Members of the Canadian National Team Program were busy this past weekend, with athletes participating in tournaments in Charlotte, North Carolina and Portland, Oregon.

At the first tournament, the South Florida Rattlers, coached by our own Marco Dispaltro, and featuring a high amount of Can-Con, placed 2nd at the Carolina Classic, with Steven Dunn earning best in class honours as a 3.5. His roomie, Fabien Lavoie, earned his first ever MVP award, playing with the Magee Rolling Rebels, who are based in Philadelphia. Stevie said that he had never seen Fabb play better rugby, and in his game against the Crash, he was just unstoppable. Marco concurred, saying that Fabien played "out of his mind" and that he was getting stronger with every tournament under his belt. As MVP of the tournament, Fabien won a very nice set of Quickie heat treated wheels.

Other Canadians on the South Florida team included 1.5 Patrice Simard and 2.5 Allan Chartrand, from Edmonton. The host team from Charlotte, the CIR Carolina Crash won, with South Florida and Philadelphia rounding out the top three.

The Rattlers beat the Carolina Crash on the first day of the tournament, prior to the arrival of Australian Patrick Ryan (2.5), but the full Carolina roster played against Fabien's Magee Rolling Rebels, where the Crash squeaked out a one point victory. Two other teams, including the Tentucky TNT, were supposed to be there, but ran into some bad snow conditions.

Meanwhile, on the left coast, the BC Bandits were in action, missing Winks 'n the Warrior. The Great Northwest Invitational was held in Portland, Oregon, and saw the Bandits by led the 2.5 duo of player/coach Adam Frost and Say Luangkhamdeng. The Bandits improved their ranking to finish 4th at the tournament, losing to the Denver Harlequins in the bronze medal game by a 6 goal margin. The Harlequins are currently ranked 12th in the USQRA.

The BC Bandits earned victories over the University of Arizona Wildchairs and Northridge Knights to place 2nd in their pool. They lost to the evenutal winners, the Portland Pounders, by an 8 point margin. The Pounders are the #11 ranked team in the USQRA.

To summarize, the final ranking of the teams at the Portland tournament (with their USQRA ranking in parentheses) was :


#1 - Portland Pounders (#11)
#2 - Sharp Edge (#9)
#3 - Denver Harlequins (#13)
#4 - British Columbia Bandits
#5 - University of Arizona Wildchairs (#20)
#6 - Northridge Knights
#7 - Seattle AllNight
#8 - Reno Bighorns

At the Charlotte tournament, the results were:


#1 - Carolina Crash (#10)
#2 - South Florida Rattlers (#16)
#3 - Philadelphia (Magee Rolling Rebels) (#17)
#4 - Augusta Riverhawks