Outer Cove dominates again
Regatta champs go under nine minutes for second straight year at Quidi Vidi
The number wasn’t large. You’d have to been fairly close to actually read the ‘10’ on the back of the blue shirts worn by the men on the oars.
But its significance was not lost on those who knew the story of the brothers who row in the middle seats for the Outer Cove crew that successfully — and dominatingly — defended its men’s championship at the 2017 Royal St. John’s Regatta Wednesday evening at Quidi Vidi Lake.
James and Daniel Cadigan are accomplished athletes, accomplished young men in their own right, but they are also proud to be known as the Ronnie’s boys, the sons of Ron Cadigan who died at the age of 60 just seven weeks ago after a lengthy and determined battle with Multiple System Atrophy, a disease that attacks the nervous system.
Ron Cadigan rowed in the Regatta. In the mid 1980s, he was part of the Ron Brennansteered Logy Bay Garage team that won in Placentia. But he is most-remembered as the provincial hockey Hall of Famer who scored the Game 7, double overtime, shorthanded goal that gave the Shamrocks the 1979 Herder provincial championship, and as a five-time MVP of the Avalon East senior circuit with the Outer Cove Marines, for whom he wore No. 10.
“We wanted him to be a part of our day here … we knew he would be with us anyway, but we wanted him to be here in the boat with us,” said James Cadigan when asked about the number.
“He’s an Outer Cove-logy Bay guy. His best friend is (Outer Cove coach) Bert Hickey. He grew up around the sport and he brought us into it.
“People know him for hockey, but he loved this sport. He loved that we were so involved in rowing. Even in his last days, he would down at pondside in a car with my mom (Barb) or whoever would bring him down, just as long as it would mean he could watch us row.
“I know he was watching us again today, just from somewhere else.”
Outer Cove, whose lineup includes stroke oar Brent Hickey, Brent Payne, Mark Perry, Colin Stapleton, spare Craig Whittle and coxswain Mark Hayward, was the heavy favourite coming into Wednesday, with its championship pedigree and having outdistanced the opposition by nearly half a minute at the Regatta time trials.
They lived up to the reputation Wednesday, with a 39-second win in the men’s amateur race in the morning, then going under nine minutes with an 8:59.70 clocking in the championship dash, finishing about a dozen boat lengths in front of second-place Smith Stockley, which posted a 9:33.28.
Lamb’s Rum (9:44.69), NTV (10:05.11) and Carroll Investment (10:42,00) rounded out the field for day-closing race that, for all purposes, involved an undoubted champion and four runners-up.
“My heart is with the Cadigans, that’s for sure. Our hearts are with them,” said Hayward, who wore an Outer Cove Marines hockey sweater with a large 10 and the name ‘Cadigan.’
“I’ve been a with them since 2006 and (Ron) was always around right to the end, giving us the thumbs up, and you know, he was here again today.
“We got to that dead spot, the one that often comes in the third quarter of a race and I told the guys there are other people who we were rowing for besides us and our last quarter of the pond was maybe our fastest ever. We did it in about two minutes and five seconds. That’s unheard of.”
This is the second year of what is a three-year plan for the Outer Cove crew, which hopes to culminate its efforts with another
championship in 2018, the Regatta’s designated 200th anniversary.
There is much more than hopefulness and athletic talent involved. Starting Jan. 1, the crew worked six days a week, 90 minutes a day, pulling on
ergometers (rowing machines), running and/or weight training besides their on-the-pond practices.
It’s resulted in Outer Cove putting up sub nine-minute times in consecutive years, having posted an 8:58.20 in the
men’s amateur in 2016.
“Breaking nine minutes on any pond is a big accomplishment. Only six or seven crews have done it, and to do it in back-to-back years says something,” said Hayward.
Hayward won’t say it outright, but pretty much all that remains on the crew’s rowing bucket list for 2018, outside the obvious desire for yet another title in the 200th anniversary year, is a course record.
The coxswain, Brent Hickey (who has six Regatta titles to his credit) and James Cadigan (who has nine) know something about that. They were all part of the Bert Hickey-coached 2007 Crosbie Industrial Services team that set the course record of 8:51.29 in 2007.
“This crew has the ability to break a record, no doubt,” agreed Hayward. “But it goes without saying that you need a lot of things to come together: No errors in the techinical part of the race, you can’t lose an oar, you have to hit the turn properly and of course, you need Mother Nature to co-operate, which is something that is absolutely out of your control.
“And the goal is always to win and the record is secondary.
“But the ability to set a record? Oh yes, it is there.”