It’s a Monday afternoon practice for the St. Thomas Tommies, and after a two-day break, the dressing room is buzzing when a young man enters the room with a gear bag over his shoulder. He sits down quietly and starts to dress. Players wonder who is he or what he is doing here, but they go over and introduce themselves. He’s Kazuki Ota, a Japa-nese native chasing the Canadian dream.

It was a power-skating practice. And the team got to witness Ota’s love for the game. With every fall, he picks himself up off the ice and starts again. Never giving up or quitting, he faces every new chal-lenge head on. With little English, the smile on his face throughout the practice is all the communica-tion that’s need.

The 22 year old from Sapporo is in Fredericton on a student exchange to help him learn English, but if you ask him why he is “really” here, the answer is much different.

“The real reason I came to St. Thomas wasn’t to study or learn culture; the only reason is to play and learn hockey,” Ota says with a smile.

Sapporo is anything but a hockey hot bed and his love for the game only started four years ago after a field trip to a local rink with a friend. It was love at first sight.

“I had never skated before, but I watched the hockey then decided to join the hockey team. I re-ally, really love hockey’s speed, so my goal is to be the fastest skater in the world.” When Ota speaks, his broad smile never goes away, like his hockey hero, Alexander Ovechkin.

As the pace of practice picks up, Ota’s lack of ex-perience starts to show but that doesn’t stop him. Every battle for a puck, every pass, every shot on goal: he gives it everything. The players notice right away.

“It’s obvious he loves the game,” says Randy Cameron, a third-year forward. “It takes real cour-age and guts to come out here and leave it all on the ice. Watching him really motivates me to be a better player.”

Second-year forward Steven Sanza believes his practice was better because of Ota’s presence on the ice.

“His work ethic and passion is contagious, he never gives up on any puck or on any drill. He makes me not only want to improve as a player but as a person too.”

As practice winds down, Ota gets his chance to shine. The puck’s in front of the net with the goalie out of position; it’s calling his name. Before the goal-ie can get back, Ota slides the puck just inside the post. What happened next will forever be ingrained in the minds of the players on the ice.

Ota’s arms go up in the air in triumph and be-fore he can put his arms back down, his teammates swarm and smother him as if he’s Paul Henderson in the final game of the Summit Series.

After two practices, it’s clear that Ota isn’t quite ready for university hockey, but he didn’t pack up his gear without leaving a lasting impression in the locker room – an impression head coach Troy Ryan noticed early.

“It’s still just a game,” says Ryan. “Sometimes our players take it for granted. When you see a guy like

Ota who just loves to play, it puts things in perspec-tive and rubs off positively on the players.”

So what’s the next chapter in Ota’s hockey story? One thing is certain: it isn’t over. He travelled all this way to learn the Canadian game.

“I am very sad that I won’t be playing, but I will keep training on and off the ice and learning the game and wait for my next chance to play hockey.”

Chris Morehouse is a forward with the St. Thom-as Tommies hockey team.

Chris MorehouseThe Aquinian

Japanese walk-on leaves Tommies with renewed passion for the Canadian game

From Sapporo with love

Kazuki Ota tried out for the men’s hockey team. He was eventually cut but he brought a renewed passion to the game that rubbed off the team. (Chris Morehouse/AQ)

The real reason I came to St. Thomas wasn’t to study or learn culture; the only reason is to play and learn hockey - Kazuki Ota

If you’re missing the hard hits of the NHL preseason, look no further than your local women’s flat track roller derby league. In their third season of play, the Atlantic teams of the Roller Derby Association of Canada are at last got their chance to compete on a national level last weekend at Slay of Fundy, in St. John.

Roller derby is growing at an ex-ponential rate all over Canada and the US and it’s not just a sport for these women, it’s a lifestyle. Women leave their lives every night to enter a world of hard hits, bruises, and bloody noses. Transformations happen and the most reserved woman become a monster on the track.

What you need to know about roll-er derby is that it’s a race around an oval track between two players called jammers and four additional players from each team known as blockers working to knock them on their ass. Points are scored for each player on the opposing team the jammer laps. The blockers move as a pack around the track blockers the opposing jam-mer and helping their own.

This is where is gets rough, and I mean that literally. Roller derby is a full contact sport at a high speed.

The blockers use any legal means pos-sible to knock the other jammer on her ass and off the track. More often than not, players find themselves in the penalty box for elbowing, trip-ping, or direct hits to the back. Imag-ine hockey with less padding and a ce-ment playing surface. Do we sound crazy yet?

To channel the badass within, the women play under an alias known as a “derby name”. To them, their derby name is just as important as their skills on the track and the number on their back. The names hide who they are off the track, and keep their rough ap-pearances up during the game.

In Moncton a quiet librarian skates under the name Decepticat, while a government lawyer in Fredericton plays as Loose ‘n’ Lawless. These names are registered on an interna-tional roster, which assures the pro-tection of the name for the length of your career.

The sport got its start in Atlantic Canada three years ago. Three friends on a couch thought the city of Saint John needed a little more action and, thanks to the movie Whip It, they had the answer. Roller derby isn’t a hard sport to set up if you have the right tools, but getting the interest in a small city took some work.

Slay of Fundy is the first Atlantic

regional roller derby championship of its kind, bringing together 6 teams from the four provinces. Over 120 skaters hit the track from September 21st to 23rd in Saint John to compete for the chance to play at the RDAC Championships this winter.

The weekend started with a disco skate for all visiting players. The night was full of laughter, smiles and the last carefree hours before the rough competition to come. Although the derby community is close knit in the Maritimes, there are fierce rivalries between many of the teams.

Moncton ‘s Lumbersmacks and Saint John’s Shipyard Sirens went head to head twice during the tour-nament to settle a season long bat-tle for the top spot. The closest game of their season was won by a single point, and second game in multiple overtimes. Their first bout of the tour-nament saw the Shipyard Sirens lose to the Lumbersmacks by three points after an action packed game. In the end the Lumbersmacks came out the champions beating the Shipyard Sirens a second time with a final score of 227-174.

Fredericton’s Capital City Rollers were represented at Slay of Fundy by their travel team The Daisy Cutters, and faced off against Halifax and The Jam Jams from Saint John’s. Having

taken the regular season off to train new players and heal old injuries, the team went into the tournament with no expectations. After losing their first game to The Jam Jams Saturday af-ternoon 198-150, they came back to win against Halifax 236-149 despite the odds of a cancelled season being against them.

Their final game of the tournament was a rematch against the Jam Jams. The Fredericton ladies lost the battle for 3rd place in what was the closest game of the tournament. Tied at 161 with The Jam Jams at the end of the game, the ladies lost by 4 points in overtime.

The weekend was action packed and brought out the largest crowds a derby game in Saint John has ever seen. Organizers are hoping for even bigger crowds next season now that the city knows what the sport has to offer.

Forget about hockey for the season and check out how hard these girls can hit. You can catch Fredericton’s Daisy Cutters in action next month against Halifax Roller Derby Associa-tion, and . The “Brawlroom Blitz” will host 4 teams in a double header on October 20th at the FREX. The ladies of roller derby can take a hit better than any hockey player I’ve ever seen.

Stefanie Boucher-BouchardThe Aquinian

Stefanie Boucher-Bouchard (aka Tessa Virtuous) takes the AQ deep into the realm of roller derby

Atlantic Canada’s newest rough and tumble subculture shines

Roller derby is rougher than you think (Submitted)