Morrisburg Junior Lions cut from EOJHL

 

In mid December, Morrisburg Junior B Lions’ captain Matthew Ouimet, 22, had to put his love for hockey aside,and consider his health and his future.

In a mid-December game, the talented defenceman, an anchor for the local team, took a hit, “not a severe hit and not a dirty hit”, but a hit that resulted in a concussion. 

It wasn’t his first, so he knew immediately what was happening.

 When he gets a concussion Matthew explains, “I feel very lost right after the hit, and I feel nauseous if it’s bad enough. Sometimes there is memory loss and it’s not clear to me what’s happened.”

Ouimet started playing hockey at the age of four in the Cumberland house league. At the age of 10, he tried out for the Cobras of the Eastern Ontario AA, and then at age 16 he was drafted to the Central Junior Hockey League.

Over the next three years, he played for the Hawkesbury Hawks, Kemptville 73s and the Kanata Knights.

In 2009, he moved to Junior B and played for the Ottawa Junior Canadian and the Alexandria Glens before coming to the Morrisburg Junior B Lions in a trade in the fall of the 2010-2011 season.

Although he missed half of last season due to a concussion, he wanted to return to the Lions for his final year of junior hockey as an overage player.

The decision ended up giving him just over two months of hockey before he called it quits in December.

Ouimet says he can’t rule out having had concussions while he played minor hockey, but “they started getting severe when I started junior hockey. The first few were pretty severe, and they were from some very dirty hits, blind sides and elbows to the jaw.”

As a defenceman, Matthew says many of the hits that resulted in a concussion occurred in the corners, after the opposing team has dumped the puck in.

After his first couple of concussions, it no longer required a a dirty hit, or even a very severe hit. “As time went on it required less force. They weren’t obviously bad hits, the concussions just came on easier.”

In addition to the immediate symptons of the concussion, Matthew says there were times when after a couple of weeks he was still getting severe headaches and was having trouble concentrating at school.

He admits that when he was hit this past December, he was already at the point where, “I was questioning if I should be risking my whole life.”

Matthew is currently a volunteer with the Clarence Rockland Fire Department, where he is gaining experience to become a full-time firefighter.

“There is a point where you have to look at your future. It was very hard for me to have to stop playing hockey.”

And he admits, “I have enjoyed my time here with the Lions, more than any other team I’ve been with. The coaching staff here is amazing. I absolutely love this team.”

Matthew came to the Lions at time when he was losing his enthusiasm for the game.

“Matt Ouimet is the example of commitment and playing for the love of the game,” says Lions coach Thom Racine. “He played high level hockey all his life and when we got his rights, he was contemplating quitting hockey…too many chances and too many broken promises had clouded his desire to play.”

“I picked him as our captain this year for two reasons: he wanted to play again this year hoping we could string out the late season success of last year; and as a last year player, he wanted to be the team leader, which I knew he could be. The younger kids look up to Matt, and that is important especially when the middle of the pack respects him.”

“I’ve had many tough decisions over my three seasons, but letting Matt go from our roster at the deadline was very tough. But his health was far more important than a dozen hockey games.”

Matthew says he wants to make young players and their parents aware of the symptoms of a concussion. “They could be denying it after they get hit, or just aren’t aware of what is going on.”

He says that when he was a younger player it wasn’t a big deal and hockey teams didn’t talk about it.

But now, with it getting more attention, he wanted to share his experiences and his symptoms.

Since he hung up his skates in December, Matt continues to show his strong character. He attends as many of the Lions games as he can to support his teammates.

Now feeling good and playing a bit of recreational hockey with friends, he says, “I’ll never have hockey out of my life. For sure, I’ll continue to play recreational hockey in my future.”

[…]

 

It appears the Seaway District High School Track and Field team is back on track, with a good number of athletes at the midget and junior ages out working hard for the last two to three weeks. 

And their work paid off at the annual TISS Track and Field Meet here Saturday, with two athletes, Kaitlyn Stewart and David Swerdfeger picking up first and seconds, Cassie Hummel winning one first, and Sid Sideratos and Shawn Dowson collecting second place finishes.

Several others were not far off the pace, and says Mark Lewis, who is co-coaching the Spartan team with Lindsay Waddell,  “They are all improving. It is good. Our team number is better than it’s been in the past, and I would say, looking at the weekend, they are the best results we have had in years.”

