There is probably a lot of paddlers who don't care about Hamilton but there are a few big name teams

Example: Mojos, Shockwave, RBC Royal Dragons, OHDBC Premier woman, etc

Top five prediction for Hamilton:

I wouldn't say any of those are "big name teams", except maybe with the exception of OHDBC

Do we have a list of team that are going?

Any attending teams looking for a paddler? Competitive left male with 6-years paddling experience looking for a seat.

If interested, contact mandango55@hotmail.com

Not much competition, but it's a fun event and Bayfront park is a surprisingly nice location. Lively deserves kudos for offering a 2K at most of their events. Hamilton has a narrow turning areas so there's all kinds of action in the corners.

Paddlers Anonymous DaBoat is a dark horse for Hamilton. They were edged by Piranhas in Welland this year with a 2:07

Another competitive left-side male with a few years experience looking for a seat. 6'-0", 185 lbs. If you are looking for a paddler let me know via e-mail... megcoglog2@yahoo.ca

Is that DaJoke?

Repeat of question above.. is there a published list? I hate those Lively Dragon websites....

That's a 4 second loss in the final. Plus the two teams were at the island and PA wasn't even close?

So i guess the question is whether or not Piranhas would beat everyone at Hamilton by 3 to 4 seconds.. probably...

Is the team list on-line? Based the team names thus far

1 Mojos
2 Shockwave
3 OHDBC Premier Women
4 daBoat
5 Royal Bank

9:05, I think it depends if it's the Pirhanas from the 1st race at the island or the subsequent races. That 1st result was weird.

Response to 11:23am

Paddlers anonymous has over four or five teams. Your probably confused by the amount of teams they have. If you look carefully at the Island results, you will notice the two paddlers anonymous teams listed are dawave and dapirates.

Anyways, what were really arguing about is paddlers anonymous daboat, are they a contender for the A division in Hamilton?

Mojos will take this

while paddling backwards.

Looks like a 2 horse race between Mojos and GSK, with only Old Skul'd being the dark horse with an outside chance of an upset.

can't be much competition if people are predicting the OHDBC premier women in top 5!

1. Mojos
2. GSK FireDragons
3. Stratford Silver Masters
4. Old Skul'd
5. Rye-D-Boat
6. RBC Royal Dragons
7. TD Twin Dragons
8. OHDBC Premier Women

That top eight is a joke!

Dont be a hater cause your crew will be in the bottom 8

Yeah, h8er

I would like to apologize to you. Apparently in some way we may have offended you for entering this event that does not meet your exceptions. Hopefully someday I and the members of my crew will be able to be at your caliber but judging from your post at 3:30pm I dont think we will!

You must be an elite paddler! But Im thinking not.

Hopefully one day you will look in the mirror and you will see a huge superior bottom eight jackass looking back.

Perhaps three of the eight team are questionable or perhaps are in the wrong order.

Who does a top eight? Sounds like someone just wants to squeeze their team in?
I would move four to three and six to four.
If the Mojos plan on paddling backwards, I'd say bump everyone up one and put the Mojos at five, just below OHDBC Premier Woman's team.

I'm thinking it's a top-8 because there are 4 lanes, hence top-8 is A & B division finishers.

Nix that, there are 5 lanes.

@ June 30, 4:19pm

The other night at practice, I overheard the Mojos talking that they are working on their backwards paddling. And since at least a third of them are from a rowing background, I would put my money on them being second at least.

Gilda's Dragon or PHL Niagara sound like the MOFOS

The mojos attending Hamilton is kind of like the piranhas attending Welland, embarrassing! I suspect the mojos will do well but whats the point. Are they striving to be a competitive team or not? Stop splashing around in the little ponds.

I'm sure there will be some h8ters from the mojos or the piranhas on top of this thread, but that is fine, everyone is entitled to an opinion.

> Gilda's Dragon or PHL Niagara sound like the MOFOS

Doubtful

Gilda's Dragons is a legit team.

