Canadians are making themselves seen and heard down at several rugby tournaments over the past few weeks.

Mike Whitehead, playing with his Hoveround Gunners team, and Dave Willsie, leading the charge with a team made up of 2.0 classified players from within our national team program, called "Deuces Wild" were both selected as tournament all-stars at the Coloplast International.

One week earlier, they had been named "Best High-Pointer" and "Best Mid-Pointer" at the Knock and Roll tournament. On the same weekend, Erika Schmütz was named "Best 1.0" at the 1st annual Shepherd Classic tournament in Atlanta.

The event with the most Can-Con was the Coloplast International, which featured a top-notch lineup of teams, which consisted of the worlds 7th ranked international team from Germany, along with the following American teams, along with their club's current ranking in the USQRA: #2 Phoenix Heat, #3 Texas Stampede, #4 Hoveround Gunners, #5 Denver Harlequins, #6 Portland Pounders, and the host team from Tampa, the Tampa Generals, who are ranked 16th in the League.

An interesting write-up by the longtime tournament director on their 15th annual tournament features some good comments on the Canadian players.

The Deuces Wild team logo was put on a variety of different pieces, and was so well liked, Say Luangkhamdeng is going go be making some more of them. The shirts will all be in black.

Here's how things are going to be printed:

- T-shirts (short sleeves) will have the big logo on the front
- Long sleeve shirts will have the small logo or big logo
- Polo shirts will have the small logo on the left chest

Say will see if they can make the diamond suit and the heart suit red and maybe with some other red highlights. Please contact Say directly for more information.


Rosters for the teams at the Tampa tournament looked something like this:

#1 seed - PHOENIX HEAT
0.5 PETERS, Matt
0.5 SMITH, Brad
1.0 HOGSETT, Scott (W-06), (P-04)
1.0 PANGRAZIO, Phil
2.0 COHN, Andy (W-06), (P-04), (W-02)
2.0 POPPEN, Brent (P-04)
2.0 JOHNSON, Josh
3.0 SHIMAKAWA, Shinichi (W-06), (P-04)
Coach: Scott Hogsett

#2 seed - TEXAS STAMPEDE
0.5 BEARDEN, Chase
1.0 LYDUCH, Norm (W-06), (P-04), (W-02), (P-00), (W-98)
1.5 BOOTHBY, Robert
2.0 BECK, Jace
2.5 COLLINS, Troye (W-06), (P-04), (W-02), (P-00), (W-98)
3.0 ZUPAN, Mark (W-06), (P-04), (W-02)
Coach: James Gumbert

#3 seed - DENVER HARLEQUINS
0.5 REGIER, Jason (W-06)
1.5 BENSON, David
1.5 BOLSETH, Ron
1.5 SCATURRO, Adam
2.5 MORRISON, Ross (W-06), (P-04), (W-02)
3.0 SUMNER, Chance (W-02)

#4 seed - HOVEROUND GUNNERS
0.5 POST, Joel
1.0 MARSHALL, Rick
1.5 HARRISON, Dave
2.0 JENKINS, Dave
2.0 SPRINGER, Nick (W-06)
3.0 O'CONNOR, Pat
3.0 WHITEHEAD, Mike (W-06), (P-04), (W-02)
Coach: Ed Hooper

#5 seed - PORTLAND POUNDERS
0.5 JOHNSON, Kip
0.5 SUHR, Ed
1.0 KAMMEYER, Dave
1.0 WOODBURY, Max
2.0 McBRIDE, Seth (W-06)
2.5 GROULX, Will (W-06), (P-04)
3.0 NELSON, Lynn (P-04)
3.0 CHAN, Ian (W-06), (P-04), (W-02), (P-00), (W-98)
3.5 PATE, Steve (W-06), (W-02), (P-00)
Coach: Ed Suhr

#6 seed - DEUCES WILD
2.0 CHARTRAND, Allan (P-04)
2.0 KIM, Jonathan
2.0 LAROCQUE, Martin (W-06), (P-00), (W-98)
2.0 LUANGKHAMDENG, Say (W-06)
2.0 MURAO, Travis (W-06)
2.0 WILLSIE, Dave (W-06), (P-04), (W-02), (P-00), (W-98)
Coach: Benoit Labrecque

#7 seed - GERMANY
0.5 SCHREINER, Peter (W-06), (P-04), (P-00), (W-98)
1.0 WIESCHENDORF, Dirk (W-06), (P-04), (P-00), (W-02)
2.0 LEONHARD, André (W-06), (P-04), (W-02)
2.0 WERNER, Christoph (W-06), (P-04)
2.5 MAYER, Wolfgang (W-06), (W-02), (P-00)
2.5 HOLZEM, Jorg (W-06), (P-04), (W-02)
3.0 BAUMANN, Maik (W-06)
3.0 PICHT, Olivier (W-06), (P-04)
Coach: Pierre Sahm

#8 seed - TAMPA GENERALS
0.5 SERVIS, Steve
1.0 CERUTI, Dave (P-96), (W-95)
2.0 STARK, Justin
2.0 WELCH, Mark
2.5 VORSANE, Vi
3.0 KRESS, Ryan
3.0 LINDSTROM, Ryan
Coach: Dave Ceruti

Players with a (W) or a (P) played for their countries World Championship or Paralympic team in the year indicated.

