Gaining experience out east

For the joint Howard S. Billings/Kanien’kehá:ka Tehontatie:nas Mohawk Wrestling Club (MWC) team, their trip to Windsor, Nova Scotia, for the Canada East Wrestling Festival was a learning opportunity for some of their newer wrestlers who had just joined the team after the New Year.

All four of their wrestlers - Devlyn O’Neil, Elliot Jones, Sienna McWhirter, and Titus Giesbrecht - had fourth-place finishes, and while MWC coach Peter Montour said he was happy with how they wrestled against new competition, results were not the team’s main priority.

“They did quite well, I was impressed. They were trying stuff. They were doing things that they didn’t normally do. They didn’t win all their matches, but we know we were in the fight as much as we could. The fact that they didn’t crumble under what little pressure there was, was impressive,” said Montour.

Instead, preparation for when they will eventually make it to the bigger tournaments, like Nationals - which had over 900 wrestlers this year - was the main concern for the coaching staff.

“When you walk on the arena floor and you see 10 mats on the floor, it’s an intimidation factor. It’s all about mental preparedness. When they do get up to those higher levels, they’re not intimidated,” said Montour.

“They’re prepared for what they’re getting into. And because they wrestled at Canada East, they’re not intimidated because there is somebody from Alberta. They can say ‘Don’t worry about it, it’s like when we wrestled the kid from PEI.’”

Montour hoped that the MWC would have been able to send more wrestlers, as well as see more wrestlers from the Greater Montreal Area make the trip to Nova Scotia, to help continue the growth of wrestling in the province.   

“These kids are the future. These kids are going to be the ones who are stepping up and maybe winning those medals at the Nationals or going off to the Canada Games in the future,” said Montour.

The goal of the tournament was also to have fun in a low-pressure environment.

Part of that was the activities done off the mat: a barbecue lunch served by the tournament organizers, a dance the evening after the second day, and a tour of the Halifax Harbour done as a team.

“That was pretty cool, because it’s near where they built the Canadian Armed Forces naval bases. They’ve seen the battleships in the harbour getting worked on,” said Montour.

Even the journey to and from Nova Scotia was a part of the learning process. A parent lent them a van, with four drivers taking turns to make the more than 12-hour voyage by car.

The team left last Friday at 3 a.m. and made it to the venue in the middle of the afternoon, in time to register and be weighed in before the next day’s matches.

“The kids learned how to travel. They’re not stopping to pee every 10 seconds. They’re learning when you stop to eat, how to eat properly rather than eating a Big Mac every time you stop, because you have to get on a scale and be weighed,” said Montour.

He said that the MWC could not have done the trip, or had the successful season that they had, without support from sponsors and from the wrestlers’ parents and other coaches.

“Without coaches and parents, we have no program,” said Montour.

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