SASKATOON’S BEST-KEPT SECRET RISES TO SURFACE
Water polo on rise thanks to a movement to raise sport’s profile across city and province
As your typical Saskatchewan boy, Leo Boutin spent years skating around on rinks across the city and province.
Last year, however, he and his hockey-playing brothers quickly warmed up to indoor pools and water polo.
When you think of sports in Saskatchewan, water polo doesn’t exactly come to the surface, yet the sport is quietly gaining popularity in places like Saskatoon, where a first-class facility like the Shaw Centre certainly helps by attracting provincial and national competitions to raise the profile and awareness.
While water polo is very much a best-kept secret in Saskatoon, there’s a movement to change that.
“Absolutely, it’s growing,” says Shaylin Pillay, head coach of the Saskatoon Water Polo Club.
“Our program itself in Saskatchewan is fairly strong. We’ve had national champions the last couple of years in the 16U and 19U categories.”
There’s a wide range of programs available, from development to high-performance and masters.
“It’s been steady for a couple of years now. It’s tough to get the word out about everything that’s going on, but we’ve really seen some growth and we’ve seen some involved parents, some really involved kids, and our kids are slowly being integrated into the Water Polo Saskatchewan team and making provincial teams and travelling. So that’s really good for growth in the sport in Saskatoon.”
The club recently held a winter provincials tournament at the Shaw Centre that attracted clubs from across Saskatchewan as well as Manitoba.
“It doesn’t hurt to practise in a facility as great as the Shaw Centre,” adds Pillay.
When you think of sports in Saskatchewan, you think first of hockey.
That was the case for Boutin and his brothers Luc and Ben. Their mom Jennifer (Parker) was raised in a hockey family and her brothers played in the Western Hockey League and Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League.
The Boutin boys have switched to water polo, from the frozen pond to the warmer waters. Bathing suits, tank tops and flip-flops are now the norm.
“Water polo’s my favourite sport,” says Boutin, a former summer speed swimmer with the Saskatoon Sharks.
“We don’t have to travel around as much. It’s just really fun playing with older kids, playing with kids your level, swimming almost all the time.”
Pillay says about a half-dozen Saskatoon athletes are on the provincial team radar, including Boutin.
“When I was playing water polo, Saskatoon would maybe have one or zero (provincial athletes), so now it’s really good to see, especially a lot of younger kids who are 12 and under, 14 and under who are continuing to play with us,” Pillay says.
“Leo Boutin is somebody who’s been training for the last couple of years that I’ve seen a lot of growth in. He’s used to be a hockey player and he decided to join water polo and he’s had a lot of success with it, and I can see a lot potential in him.
“The whole family has a lot of potential.”
Abi Fries is a Saskatoon-based masters water polo athlete at age 23. She began playing the sport in Regina.
Through water polo, she met her fiancé, Russell Lenferna of Weyburn, back when they were bantam-aged. They’ve been dating for nine years and are getting married in February.
“I loved water polo at the time,” Fries says. “I just got involved through school. There was a flyer and I thought, ‘That sounds like fun.’ I loved to swim as a kid. I joined and apparently they saw something in me and kept boosting me up in age group-wise. When I was 12, I was playing for U-16, U-18 and masters, even at the age of 12. I got scouted by the national team and played on a couple of junior national teams and now I’m back in Saskatoon playing in masters.”
The couple moved to Saskatoon five months ago and both joined the masters water polo program.
Saskatoon’s Ben Guest is a high-profile water polo athlete who began the sport at age 11. Guest has helped Saskatchewan win two gold medals and a bronze at the national championships.
He later made Team Canada for the 17-and-under Pan American championships in Peru, where Canada won bronze to qualify for the world championship in Hungary.
He has also competed internationally
in France and Italy.
Rachel Krieger, assistant administrator for Water Polo Saskatchewan, attended the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., for four years and played NCAA Division I water polo thanks to a scholarship.
“It was as close to a full ride as they’d give you,” says Krieger, 25, a native of Regina who obtained her health science degree and is now headed into a post-degree nursing program. “It’s an opportunity, for sure. It’s an option.
“I spent four years down there, soaked up the sun and only came home for short amount of time at Christmas and a few weeks during summer. Being in California was a great experience and a great opportunity.”
Krieger was recruited after playing for Canada’s senior national team.
“It’s not very well known, but in California, there’s a ton of opportunities, a lot of schools,” Krieger says. “It’s easy because they have the outdoor pools and they’re playing water polo all year round. It is easier for the women to get scholarships because of Title IX legislation. A lot of the big schools are giving out scholarships to the male athletes for football and basketball teams, so it’s a lot easier because they have to keep the same amount of scholarships for both male and female.”
Growing up, she tried a lot of sports, but water polo proved to be the best fit.
“Water polo is one that just stuck. Like a lot of other water polo players, we end up playing water polo just because we trip over our feet a bit on land. We’re not necessarily land mammals.”
Saskatoon twins Sierra and Skylar Hamel, 11, are years away from that sort of opportunity, but they both say they love water polo and prefer it to synchronized swimming.
“It’s really fun,” Sierra says. “Everyone’s really nice to you. There’s a really strong community. This is my first year doing water polo. I’ve done synchronized swimming since I was, like, five or six.”
Adds Skylar: “It’s fun and there’s lots of passing opportunities. And it’s a strong community and there’s lots of friends to hang out with. I like getting shooting opportunities and passing and scoring. It’s fun. Everybody’s so nice around here.”
Ethan D’souza — administrator for Water Polo Saskatchewan and one of the provincial coaches — moved to the province three years ago from British Columbia.
“Incrementally, the numbers are increasing over the last few years,” D’souza says. “It’s still not a super-well-known sport in Canada, but there are a lot of passionate people and a passionate community that is trying very hard. We see the numbers go up a little bit every year and hopefully it explodes soon.
“Everybody loves being part of a team and a community. The community here is really welcoming and it’s a very physical, team sport game and I think the kids like the physicality and the teamwork part of it more than anything else.”
While Regina leads the water polo pack in the province, other cities are trying to close the gap.
“Saskatoon is one of the smaller ones, but we’re hoping that with a centre like this and (the) facility, it’s one we really want to see do well and explode,” D’souza says. “We offer a lot of support from the provincial organization in terms of coaching and helping the athletes.”