For the second year running, the Boys’ team won both CISAA and OFSAA Gold medals, while the Girls’ team won Silver at CISAA and placed 4th at OFSAA.
“Our 15-member Co-Ed team had an outstanding season,” explained Coach Catie Ferguson. “The camaraderie and level of support the team showed one another was fantastic and well reflected in their results.”
Grade 12 student, Cole Walker, has been a member of the team since Grade 9 and won an individual Gold at both OFSAA and CISAA this year for U20 Boys’ Giant Slalom. As this year’s team MVP and MIP last year, he has watched the team evolve over the years, not only in numbers but skill level.
Cole has been skiing most of his life and only segued to snowboarding in his early teens. It wasn’t until his first year with the CDS team that he started competing, and while he remembers qualifying for OFSAA four years ago, he also recalls coming in almost “dead last” (106th place).
Fortunately, this did not deter him, rather it motivated Cole to try harder each subsequent year, qualifying and finishing 30th in Grade 10, 7th in Grade 11, and 1st place this year.
“As soon as I pulled out of the gate, all of the pressure was stripped away,” recalled Cole of his OFSAA race. “It’s extremely stressful waiting. I could hear the crowd and my teammates cheering. But then once I left the gate, I only focussed on what was ahead. When it was over, I knew it was a very special run, perhaps one of the best runs of my snowboarding career.”
As one of the first snowboarders to compete on race day, Cole could have stayed at the bottom of the hill to watch the competition and await final results. Instead, he took the chairlift back up to cheer on his four other teammates.
It was a total team effort. They worked incredibly hard to capture gold again this year, and we are so proud of all of them!
