suffered four straight defeats. Sports reporter Steve Ewen of The Province thinks the team did quite well. “T think they took a huge step forward and they’ve got a lot of young talent. The team has a lot of positives.” , = CHRIS RELKE/VANCOUVER GIANTS photo Giants head coach Don Hay shakes hand of Portland’s head coach Mike Johnston after playoff series defeat.