Local sports stories that earned a medal in our books this year
OKANAGAN TOP 10
Each weekday, The Kelowna Daily Courier and Penticton Herald are both counting down the year’s top local news stories.
One or two sports stories are going to show up on the lists between now and Jan. 2, but we felt there were so many amazing Okanagan sports stories over the past 12 months, it deserved a special category.
Here are the choices our staff made of the 10 biggest sports stories of 2018.
1. Kelsey Serwa
One of Kelowna’s very own caught the world’s attention in February when she won a gold medal at the PyeongChang Winter Games in South Korea.
Kelsey Serwa captured gold in the ski cross women’s final, while fellow Canadian Brittany Phelan of Mont-Tremblant, Que., earned silver.
This was the second Olympic medal for Serwa, who won silver in Sochi four years ago.
“Our skis were rockets today,” Serwa said following her win in South Korea. “I had a plan and executed it, and was so fired up. And to be there with my teammate and best friend Britt too. It is very cool. It is very surreal to be the best in the world at something you put your heart into.”
2. Justin Kripps
The former track star turned bobsledder teamed up with brakeman Alexander Kopacz of London, Ont. to win a gold medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics in two-man bobsleigh event, finishing in a dead tie with the German team of Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis.
The son of UNICEF workers, Kripps divided his childhood between Hawaii and Summerland, where he was a star athlete for Summerland Secondary School.
“I stayed calm throughout the whole thing and focused on my runs. I’ve been working on my mental game since I started driving and coincidentally Pierre Lueders taught me how to drive, which is interesting because he tied for a gold medal 20 years ago. It was just an amazing race,” Kripps told The Canadian Press moments after winning gold.
He was the grand marshall for the Peachfest parade in Penticton and returned to his alma matter at SSS where he spoke with students. The District of Summerland placed “Home of Justin Kripps” on its “Welcome to Summerland” sign, just weeks after the Olympics.
3. Taylor Ruck
Kelowna’s teenage swimming sensation Taylor Ruck is the real deal in the pool.
Ruck, 18, won a Canadian record five medals in August at the Pan Pacific
Swimming Championships in Toyko. She could be a podium favourite at the 2020 Olympic Summer Games, also to be held in Toyko.
“This sets my expectations higher,” Ruck said. “I just love Japan and hopefully I’ll be able to come back here in two years.”
She won a gold medal in the women’s 200 metre freestyle, a silver in the 200-metre backstroke, and bronzes in the 100 metre freestyle, 4x100 and 4x200 free relays.
Ruck also won eight medals at the Commonwealth Games in April.
4. Memorial Cup bid
In terms of economic impact, Kelowna has already won the 2020 Memorial Cup junior hockey championship.
As the host team, the Rockets are guaranteed to be in the four-team round robin final. But the financial boost associated with the 10-day tournament is pegged at $12 million.
Kelowna was chosen over rivals Kamloops and Lethbridge to host the Memorial Cup in a vote by the Western Hockey League board of governors in early October.
“Our bid committee did a spectacular job,” Rockets owner Bruce Hamilton said after the decision was announced.
“In some ways, Kelowna sells itself as a great city to host anything, but we still had to go in there and give a great presentation.”
To help host the event, the City of Kelowna will contribute $250,000.
Kelowna hosted the Memorial Cup in 2004, when the Rockets won the championship game.
5. Dube, Foote golden
It was a storied January 2018 for then Kelowna Rockets assistant captain Dillon Dube.
He became the first Kelowna Rockets player to be named captain of a Canadian World Junior team. That team went on to
win gold at the International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championships in Buffalo, NY. Dube scored the first goal of the gold-medal game against Sweden, which Canada went on to win 3-1. Dube racked up three goals and two assists during the tournament in Buffalo. He’s now playing for the Calgary Flames’ American Hockey League affiliate, the Stockton Heat.
Then Kelowna Rockets captain Cal Foote was also on Team Canada and finished with three assists in the tournament.
6. Jonny Tychonick
Jonny Tychonick, a defenceman from Calgary who spent two seasons with the BCHL’s Penticton Vees, was the top NHL draft pick from Okanagan-based junior hockey teams in 2018 — selected in the second round, 48th overall, by the Ottawa Senators. Tychonick is now a freshman for the NCAA’s University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks.
Two members of the BCHL’s Vernon Vipers were also drafted in 2018, with forward Brett Stapley (190th to Montreal) and goaltender Ty Taylor (214th to Tampa Bay) both taken in the seventh and final round. The WHL’s Kelowna Rockets and BCHL’s West Kelowna Warriors did not have any players picked in the 2018 NHL draft.
7. Warriors off-ice drama
The West Kelowna Warriors grabbed a lot of attention at the start of the hockey season before the first puck was even dropped.
First, Rylan Ferster, the most successful coach in the history of the team, suddenly quit one day before the season began.
“It was just the right time for me to leave,” Ferster said cryptically, declining to elaborate on the reasons for his departure.
Then, in early September, his successor, Geoff Grimwood, was fired by team owner Kim Dobranski.
That sparked a defiant walkout by players in support of the popular Grimwood.
Their unusual protest worked, when Grimwood was re-instated.
“I failed to consider the emotional turmoil this could cause for these young men,” Dobranski said.
Grimwood himself was later suspended by Dobranski for one game following his actions on the bench in a game against Wenatchee.
8. Scottie’s/World Mixed
The Okanagan played host to two of curling’s biggest contests in 2018.
In late January and early February, the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, saw the country’s 16 best women’s curling teams chase the Canadian championship at Penticton’s South Okanagan Events Centre. Jennifer Jones’ team from Winnipeg won and also went on to win at the World Women’s Curling Championship in North Bay, Ont. in March.
In October, teams from 35 countries descended on the Kelowna Curling Club for the World Mixed Curling Championships. The foursome from Thornhill, Ont., representing Canada, ended up winning in a 6-2 final over Spain.
9. Emily Young
Emily Young, who moved to the Okanagan in 2015, made a name for herself as a Kelowna resident by winning two medals at the 2018 Paralympics in South Korea in the sport of women’s biathlon.
Young captured silver in the 4-x-2.5 mixed relay and claimed bronze in the standing 7.5-kilometre race, finishing just two seconds behind the winner in the latter event.
Young, who trains primarily at Telemark Nordic in West Kelowna with coach Adam Elliot, has an interesting background as an accomplished high school wrestler in the Lower Mainland and a former Penticton Ironman age-class winner. She suffered a severe right arm injury while training for wrestling and eventually shifted her sporting focus to biathlon.
10. High schools
It was a great year for high school sports up and down the valley.
Kelowna Secondary School won provincial championships in senior girl’s basketball, senior girl’s volleyball and junior varsity football. Mount Boucherie in West Kelowna struck gold in Grade 9 girl’s volleyball at the provincial level. In Vernon, the senior football team won the provincial AA championship. In Penticton, the boy’s curling and girl’s swimming teams were provincial champions. Individually, Taryn O’Neill from George Elliott was a provincial gold medalist in the 1,500 and 3,000 meter events and Vanessa Caverly from PenHi won the provincial rodeo all-around girls title. Several of these titles were “firsts” in school history.