Special to The Chief
To play on the school's new motto, Howe Sound Secondary School is stoked to be playing Ultimate this year.
The sport of ultimate frisbee was developed in 1968 by New Jersey high school students, and this spring, thanks to teacher/coach Kevin McJannet and community coach Tasso Lazaridis, it has finally made its way to Howe Sound Secondary.
Ultimate combines skills from many other sports such as basketball, soccer, and football, yet has its own unique twists at the same time as it is non-contact, co-ed and self-refereed. This structure promotes cooperation among all players and rose out of the "hippie ethic of sportsmanship, fair play, and refusing the win-at-all-costs mentality," says McJannet.
Played with seven players a side, of which at least three must be male and three female, the sport is new to the North Shore Secondary Schools Athletic Association as well, in only its second year of official competition. Though many players have less than a year of experience, Howe Sound's junior and senior teams took to the field energetically on Friday (April 29) to face undefeated Argyle Secondary in their fourth game of the season.
Still looking for their first victory after some hard-fought games, including a 13-10 loss to Rockridge, the seniors took it to Argyle from the get-go and gained an early advantage. However, Argyle managed to counter and showed why they haven't lost yet this season, prevailing 11-7.
Zar Serrano, Brandon Hofmarks, Ian Bell, and Dezaray Miller all scored for Howe Sound, Niko Schran assisted on three points, while team captain Brian Eckersley was all over the field, scoring, defending and passing. Lazaridis was encouraged with the effort, considering the Sounders had only three girls available, meaning Miller, Amanda Eckersley, and Dominique Dornik were forced to play the entire game.
"The plan for this team was to be progressional, not to go in winning off the bat, but to learn from our mistakes and improve," said McJannet.
In the second game of the doubleheader, the Howe Sound juniors prevailed over Argyle impressively with a 7-3 victory. Jordan Dickson scored three points for Howe Sound. McJannet was clearly happy with the game's result, yet his focus was truly on the positive traits ultimate brings out in its participants: "Ultimate frisbee doesn't build character, it reveals it."
In that case, both teams character was revealed to be sportsmanlike, in the true spirit of the sport. Encouragement between teams could be overheard often, a refreshing reminder that competition and cooperation can be simultaneous.