The team is heavily weighted at the midget and junior levels, a good sign for the future. There are no athletes competing at the senior level this year.

Top performers Saturday were Stewart and Swerdfeger. 

Stewart won the junior girls triple jump with a 10.45m jump, well ahead of the second place finisher at 9.72 m. She was just narrowly edged out of the long jump win with her jump of 4.67m. (The winner jumped just 4.68m). Stewart also ran the 100 meter dash, with a time of 14 seconds to qualify, but finished well back in the final.

David Swerdfeger had big results in the midget boys triple jump, with his winning jump of 12.12m. It was a new personal best, which shattered his previous PB of 11.81m. Swerdfeger, who has been competing since grade 7  and has been undefeated in all that time, said too that the extra pressure was that, “I scratched on my first two jumps.”  He backed up his triple jump win with a second place long jump (5.42m). The event was won in 5.48m. Swerdfeger also ran the 100m hurdles and finished fourth with a time of 17.13 seconds.

Cassie Hummel was back in action in junior girls javelin, and absolutely demolished her previous best throw of 22.00m with a first place throw of 27.60m.  She was clearly ahead of the pack with the second place competitor throwing 25.52 m. Hummel also threw discuss, but an 11.59m throw place her well back. She expects to concentrate on javelin this season.

Also at the midget age level, Sid Sideratos collected second place in shot put with a 12.14m throw, not far back of the 12.27 winning throw. He ran his 100m heat, in 13.71 seconds.

Shawn Dowson had solid performances in discus and high jump. He placed second in junior boys discus with a 31.30m throw and was fifth in high jump with a 1.50m jump. He finished well back in shot put at 9.30m.

Turning in a solid meet performance was Maggie Wells, who finished the 2014 season ranked sixth in Ontario in midget girls discus. Saturday, Wells threw a third place shot at 10.88m and was fourth in discus at 27.11m. “Maggie will get better as we go,” said Lewis of her early season start.

Finishing out the junior girl athletes are Quinn Horne and Holly Connolly-MacDonald, both of whom did not advance out of their 100m heats. Horne ran her heat at 14.72 and Connolly-MacDonald ran her’s in 18.33. She also ran the 200m in a time of 37.72.

Getting their feet wet at the midget are Kaeghan Lowson, Grant Wells, Jaycie Maville, Julenea Barnhartd, Kaileigh Vautour and Sydney Piquette.

Lowson, in his first time throwing Javelin, placed fifth with a throw of 32.45m. He ran the 400m, finishing well back in the pack at 1:03.27.

Distance runner, Grant Wells, who had some big results for the Spartans Cross-Country team last fall, was fifth in the 1500m (4:44.89) and sixth in the 3000 (10:16.56). He wasn’t far off in the winning mark of either race with the 1500m going in 4:30.95 and the 3000 in 10:00.13.

Maville and Vautour both ran the 100m but did not move out of their qualifiers with times of 15.25 and 15.30 respectively. Maville threw a seventh place finish in shot put with a 9.39m throw.

Barnhartd ran the 200m in 28.94 seconds and finished fourth in long jump with a jump of 4.39m.

Piquette ran the 800m with a time of 3:04.38

This Friday, the Spartans are in Ottawa and next Wednesday, May 13, they head to Cornwall for the SD&G championship. Qualifiers at the SD&G advance to the Eastern Ontario. 

[…]

The Kickers made this an undefeated season by winning a final make-up game 6-4 over the Ottawa Internationals Team 2, on Thursday, August 16, in Iroquois, then going on to do an outstanding job at the year-end tournament held at Kemptville Agricultural College on Sunday, August 19. The Iroquois game was tied 4-4, with three minutes left in play, when Randy Doherty scored for the Kickers, giving him three goals in total for the night.  With seconds left on the clock, Jeff McLaughlin rushed in to make the last goal of the evening. Coaches Jeff Buchanan and Don Hoogwerf were very pleased with the season’s results. “The Kickers also made the year-end tournament,” said Hoogwerf, “where they won all three of the games they played. They defeated North Dundas 1-0, in the first game, Nepean Hotspurs, Team 2, 3-2 in the second game and Nepean Hotspurs Team 1 by a score of 2-0 in the third game.”  On the field,  Liam Bush controls the ball. 

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