Frozen Pipes & Frozen Courts but Cold Beer – Canadians Always Look on the Bright Side

Suzanne Lanthier
January 29, 2013
Toronto, ON

Bitterly cold weather and resulting clubhouse plumbing challenges meant a little extra scrambling and pre-tourney work but in the end all 58 paddlers from across Toronto and parts of NY state met the challenges in typical paddle fashion at the Canadian Mixed Open Championships on January 26.

Delivery of the “UR-In-Luck” Deluxe model Porta-Potty (seriously.. who comes up with these names and not sure what was deluxe about it) arrived just as the last trace of ice was being blowtorched away by Jim Stinson and Paul Stulac (whose injury continues to keep him from playing paddle but gives us one kick-ass hut dude/photographer).

18 A Teams and 11 B’s took advantage of the break in the cold weather on a beautiful paddle Saturday and battled it out on the Kingsway’s 5 courts from 8 AM to 7 PM where the eventual  all-US final saw Kelly Brown and Miguel Cobbs retain their title from last year over Rita Kladstrup and Huy “Tuesday” Nguyen.  The Paddle was at an equally high level in the B Draw with Ted Lis and Cindy “Dragonslayer” Haber coming back from a 1-6 loss in first set to overtake Mike and Deb “someone make me a wedge” Gallagher in 3 great sets.

Winners were not only on the court. Awards were also handed out in the following categories.
Best dressed team: Josh “legs” Cooke and Keegan “God Bless America” Brown
Person most in need of wallet homing device: Mike Roselli
2013 Mixed Grammy Awards: Sara Lanthier & Brad McIlroy
Best Winona Ryder imitation: Rita Kladstrup
Rookie partier of the year: Cindy Haber
Best Celeb look-a-like: John “Russell Crowe” Larimer
Best Sunday Morning Hair: Andy Thompson
Best 3 AM burgers: Apache (worth noting despite not actually playing paddle)

Great to see players from Kingsway, B&R, Rochester, NYC/LI all walk away with at least 1 title!
Our sincere thanks to McAuslan Breweries and Barry Pletch for his ongoing support as well as to all teams for travelling to the event and making the repeated treks up the hill to the outhouse!

Thanks also to the combined efforts of Sara Lanthier, Jane & Ian Watson, Jim Stinson & Paul Stulac, Terry Snatinsky, Sonja Erskine and Peter Ryan whose combined efforts made the job that much easier.

See you all in April at the Canadian Open.

And a note for all you entrepreneurs looking to make your next million – come up with way to heat the seats of a Porta-Potty in the winter. I’ll buy the first unit.

Complete List of Winners:

A

B