Here we are, already in the last week of our 25th Season!

It has just flown by.

Our Synchro Girls' competed at the Summer Swimmers' meet last Thursday and had a great time. Laetitia Mir-Orefice presented a Senior Solo for the first time and our 12 and under Team improved upon the results from last season!  Check out some of the photos from their fun day on our Facebook Page! This Tuesday Laetitia again performed her solo at the ALPS Solo and Duet Competition and our 12 and under team will be competing on Thursday at the ALPS Team Competition. Go Dolphins Synchro!

This past Saturday, our swim team sent a contingent of Dolphins to represent Westmount at the Section A Finals that took place at CAVIP Pool on Ile Perrot.  It started off a rainy and gloomy day and though the weather changed several times during the meet, overall, it turned out to be generally sunny and hot.  Our Dolphins Sections Team managed to impress, securing a strong third place finish with 1248.5 points!  Several Dolphins managed to improve on individual team records:  James Leon, Kevin Huang and Andrew Xie as well as our 13-14 Boys' relay, consisting of Brandon Amaral, Oscar Cruz, Leon Immer and Ralph Nuhay.  You can see what they accomplished by checking out our records page.  To see how our Dolphins fared, have a look at the SECTION FINALS COMBINED RESULTS.
This document shows the combined results from the three Section Finals that took place on Saturday:  A, B and C.  We have all of our relays qualified and many of our swimmers so we look forward to a strong showing this Saturday at Valois Pool in Pointe-Claire! Go Dolphins Swimmers!

Our divers who had competed all summer and who qualified to Diving Finals will be competing one last time on Sunday at Viking Pool in Pointe Claire.  We wish them a great meet! Go Dolphins Divers!

Water Polo is also winding down and we hope the players have fun these last few days! Go Dolphins Water Polo!

Finally, we want to invite all of you to the End of Season Pot-Luck Banquet to be held on Sunday, August 20 from 6pm to 9pm on the Molson Rink in the WRC. Please don't be late as the evening will be running on a fairly tight schedule: dinner, dessert, awards and a last chance to play together in the pool.  Please RSVP by Friday, August 18 and indicate the main course that you intend to bring: BANQUET RSVP. It is important that you RSVP so that we have a good idea of how many people are coming. 

We hope you will enjoy every last minute at the Dolphins this week!

Go Dolphins Go!

Wow!  It is hard to believe that the second to last week of our ALPS season has already passed.

DIVING

The last regular season meet for our divers took place on August 6 at Baie D’urfé Pool. We did not win the meet but we had some great finishes for our divers.  We have had top finishes every week but having fewer divers has often caused victory to elude us.  The divers had fun and we hope that many of our weekly divers will have qualified to Diving Finals on Sunday August 20.  They will be practicing their best moves this week to be ready for that big day!

Go Dolphins Divers!

SWIMMING

The last regular season meet for our swimmers took place this past Wednesday at home.  It was a nail-biter of a meet but our Dolphins prevailed with 535 points to CAVIP’s 517.  It was a long meet, with unforeseen delays, including a medical emergency which thankfully turned out fine:  the coach from CAVIP who left the site in an ambulance was picked up by her team mates on the way home and she was doing well.  Kudos to our Dolphins Coaches for their professional handling of the situation.

Tomorrow, at CAVIP, our Section Finals team will meet the other 7 teams from Section A.  All members are welcome to come out and cheer on their team mates however the bus taking the team out is reserved for coaches and those competing as there is limited space. If you would like to drive out and watch the event directions by car can be found here: Map to CAVIP. You can find where to park here: Parking at CAVIP.

The team will be competing tomorrow for a chance to qualify to FINALS next Saturday at Valois Pool.  For our swimmers to qualify ALPS will select the fastest 18 swimmers in each individual event from the Combined Results of Sections A, B and C (including reserves up to 21st place). Our fastest 4 free-style swimmers for each age group will also be invited to participate in the relays. We will know the results as early as Sunday night but for sure by Monday morning next week.

Go Dolphins Swimmers!

SYNCHRO

Our synchro swimmers competed in the Summer Swimmers’ Meet on Thursday.  We are still awaiting the final results to be posted and the girls had an amazing time.  Next Tuesday, August 15, CIT Laetitia Mir-Orefice, will be competing in the Solo Competition and on Thursday, August 17 our Junior Girls will be competing in the Team Competition.
Go Dolphins Synchro Swimmers!