Mojos won Hamilton in 2008.http://www.dragon-boats.com/hamilton/2008_race_results.htm
despite getting hit by OHDBC women in the final and spun out of their lane. And not many races offer the 2000m, which is always exciting to watch at turn #2

Mojos are a great group of people, who enjoy paddling at big AND small competitions. Hamilton is an excellent event, great venue and sightlines, good organization, fair race course, with superb entertainment (who doesn't like that band?) and I'd love to see them bring back the bbq rib/pulled pork 18-wheeler truck!

Pulled pork can improve almost any event.

The top ten will be divided into four groups: The race for 1 and 2 will be close and these two teams don't like each other very much, but I'll give the Mojos the edge as they already beat GSK in Pickering this year. Old Skul'd should be a solid third all alone, and then 4-6 should be fairly close. The last interesting race in the top ten will be for 7-10, as these teams are close as well:

1. Mojos
2. GSK FireDragons
3. Old Skul'd
4. Rye-D-Boat
5. Paddlers Anon
6. OHDBC Women
7. Flying Shanghai Noodles
8. Stratford Silver Masters
9. TD/CT Twin Dragons
10. Ronin Warriors

Unnecessary, classless, low-blow comment there. I figure you envy their success so you see fit to insult their choice in regattas now? What's next? You hate their uniform colour too?

my money is on GSK...! who wants to bet?

What is this bad blood that GSK and Mojos have between each other?

There's no bad blood. It's just a troll trying to stir things up.

Who doesn't hate the uniform color of the mojos!lol
Its just as bad as ??????.......whats that other team name after a fish? The one that attended welland?

Geez... you guys sure are a sensitive bunch!!!

I never meant that the Mojos and GSK hate each other (or that there is bad blood, for that matter)... I simply meant that the two teams generally end up in the same division at regattas they both attend and that they put up similar times, no naturally the two teams strive to beat each other (as I suspect most teams would if there was another team that always finished near them). I know for a fact that several of the Mojos were happy to beat GSK in Pickering (not because they hate them but because it meant they had a decent day)... similarly, I know for a fact that a few of the GSK paddlers were bummed out not to beat the Mojos... just a little friendly competition, that's all - so please don't blow it out of proportion and make it into something else.

Friendly rivalry is good. Unlike teams who finally become good through recruting and feel the need to trash teams that used to always beat them to soothe their own inferiority complexes.

http://spectacular-toast.blogspot.com/2008/01/little-brother-syndrome.html

anyone got results?

Photo finish. All teams within half a second.

1. GSK - 2:04.16
2. MOJOS - 2:04.20
3. Old Skul'd - 2:04.23
4. who cares?
5. currently doing their finish stroke...

Shame on you Anon@10:54 PM

gsk? really? what happened to the mojos?

Congrats to GSK and Mojos! That was a very tight race!

Did anyone get the top 10? Or was anyone's top 10 prediction correct?

Short race course?

Apparantly GSK had a Jetstart ringer who paddled harder than the two ringers the Mojos had in their boat. The difference between the two teams this fine day was simply a question of who had the better ringer(s).

Seriously... What about 4-10? I just checked and it doesn't seem like the results are posted.

"Short race course?"

Maybe, but definitely a massive tailwind. Had the race run the other direction, you'd have seen some very different results.

I think the real story, regardless of ringers, is how Old Skul'd placed. This is a team that is known for cutting their season short earlier than the rest. Its kind of scary at how good they would be if they put in the same time for the entire season.

