This was the long anticipated weekend where the Hawks would join daWave and party it up in Montreal while bringing home the hardware! The much hyped up weekend lived up to every expectation!

Our transport to Montreal, was a Yellow school bus. As expected, the ride was especially bone jarring and twice as much so for those who had the misfortune of sitting on the wheels. However, in between attempting to sleep and getting to know a few new people, the bus ride there was an amazing time to get to know each other. I even played poker and won! I think new players have all the luck because we bet so randomly that no one can read our betting strategies. It helped that I had good cards.

We got to Montreal in good time, after about 5.5 hours, but spent about 1/2 hour going in circles trying to find our residence. It was on top of a big hill, a nemesis that we would have to face that friday night. We unloaded all our stuff and headed to our McGill residences. Most of us had single rooms, and only those with significant others shared those rooms. Tee and Ambrose, my neighbours, had a supprise visitor waiting for them in their room. Isn't it simply huge?

After getting somewhat settled in, we headed for our first night out in town. We went to this expensive restaurant called "Guido & Angelina". We even had some guests as Michelle's sister and the sister's boyfriend came to join us, as well as Jimmy, the "Godfather" of PA. I ordered a very tasty Grilled Salmon dinner at $20, and actually ate my spinach to fuel me up for the up coming races. This salmon steak was huge! About twice the size of most other salmon steaks you would get and well worth the $20.

Filling up on dinner, we then headed to sample a bit of Montreal night life with most of the crew. Our first stop was some random bar, where I ended up starting the night with five shots. We all sat down for about 1/2 hour at that bar, toasting PA.

Our next stop was some Hip Hop bar, where Jer and I stayed outside. We were denied entry because we happened to forget to move our pocket knives from our pouches into our bags and were unfortunately carrying it around with us that night.

We decided to find our own drinks while the rest of the crew ws in the clubs, but every where we went were restaurants or super expensive bars. So we headed back to the club and waiting outside for the crew. Fortunately, they just had a drink and headed back out as it was dead.

Next on the agenda was Juice. The name of the club sounded pretty good. However, when we got there, the place was rather empty, although free drinks for ladies until 12 was a good deal. Afterall, we were racing the next morning so we would not stay out that late would we. Would we? After some dancing, we then headed to the last stop on our agenda. The famed Tokyo bar.

This place was PACKED like Fed 101! We could hardly squeeze around the entire club, but we finally made it to the patio. This was a sweet place and I was looking forward to some dancing, although in a pretty packed area. Who knows, there might be hot french babes around! We all lined up at the bar for our shots, but 30 minutes later, we were still not dancing! The attractive price of $4.00 per shot was just too enticing. We ended up staying at the bar all night drinking shot after shot.

I also helped be Jeremy's wingman, and we met Sherry, Annie, Hannah and Caroline that night. Annie was studying french and Montreal and her friends from Toronto had come to visit her. We chilled with them most of the night and even Frankie and Bobby got in on the pick up action! Actually, I think one of them was Frankie's friends? At the end of the night however, Jer got cock blocked by some dude as he tried to dance with Sherry. We invited the rest to come watch us race the next day.

As we exited Tokyo, we toyed with the idea of taking the cab home. However, we were close enough to the residence and decided to walk home. It was a great night, and a fun walk home. However, as noted before, the big hill where our residence stood made the idea of walking home one that was regrettable.

In between walking, giberish and frequently stopping to huddle, we realized that only the hawks and Felix were left of the whole crew! Yes, us Hawks are hardcore paddlers, but also hard core partiers! Draping arms over shoulders, we marched up the hill in solidarity, occasionally having to call power serieses to overcome extra steep sections of the hill. Finally making it up, we had no problems with passing out.

6:45am. I hear the alarm ring and the knock on my door. Omg! I just went to bed! There is no way we had to be up already! However, the sad truth was that Montrealers were early birds. Heck, the races STARTED at 7:00a so we were lucky we had a late race at whatever time we raced at. As there was a long line up in the caf for our continental breakfast, I had to chug my giant doughnut, cereal, yogurt, honeydew and juice.

The site of the race was the old racing course that they had created for the Olympics in 1976 in Montreal. It was simply beautiful as the competitors got to camp out at the bleachers and watch the races from comfortable seating. The lanes we nice and wide and perfectly marked! Looking down the race course from the start line resembled that of a runway with perfectly aligned marker buoys. Even the weather over the two days was perfect! A lot of sun, yet a nice gentle breeze to keep us cool.

We paddled up to the start line as Paddlers Anonymous, no longer segregated as the Hawks, daBoat and daWave. This was a held start. Being one of the fairest ways to start, and being one of the fairest courses you could find, it was all up to us to work as a team to cross the finish line ahead of everyone else.