Meanwhile, on the home front, teams in Ontario and Quebec will be getting geared up for a few tournaments closer to home, including:

- Ontario League #2 - in Barrie, ON (Feb 24-25)
- Windsor Classic Indoor Games (March 23-25)
- Défi Sportif (April 27-29)

Links to all these tournaments, and more, can be found on the CWSA's calendar page.

We hope to hear some more details on an upcoming tournament in Winnipeg soon, and info on the annual tournament in Vancouver is available through the calendar page.

Several domestic and high performance Canadian athletes have taken advantage of Marco Dispaltro's program in South Florida once again this year, and are now in the 2nd of two back-to-back tournaments in the peninsula state.

The first tournament saw Canadians on a number of teams, including:

London Annihilators:
3.0 ASSELIN, Herman (ON)
2.0 WILLSIE, David (ON)
2.0 SZINTAI, John (ON)
2.0 KIM, Jonathan 'Joey' (ON)
2.0 LAROCQUE, Martin (ON)
1.5 CRONE, Jason (ON)
1.5 deBOER, Harry (ON)
1.0 CATTRYSSE, Dan (ON)
0.5 LANGENECKER, Peter (ON)

South Florida Rattlers:
2.0 CHARTRAND, Allan (AB)
2.0 HICKS, Ken (AB)
3.0 DUNN, Steven (NS)
3.0 NORDING, Dale (AB)
+ 0.5 Charles Ray, 1.0 José Debenito, 1.0 André Escobar, & 1.0 Patrick Rogers from Florida

Hoveround Lightning:
3.0 Mike Whitehead (ON)
+ local content from Florida

Here is a tournament report from Marco on this event, which was held in Lake Worth, FL:

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Threepete for the Demolition

Veni, vidi vici. The Lakeshore Demolition rolled into town and promptly dispatched all who stood in their way, winning their 3rd straight Knock & Roll title.

The 7th annual Knock & Roll was held at the brand new Palm Beach County Parks and Recreation's complex in Lake Worth. After the inaugural ceremonies, as we were the first event to be featured at this facility, the competition started with Lakeshore pounding the South Florida Rattlers. Lakeshore rolled through the competition winning its five games by an average of almost 15 goals with the Hoveround Gunners proving to be the toughest foe for the hungry Demolition crew.

The Kirkland led team with fellow wrecking crew Buckingham, Wilmoth, Brooks, Crouch, Vinzant, Sullivan and company showed speed, power, stamina and good team play under the very watchful eye of Coach Kevin Orr. The resolve in this team to regain its USQRA DI title last won in 2003 seems stronger than ever and competitors better beware.

For this year’s K&R, we had European visitors with the German National Team being in town. After a relatively easy game against the Tampa Generals, The Germans struggled to victory against a very spirited London (Ontario) team on the opening day. In day two action they beat Philly and were definitely put to the test in the crossover game narrowly beating the outmanned Gunners. The Gunners played with only 5 players with O’Connor and Post unable to attend.

In other games of note over the weekend, the Pasadena Texans showed great fortitude and showed that when you do drills in practice instead of just scrimmaging that in late game situations they will have the edge. After trailing the Rattlers by as many as 7 points in the 3rd quarter of the final round robin game in pool A, they willed their way to a victory finally defeating the Rattlers by 3.

The Rattlers showed signs of another collapse in the 7/8th placement game against Tampa but weathered the storm to win by 3 over a well balanced Tampa team. Tampa will be in very tough company next week when they host their annual tournament but no one will ever be able to put in doubt the heart of the Generals as they will play until they drop.

Philly will certainly be a threat this year at Nationals with standout Adam Bencsik and the continuing emergence of class 2.5 Rob Deller. The Eagles flew high all weekend and finished the tournament 3rd.

As for the London Annihilators, they put a hell of a scare into the Germans and the Eagles and they powered past Pasadena to earn 5th place.

The seeding was respected and for the finals, Lakeshore played the Germans and after a bit of a struggle in the 1st quarter, the Demolition proved to be too much for the Germans and Lakeshore took home another title.

Again this year the competition was first rate, the tournament staff was fantastic led by Renata Watson, Stacy Staebell and Nicholas Priolo of Palm Beach Parks and Recs. The event was first class and we cannot wait for the 8th annual K&R.

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Skip ahead by a week, and the results of the first game is in from the Coloplast International. The six 2.0 classified players (who are often known in the sport as «deuces») in the national team program have made some new team shirts and christened themselves "Deuces Wild".

They played in the first game of the day against the Denver Harlequin, the tournament's #3 seeded team, who are seeded #3 nationally in the USA. The game went to triple overtime, with Denver finally emerging on top by a score of 42-41. An offensive bright light for the Canadian team was the newest member of the team, Travis Murao, from the BC Bandits. Worthy of highlight reels on defence was fellow deuce Martin Larocque from the Ottawa Stingers and Ontario Thunder teams.

Next opponent for Deuces Wild will be the Phoenix Heat, which stars Japanese speedster Shinichi Shimakawa. The Heat won the USQRA Division 1 Nationals last year, and are currently seeded 2nd in the US.

Deuces Wild consists of:

2.0 CHARTRAND, Allan (AB)
2.0 WILLSIE, David (ON)
2.0 KIM, Jonathan 'Joey' (ON)
2.0 LAROCQUE, Martin (ON)
2.0 LUANGKHAMDENG, Say (ON)
2.0 MURAO, Travis (BC)

Tomorrow, our deuces face the Tampa Generals, and another team in the crossover match.

Marco will be posting more later today once he hears from Benoit at the tournament.