Definitely a decent team with lots of potential, but I'd put them in the same lot as Shockwave, Wahoos, BMO, Waterdragons, Saints, Wave Cutters, etc. These teams are all close to taking that step into real "players" in the Southern-Ontario dragon boat scene but aren't quite there yet. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they (Old Skul'd) ranked below all these other teams in terms of average times ("Power Ranking" style) for this year. If you look at their regattas, they tend to put up times that are substantially slower during the qualifying heats and then have an awesome race in the final. For example, they won the "B" Division out of lane 1 in Milton and the C division out of lane 6 at the Island (proving that they were ranked as one of the slowest teams in each of those finals). Two ways to look at this: either they paddle well when it matters most, or they benefited from a noticeable advantage to being in lane 1 in Milton and an outside lane on Sunday at the Island. Not taking anything away from them and I am surely not trashing them, so please don't come back with negative comments to this post... I respect them and think they have potential to become even better, but there's something to be said when they overcome a deficit of 4 to 5 seconds in Milton (against the Waterdragons and BMO) and then a 2 second average deficit at the Island to beat The Saints and the Waterdragons & BMO again.

Either way, Congrats to them on what nothing short of amazing results this weekend in Hamilton against two very good teams (Mojos and GSK).

Seriously, who pays that much attention to what teams like Old Skul'd are doing, or are that concerned where they may fit in the power rankings?

Where did the Hydro's come from a few years ago? I remember them being in the 'C/D' division range before making the jump to 'A'. So yes, maybe people should be aware of the teams not quite at the top yet, because they all have the capability to be there...

No one outside of Old Skul'd gives that much thought, let alone posts a short novel about what they have done etc.

Good luck on being the next Hydrophobic Dragon's though.

From what I heard, GSK was racing without a tail and Mojos were racing without a head in the final race. In a race where the times where 0.04 and 0.03 seconds off... the weight of the head and tail would have made a difference.

To be truly fair amongst all the boats racing in the same heat, shouldn't all boats be racing with both a head and a tail?

Can you really trust those results, especially if it's run by Lively Dragon? In the organizer's mind, everyone is a winner.

Let me start off by saying "I am NOT an Old Skul'd paddler". Having said that, I have a message to the idiot(s) that posted on July 6 2009, (11:19AM and 11:45 AM):

It is you and ones like you that have this "holier than thou", "I'm better than the rest of the world" mentality that prevent the sport of dragon boating to keep growing and attract new athletes. Let me guess: You have paddled for an A division team your whole life, right? You never had to pay your dues in a slower team? Or is it that now that you have progressed that those other teams don't matter anymore? Clearly in your mind only "A" division teams are worthy of any room in this forum. In other words, if you are not capable of putting up a sub-2:05 time in a ligitimate 500m course then you're somehow less worthy of an opinion of having others notice that you did a good job at a particular regatta.

Nobody suggested that Old Skul'd is going to be the next Hydrophobic Dragons (no apostrophe you idiot... that means possesion, NOT plural!) but who knows, maybe they will... or Shockwave, or The Saints, or BMO, etc. And if not, at least they are there to give new paddlers a taste of semi-competitive dragon boating to then feed the so called "A Division" teams. Look around these "elite" teams and tell me how many have paddlers that got started in one of these "B-C" level teams... I'd say you'd be hard-pressed to find any that don't have at least one paddler that at one point didn't paddle with Riptide or BMO or Shockwave or other teams described in the earlier post... so get off your high horse and understand that you too were once a C division paddler at one point.

@anonymous 12:54 PM

Take it easy! I believe that poster was just implying that top teams are usually the ones to get the long post analysis breakdown. Honestly, who would know THAT much about Old Skul'd unless they were on the team or in one way associated with it?

For example, in basketball every fan knows about Lebron James and how he's risen to fame but who the F would know much about someone like Jose Calderon on the Raptors except for Toronto fans?

So in dragonboat, everyone knows about Mayfair but not much about Old Skul'd. There is no contesting that.

Those Old Skul'd paddlers really are a sensitive lot.

I raced against Old Skul'd twice this year and are impressed by them. They aren't at the top but they aren't going for it either. If they applied themselves and trained more I think they would be a front running B division crew. This is from an A-level paddler who respects what he sees.

People care about the teams they race with and race against. People in the B or C division who qualified first place in their final would certainly notice if they lost to a team in the outside lane.