A stronger breeze had built up. Our cox asked the front three to draw. We hear an announcement in french. Suddenly, the horn sounds! Whoa! The race had started with no english instructions!

Furiously paddling, we pulled our starts, then our acceleration pieces. As we transitioned to race pace, I realized that the night's supply of alcohol and chugging my breakfast was not a pleasent feeling. I was having trouble bending over for the first 10 strokes. As the race progressed, I manged to coax my body into giving me the inches I needed and gradually lenghtened. I am sure the rest of the team was feeling the same. At the end of the 1st race, I was feeling a lot better physically, but our time was 2:30. Terrible as we were used to having times around 2:20.

We had some free time in between our two races, so we got to check out some of the festival that they had going. They had a huge food fair, some nice freebies as well as a cool ERG machine that had been modified to show where your power level was in our pull, as well as using a dragonboat paddle to pull.

Our second race was much better as we now went "ready ready" everytime we heard some french words from the starter or referee. We shaved a whole 4 seconds off our time, coming in at 2:26. Still, we came in 5th place at our races and the other teams we had to face the next day were pulling consistent 2:26's. That was ok, as I had faith that while the other teams were consistent at 2:26, we were consitently improving our time.

As a little aside, I was very impressed at the level of skill that the Montreal boats performed with. It would be interesting to see more Ontario vs. Quebec competitions. In fact, perhaps even a well represented all Canada championship with boats from all over the province.

Ending early, we then had our team BBQ and headed back to the residence for some down time before dinner.

I tried to take a nap, but after unsucessfully falling sleep for 20 mins, I realized that I was all the way in Montreal so why would I waste my trip sleeping? Since the girls wanted to go shopping, I volunteered to join them for a walk out in the city. Within a few minutes, what was supposed to be a shopping trip with 2 guys and four girls ended up being most of the team.

We went around the town, looking for bargains mostly in a store called Simons I believe. After that, hunger set in so we decided that instead of doing a team dinner that night, we'd just seek out famed Montreal poutine and smoked meat, then spend the night at Old Montreal chilling. Frankie directed us to Reubens and we had a great meal at a good price. We then somehow made it back up the hill to catch our bus ride into Old Montreal with the rest of the team.

Swearing not to drink that night, we ended up walking around Old Montreal while those who had not eaten filled up on their choice of fine Montreal Cusine. Our little Hawks group decided to get Ice cream so we went to Ben and Jerry's. Imagine the weirdest co-incidences when I ran into Patrick and Joanne in Montreal! I had just run into them at bubble tea in Mississauga a few weeks ago and now randomly at a Ben and Jerry's in Montreal. Small world. As much as we would have loved to go back and grab an early nap, the bunch of us Hawks decided instead to head to Casino Montreal!

Thanks to our three locals who took us around, we found our way to Casino Montreal where some of the Hawks won some good money for the 1hr we spent there. I was going to rule the roulette table but it required some attention and since I was in zombie mode, I decided against gambling.

At the end of the night, we discovered our race time for the next day. 7:45a. Too early to even grab breakfast!

5:45a on Sunday. KNOCK! Jeremy was making his rounds again giving us the wake up call. Too early, having slept for a total of about 7 hours since whenver I woke up on Thursday. Daymn these early bird Montrealers!

We made it to the race basin just in time to warm up and head into our 1st race.1/2 asleep, we all still managed to pull a time of 2:29. 3 seconds slower than yesterday, but with no food and no sleep, what could we expect. That was alright though as everything was on the final! Personally, I would have an issue going to a race outside of "home" and not bring back anything. I was determined to bring back hardware and so was the team!

In between races, we manged to fill up on curry fishballs, dumplings as well as other yummy food. I also go to watch the Men's race, as well as other Premier Division teams go out and paddle. That really inspired me. I hope Swordfish will be premier level next year. I have to count on 20 other paddlers to want it as badly as I do.

Final race. We were Lane 6, I suppose because we were the last seed of the B difision in Rookie class. Ready Ready, this time in English. The horn sounds. We're off! Pull long! Accelerate quick! Transition! We were right on the ball. Many races were tight as you can see from the pictures. However, as we approched the finish line, we were cheered on by our teammates who had walked around the basin to the other side! We could hear them and that really motivated us! We finished really strong! When we looked at the pictures, there was no one beside us. We dominated the race!

Final time: 2:19. Good enough to have won F division in Premier class even though we sucked the 1st day and ended up in Rookie class. While it was "good job" as always to the Hawks on this boat, it was really daWave paddlers that came through. For all daWave's accomplishments, many of them were still rookies and used to much slower times around 2:30. For them to pull their weight and join us for a 2:19 time, it shows how much they have matured in their inaugaral season.

Congratulations to Paddlers Anonymous! A job well done!