Our Assistant National Coach, Benoit Labrecque, brought down an advance team to play in the New Zealand Wheelchair Rugby National Championships. Among the teams our 'Canada Avalanche' development team will be facing are teams from Auckland, Canterbury, Manawatu, and Waikato, as well as a small Aussie development team.  The folks from the Land of Oz came out on top last month at the 2003 Oceania Zonal Championships, which really did happen in September 2003 (Terry - you may want to change the header and dates on that file on your site...), although they only squeaked by the Kiwis by 1 goal in the final game, and lost to them in their opening match.

Our first game starts on Friday, October 17th, against the Aussies. Sporting the kangaroo colours this time are:

0.5 Nazim Erdim
1.5 Scott Vitale
2.0 Brett Boylan
2.0 Bryce Alman
2.5 Patrick Ryan
2.5 Ryley Batt
Coach - Terry Vinyard
Assistant Coach - Cherie Harris
Staff - Marie Spiller

Those athletes listed in bold print above and below were players on their countries National Teams at the 2002 World Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Our next opponents on Friday are from Manawatu, which is one of 16 regions of the country.  Scenic New Zealand is about the size of the American state of Colorado.  The Manawatu team consists of:

0.5 Chris Moore
1.0 Phil Spring
2.0 Pat Edmonds
2.5 Sholto Taylor
2.5 Jeff Merwood
2.5 Grant Boxall
Staff - Dyanne Parish

Our development team, Canada Avalanche, consists of:

0.5 Daniel Paradis
1.0 Mike Bacon
1.5 Patrice Simard
2.0 David Willsie
2.0 Susan McRae
3.0 Fabien Lavoie
3.0 Steven Dunn
Coach - Benoit Labrecque
Equipment - Stephan Charbonneau
Medical - Jennifer Cadieux
Team Leader - Cathy Cadieux