People in the C-division will probably take note of who won the A-division but they aren't going to care too much about how the race played out. Why would they? Hardly anybody actually follows dragon boat as a sport outside of their own participation. For the most part people are concerned with what directly effects them. People are concerned with the division they are in and maybe the immediate surrounding divisions.

Comparing a dragon boat A-final team to Lebron James is ridiculous.

Who's Lebron James?

sincerely,
A-division paddler

I have paddled for several years on a competitive team and attended many regattas.
This was my first time at the Hamilton Regatta.
I was very impressed with the race course and organization of the days events.

Thank you to the volunteers and race organizers.

Results are now posted on:

http://www.dragon-boats.com/hamilton/2009_race_results.htm

I heard Old Skul'd got Lebron James as a ringer.
And Dwight Howard.

Quite the reach if you ask me.

To 1:07, if Old Skul'd is the Jose Calderon of dragon boating then you are definately the Vince Carter....a whiny whiny b*tch!

Does anyone else find the way Lively Dragon posted the results really annoying? It's a jpeg! A low quality jpeg! And why the heck aren't the 250 and 2000 m results sorted in by time?! I'd do it myself, except that it's a jpeg!

Yeesh!

@July 6 2009, 6:57 PM


Damn it! Thanks for letting the secret out...

now that it is out... I can't believe no one at the festival noticed. I guess it was a good idea we dressed him up in that dragon outfit while playing Michael Jackson music.

@ July 6 2009, 7:37 PM

ROFL.. hahahahahahahaha... good one. That guy definitely is a whiny biatch

Jackie, we know that you posted that up. Everyone knows your events are crap and are never geared to the competitive/semi competitive teams out there. Your organization is at the bottom of the food chain not only on competitiveness, but also professionalism. Its a shame that people choose your events because of price.

> Its a shame that people choose your events because of price.

Cheaper price is a pretty big advantage plus lively dragon has improved over the years.

Jackie, stop replying anonymously.

Filtering the hateful tones above, I have to agree with the commentary. It seems that every Lively event I attend results in some serious head scratching after the fact. In the latest event it's the first 2000m heat. It's ridiculous to post a 7:35.5 time for Bearing Arms. No offense to the team, but that would imply that they started last, passed every other team (even with 15 second gaps), and won with open water. Not to mention the time posted would pretty much put every elite crew in Canada to shame.

Regardless of the marginal improvements that have occurred over the past few years (ex. they stayed on schedule in Hamilton), they will continue to be a bush-league organization running mediocre events until they build some true competency (ex. get an air-horn, and bring a back-up). I don't know Ramsey and Jackie myself, but I have to assume that the problem is in the management, otherwise it would have been fixed by now.

The results overall seem very weird to me. I mean, the top three aren't that surprising, but a closer look reveals some pretty interesting things:

1) How in the world did Old Skul'd and Ronin Warriors (!@*%#) beat both GSK and Mojos after round 1? Nothing against Old Skul'd, they are definitely a decent team... but don't tell me they weren't surprised themselves to see how close they were to the other two. And Ronin? It seems that Ronin was seeded 1st after the first round!!!

2) RBC (who was about 6-8 seconds slower than GSK and Mojos in Pickering) improved dramatically to finish in the same division.

3) 9 other teams, including Flying Shanghai Noodles, Rye D-Boat, and TD/CT were only about 3 seconds off GSK after the first round.

I wasn't there, so I don't know what happened... but I can only attribute this to one of three things. Either there was some very questionable timekeeping, the wind shifter drastically from race to race affecting times, or both the Mojos AND GSK have gotten substantially slower in the last month (I say that sarcastically because it is clear that's not the case). Either that or ALL the other teams got magically 4-7 seconds faster in the few weeks.

