Prairie Water Polo League

The Prairie Water Polo League had it’s beginning in the fall of 2009 when Bushido Head Coach Dave Hill spoke with Team Saskatchewan Provincial Coach Cyril Dorgigné about

possible ways to formalize the regional prairie competitions for their teams. The coaches had already worked together on cooperative 12U and 14U events and on High Performance exchanges with 16U and 18U teams. It made sense that a league for the older players could be used to bring the Saskatoon and Neptune clubs into the competition planning for the region as well.

Both coaches exchanged ideas about how this would work and a simple format was instantly acknowledged. Dave asked Cyril if he would mind putting the ideas down on paper to present to other teams and coaches. Being from Europe, and a former pro player, Cyril was very familiar with league competition formats so he was able to quickly develop a league template. This was presented to all the possible participants from Winnipeg, Regina and Saskatoon and there was agreement that this was a project to pursue as a group. Bushido and Saskatchewan were both running pilots of the Prairie League in 2009-10 but the interest will be much greater with a regional format.

Initially the league is planned to do two things; (i) prompt older players to stay involved (or return) to the game and (ii) provide a place for the competitive 18U teams from Bushido and Team Sask to play games complimenting the training they were doing to prepare for nationals each year. During the past 3 years these 18U teams have developed National Team members Breda Vosters, Shae Fournier (Bushido), Rachel Krieger (Regina), Brendan Domoney, Carson Domoney (Bushido), Russell Lenferna (Weyburn) and Drake Greschner (Regina).

In time we may be able to develop this regional event to become part of the national initiative called Major League Water Polo. This has expanded from Ontario and Quebec to include Alberta in 2010-11 and we are on the radar to join in years to come. We will only be able to do this well when we have the clubs with interest and can generate enough regional games.