 
WATER POLO

The First Annual Coaches Versus Kids water polo match took place to great enthusiasm and after hard fought matches it was declared a tie!  Water Polo will continue next week with fun practices.

Go Dolphins Water Polo!

COACHES’ APPRECIATION DAY

We would like to declare Friday, August 18, our last day of Dolphins practices for 2017, Coaches’ Appreciation Day.  We know they deserve our appreciation every day for all they do and for how well they do it.  They ensure that all of the children have fun and develop their skills all summer long.  In our opinion, they are the best coaches in ALPS! 

Here’s to our Dolphins Coaches!  Hip, hip hooray!

See you on deck next week for our last week of the season!

Go Dolphins Go!

As the season comes to a close we want to congratulate all of you on everything you have achieved!  You have tried new things, learned new skills, perfected skills that you were having trouble with and through it all you had fun.  Why not continue your aquatics training during the school year?

To help you navigate the information out there, here are some recommendations for clubs that have been frequented by members of the Westmount Dolphins Community.  You can speak to other Dolphin members and ask questions or contact the clubs directly. We have listed them in order of popularity for you here:

COMPETITIVE CLUBS popular with Dolphins:

CSLA (Cote Saint Luc Aquatics) (CSL Aquatics and Community Centre)

Websites:http://swimteam.cotesaintlucaquatics.com/ http://swimteam.cotesaintlucaquatics.com/synchro.html
http://www.tiburonpolo.ca/

Synchro try-out:  September 12 at 6:30pm

Disciplines offered:  Swimming, Synchro, and Water Polo (affiliated with Tiburon Polo—Cote Saint-Luc/Lasalle/Verdun)

Many Dolphins are members of this pool including:  Swimming Head Coach Daniel (who will swim varsity at Queen’s during the school year),  Assistant Swimming Head Coach Alex O (who swims varsity at MIT during the school year),  Coaches Alex M-O, Andrea, Elsa, Ethan,  and Luis and CITs  Ana, Anahita, Brandon, Christopher, Damian, Flavie, Laetitia, Leon, Maya, Maxime, Michael, Oscar, Tara, Victor, Zoe.


CDNDG (Club de natation Cote des Neiges-NDG) (Centre de Loisirs Van Horne)

Websites: www.loisirssportifscdn-ndg.com/club-de-natation

Disciplines offered:  Swimming

Many Dolphins are members at this pool including our CIT’s Benjamin, Ericka, Isabella, Maxime and Ralph.

CAMO (Club  Aquatique de Montreal) (Centre Claude Robillard)

Websites: www.camonatation.org;  www.camoplongeon.ca; www.camowaterpolo.com

Disciplines offered:  Swimming, Diving, Water polo

Several Dolphins have been involved with the CAMO Swim Team in the past.  Our Diving Head Coach Shijia and Assistant Head Coach Jeanne were members of the CAMO Dive Team.  Water Polo Head Coach Kimiko played Water-Polo there before she joined the varsity team at University of Victoria. 


CALAC (Club Aquatique LaSalle Aquatic Club) (Aquadôme LaSalle)

Website:  www.calac.ca

Disciplines offered:  Swimming

Many Dolphins have gone to this club in the past and some current Dolphins are members here too!


ACADEMIE de NATATION DE MONTRÉAL (CEGEP Vieux-Montréal)

Website:  http://www.academienatation.ca/

Disciplines offered:  Swimming

CIT Juliette has been a member of this club.


OTHER COMPETITIVE CLUBS members have attended:

CASO (Club Aquatique de Sud-Ouest) (Centre Gadbois)

Website: www.caso-montreal.com 

Disciplines offered:  Swimming, Diving, Water polo; Synchro


NEPTUNE (Les piscines olympiques de Montréal)

Website:  http://www.neptunenatation.com/

Disciplines offered:  Swimming


RECREATIONAL CLUBS members have attended:

Westmount YMCA Swimming Club

Website:    http://www.ymcaquebec.org/en/Find-a-Y/Westmount-YMCA/List-of-Activities

Disciplines offered:  Swimming
CITs Aliya, Diego, Tara have participated in this program.