I understand why certain people get their hate on for Lively, but you have to see it from another perspective:

Lively Dragon events serve a purpose in the DB community. The events are NOT tailored to A or B division teams. Believe it or not, the 20-30 teams that comprise the A and B in Ontario are NOT the centre of the DB community. There are hundreds of teams in the lower divisions that are looking for a different experience than you are. These lower division teams enjoy the Lively events because: no one gets disqualified for having trouble at the starting line, or for being close to another lane. These teams dont care that the course is not exactly 500m and that a 2:07 at Welland is probably a 2:15 at Pickering. These teams (usually only after a few practices) are looking for a fun race weekend, and most likely have no idea who mayfair, Hydro, etc. are.

Personally, Id like to see the improvements mentioned by other posters, but you know what? The teams that consistently attend Lively events wouldnt even notice a difference. My advice is, if you dont like the event dont go?

Results have been taken down?

(Tech note: And who uses their landing page as a 404 handler?)

Anyone have the top five 250m results?

Did you guys see Old Skul'd 250m race? It was ridiculous.. they put all the girls in the engine room and all the guys at the front and back yet they still did pretty well. Looked pretty hideous with the guys trying to stretch out with no leg room but the girls looked damn sexy.

I think they came in 3rd place in the 250s too. hahaha.

Did anyone see Old Skul'd race the 2000m? I heard when everyone else was still doing there first 1000m, Old Skul'd was on there third! They did it paddling backwards and blind folded! Wow!!!!!

I can vouch for the blindfolds. I saw this. Although the person sitting in 5R did not have it covering both eyes. I think they should have had a time penalty for that.

Did anyone see Old Skul'd paddle their first round 500m race? They raced all their right side paddlers on the left and their left side paddlers on the right!!! Also, they lined up backwards with their strokes sitting in seat 10 and the "back-six" in the front. How innovative! I wouldn't have noticed except I saw all the right-handed paddles were being used on the left side of the boat. Then I paid attention and noticed that all the right side paddlers were using left-handed paddles...

Boy those Old Skulers sure are swell pranksters!

Did anyone see old skul'd second 500m. There was no one in the boat except for the cox! Perhaps if they had a few paddlers, they could have beat out GSK or Mojos.

Top 250m Times
1) 1:02.23 GSK FireDragons
2) 1:02.93 Paddlers Anonymous daBoat
3) 1:03.97 OHDBC Premier WOmen
4) 1:04.03 Old Skul'd
5) 1:04.60 Ronin Warriors

Top 500m Final Times
1) 2:04.17 GSK FireDragons
2) 2:04.20 Mojos
3) 2:04.23 Old Skul'd
4) 2:08.87 RBC Royal Dragons
5) 2:09.07 Paddlers Anonymous daBoat
6) 2:09.33 TD Twin Dragons
7) 2:09.77 OHDBC Premier Women
8) 2:10.03 Rye-D-Boat
9) 2:10.13 Ronin Warriors
10) 2:10.43 Raging Dragons

Let this thread die already...

I have been to numerous events worlds etc for the last 14 years. Back off on critizing the Lively events. They do a decent job and have been improving each year. We need the competition in organizing events. Most Festivals don't involve the top 20 or so teams but there are lots of teams that are a step or two below that level or maybe three steps but they make up the bulk of the dragon boat community and they are the heart of the sport. I was at Hamilton and it was was a fun event generally well run. So what if the gun malfunctioned after race 3,so what if the wind was up or down the sun shone everyone paddled hard and we judged ourselves as to how we did. Mind you the lack of a beer tent was a serious downer.
Mojos lost their head in the final,who knows how, and finished first.
Bearing Arms had the fasrest 250 meter time in 1.02 in the first race so I don't know where those other times that were posted came from. Bearing Arms won the overall 250 meter race final. I have no idea where the 2000 meter final times came from. I paddled with Bearing Arms in the final and while we were not passed and had a huge gap on team #2 there is no way our time was superior to Mojos. I love the 2000 race and Lively is the only one that consistently puts it in their festival. Cheers. Go Stratford.

Cheers to the previous post. I paddle for an A-level team but really like what BARC is doing for the Hamilton water front. Even though my club did not participate in this regatta, I would have gladly joined a community crew just to contribute to the cause.

Ramsay? That you?