Darts carrying Niagara teens to Quebec
Grade 12 students qualify for Canadian dart championships
There is a point to darts, and right now the sport is pointing Hannah Ellis and Emma Plamondon directly toward Saint-Hyacinthe, Que., the next bull’s-eye in their competitive careers.
An hour east of Montreal, the city of about 60,000 is where the two 17-year-olds from St. Catharines will be representing Ontario at the 2024 Youth National Championships. Ellis — a Grade 12 student at Governor Simcoe Secondary School — and Plamondon — in Grade 12 at St. Catharines Collegiate — qualified for the Canadian championships, set to take place May 16-19, following top finishes at provincials in Guelph.
“Emma and I came out first, so we didn’t have to play each other, but we had to play two other girls in senior to be able to get on stage and go to nationals,” said Ellis, who is going to her first Canadian championship while Plamondon is back for a third time.
Their success in qualifying against the top girls 19 and younger in the province hardly happened overnight, however.
Ellis and Plamondon became involved in darts about 10 years ago, both at the urging of family members. Jamie Ellis introduced his daughter to the sport while an aunt and a cousin invited Plamondon to try her hand at darts.
“He used to play in junior and he grew a love for the game, and he played all the time,” Ellis said. “He quit for a little bit and when I was a kid, he signed me up for this. “I’ve been playing ever since.” There was no turning back for Plamondon once she began finding out all that the sport had to offer her.
“I like how competitive it is, how fun it is and how many people you can meet while playing.”
Technique is “pretty important” in darts and something Plamondon has worked on regularly over the years.
“I haven’t got injured, but I have had ‘dartistis’ before—it’s where you can’t release your dart,” she said. “If you try and throw it, it won’t go where you want it to go.
“I changed my throw to prevent it.”
Ellis dismisses suggestions that rather than being a sport, darts is a pastime spent primarily in pubs.
“I’ve never really had that question before but, honestly, if I think it’s fun then I don’t really care what anybody else thinks.”
However, she doesn’t consider darts a sport.
“When I think of a sport, I think of physically difficult things. This is more a mentally difficult thing,” Ellis said. “When you’re playing, you’re playing against your opponent and basically it’s a race who can get down to the double first.”
She said dart players need to break through “that block” when a game is on the line.
“If you can’t hit a double, then you’re not going to be able to win a game. That’s where the hard part of darts comes in.”
‘They have to embrace it’
Debbie Burch, regional director for the Western Ontario Dart Association (WODA) adult and youth programs in Niagara, has been involved in darts for 40 years, including about 30 working with youth.
Aside from the joy of competing, the satisfaction she receives from mentoring young players keeps her coming back.
“What keeps us going with the kids is watching them excel, and trying to instil everything we’ve learned over the years as far as sportsmanship, competition and setting goals and achieving those goals,” she said.
“It serves them well in life.” Scoring in darts is all about numbers — a lot of numbers that, except for rare occasions, are not tracked automatically. Players have to update running totals of their score in their heads every time they throw their three darts in a turn.
“We teach math, we teach oldschool math. The young ones play with the older ones, it’s all about mentorship,” Burch said. “We teach that. We teach the older kids to mentor the young kids.
“We can do all the coaching we want, but they have to want to want it. They have to embrace it.”
Burch regards darts as a sport because there is training involved, “you have to know when to eat, you have to keep hydrated, you have to know when to practise, when to take a break.
“So it is a sport. We’re trying to get recognized as a sport,” she said. “I don’t play in leagues around bars — I haven’t for years — but I still play competitively all over North Amer
ica in three-day tournaments.”
How does Burch respond to people who insist the only purpose of darts is to work up a thirst?
“Well, for one thing, I say, ‘Come out and watch the kids.’ Watch them do the match, watch them mentor each other, watch their sportsmanship, watch how they are competitive and setting goals.”
Burch speaks from decades of experience when she breaks down darts as 50 per cent mental, 50 per cent physical.
“You have to have those physical aspects because you have to have the strength to throw the dart, the strength to stand there at a competition for four or five hours,” she said. “You have to be able to practise, so that’s also physical.”
How is darts mentally challenging?
“You have to be able to block things out, we have to be able to just focus on what you’re doing in that moment and leave everything else behind,” she said. “That’s not always easy when there are a lot of people watching you, a lot of games going on.”
Burch said if players are not careful, their pace can be dictated by their opponents
“They can pull you into a pace you’re not comfortable with. I’ve played fast players, and that doesn’t work well for me,” she said. “You’ve got to be able to keep your own pace, concentration and not worry about what the other person is doing.”
Burch rarely watches her opponent throw.
“I watch the score because I need to know if an error’s been made, but I very rarely watch them.”
In WODA, there are 150 participants in the youth category (for those 19 and younger), including about 15 in Niagara Youth Darts. Adults in Niagara number between 50 and 60; in WODA, it’s around 500.
They play out of Canada Corps Unit 44 in Thorold, as well as Branch 138 of the Royal Canadian Legion in Merritton.