YM-YWHA (Westbury Y)

Website: http://www.ymywha.com/fitness-pool-sports/child-and-teen-pool-bw/​

Disciplines offered:  Swimming, and Water Polo



For more information regarding swimming clubs in Quebec visit the site of the Federation de natation du Quebec   www.fnq.qc.ca. 

To find out more about diving clubs visit the Plongeon Quebec website: www.plongeon.qc.ca. 

For information regarding Synchronised Swimming clubs the website for Federation de nage-synchronisée du Quebec is here: www.synchroquebec.qc.ca. 

To find other water-polo clubs the website of the Quebec Water-polo Federation iswww.waterpolo-quebec.qc.ca. 

Continuing your sport through the winter is a great way to perfect skills and to develop further as an athlete.  Many of our members have followed this route and have enjoyed pursuing excellence in aquatics sports.  Maybe you will enjoy it too!

-Our sixth week of the summer was a busy one!

The weekend leading up to it saw our Bantam Water Polo team in competition at various pools around the ALPS community starting at Dixie and moving on to Viking pool. We suffered two losses but had a lot of fun!  We hope to continue to improve and talks have begun with Riverside Pool, who also has a fledgling water polo program, to work together to improve.  This could present some exciting opportunities for Westmount Water Polo for next season!  We invite our water polo players to sit back and enjoy the rest of their water polo season with lots of fun and games each day. Go Dolphins Water Polo!

Sunday, our divers also headed out to Dixie Pool, where they managed a win for the Dolphins! We are so proud of our divers!  The next day, some of our divers headed off the island of Montreal to Pincourt, to the furthest reaches of ALPS to compete in the Novice Divers meet.  They gave it their all and showed they have a lot of potential.  Our divers will face their final dual meet this Sunday August 6 at Baie D'urfé Pool.  They will have a break on August 13 and our divers who will have received a first, second or third place finish at no less than three competitions this season, will be invited to dive at Finals on August 20. Go Dolphins Divers!

Wednesday was Swim Meet night and we were ready to face Windermere Pool.  Things got off to a wet start when warm-up concluded and thunder announced a torrent of rain that soaked everyone that was not quick enough to run into the WRC.  When the requisite 30 minutes from the last boom were over, we scrambled to get our competition through because the skies were looking very alarming.  As backstroke commenced and we completed event number 24 (nearly the exact halfway mark of the meet) the skies turned into an electric light show and we were forced to clear the deck for safety's sake.  Lightning warranted a longer delay (45 minutes) and it did not abate.  Windermere offered to call the meet based on the score at the end of event 24 which gave us a win of 288 points to their 238 points.  Those who did not yet get to swim were disappointed, but no one seemed too upset to arrive at Dairy Queen earlier!  Yeoni Rhee and Zoe Immer can be proud of their record-setting swims in 13-14 girls freestyle: a tied time of 28.68 with a judges' decision for first and second place respectively, and a new first place record for the team!  We look forward to meeting CAVIP next Wednesday and meeting all of our Section A friends on August 12 for Section A Finals. 

A word about Sections A Finals.  This meet will take place on Saturday August 12 at CAVIP pool (Ile Perrot).  We cannot bring all of our swimmers to this meet. The league asks that we bring the fastest two swimmers in each individual event who are available on the day, and the fastest four available free-stylers for the relay for Sections.  They will be competing for a chance to swim at Finals, which will take place on Saturday August 19.  Individual events at finals will be selected based on the fastest 18 swimmers across the three Sections (A, B & C) based solely on the times they will swim on August 12.  Our relays for August 19 will be based on the fastest 4 freestyle swimmers from our team, for each age group who will be available to swim on that day (not necessarily the same 4 swimmers who will compete on August 12).  We will update the team as to who the Sections  team will be for 2017 as soon as those who have been invited have RSVP'd.  We look forward to doing very well at Sections based on your performances all summer long!  Go Dolphins Swimmers!

Finally, we wanted to let you know that our Synchro Team are putting the finishing touches on their routines and have received their fabulous suits from Australia!  They are hard a work and will be having some extra practices next week.  The synchro coaches will keep you informed. Their first big meet, the Summer Synchro Meet, will take place on August 10. Go Dolphins Synchro!

All in all, there has been a lot of excitement this week, and as the season begins to wind down with all the big meets, it will only get more exciting!  Mark this date on your calendars:  August 20 at 6pm for our end of season Pot-Luck Banquet!  More details to follow!

Go Dolphins Go!