Championships
Championships
In early March, with Canada in the middle of the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and provinces being overwhelmed with new cases, Dwight Smith, president of the Canadian Trapshooting Association (CTA), called a meeting of the CTA board to discuss the 2021 Canadian Trapshooting Championships. The scheduled shoot hosted by the Edmonton Gun Club in Edmonton, Alberta did not look possible so the board would need to consider viable alternatives. During the meeting, CTA delegates were given time to review the current COVID-19 situation in their province. In short, public health and travel restrictions in all provinces would make a traditional one club shoot not possible. The CTA board unanimously decided that a telephonic or satellite shoot would be the best option to proceed with the Canadian Trapshooting Championships in 2021. This year’s shoot would take place June 25-27 and the program reduced to 700 targets from the usual 1000 target program. The CTA board had four months to prepare and organize this year’s satellite shoot - a relatively short amount of time considering the task at hand.
CTA board members who had some experience with satellite shoots knew that reporting scores from multiple sites would be one of the more challenging tasks. After reviewing options, the CTA board decided to develop a custom shoot management system that would handle this year’s satellite shoot and be configurable for future shoots. With the help of the CTA website developer, an online shoot management application, called the CTA Scoreboard, was designed and development began in late March. The CTA Scoreboard would have a section for CTA shoot administrators and a public facing section of the CTA Scoreboard would provide the ability to display event results, list and sort event scores in a tabular format and view the top scores through a rolling scoreboard type of display. The CTA Scoreboard would also have a mobile-friendly design, which is a necessity for any website these days.
By the end of March, the CTA delegates had a list of eleven confirmed satellite shoot host clubs from nine of the ten Canadian provinces:
The 2021 host clubs spanned the entire country from the east to west coasts. Clubs covered six time zones representing a four-and-a-half-hour time difference between the St. John’s Rod and Gun Club on the east coast to the Vancouver Gun Club on the west coast. Host clubs also varied in size from the larger trap clubs like Brandon and Hamilton with ten to twelve traps, to the mid-size Swift Current and St. John’s Gun Clubs with four traps, to the one trap clubs like Petitcodiac and Stephenville. One goal for this year’s shoot was to provide as many shooters as possible the opportunity to participate, so the CTA board did not restrict the shoot to larger clubs. The only requirement was that host clubs had to be ATA certified and have adequate resources and expertise to host a successful shoot as per ATA rules. That mindset worked and this year’s shoot had a record number of entries in all events.
The CTA board was making great progress with organizing this year’s shoot but by mid-May, it was becoming clear that the June 25-27 shoot date would not be possible. Some provinces were still reporting high daily COVID-19 infections and public health restrictions were still largely in place. The CTA board preferred to host on a date that would allow all provinces to participate so the shoot was rescheduled to August 6-8. Many provincial health authorities were releasing details of phased reopening plans and it was hopeful that this date would work.
As the shoot date approached, everything was in order. Provincial public health restrictions eased, host clubs were ready, CTA delegates were working with host clubs and the CTA Scoreboard was fully tested and ready for use.
The Andrea Bassan Singles started off this year’s shoot with 293 entries. Manitoba shooters Pat Lamont and Richie Joynt and Ontario shooter John Costa posted 100s. There were also 10-99s and 20-98s. Carryovers were necessary to decide AA, A and B Class Champions. Pat Lamont took AA, fellow Manitoba shooter Katie Jones took A Class and Saskatchewan’s Dale Shackleton claimed B Class. Stephen White from Ontario took C Class while Quebec shooter Victor Wade claimed D Class.
The Rod Boll Handicap was the second event of the shoot with 278 entries. Pat and Rob Lamont tied with 99s for top honours and decided to finalize the outcome during the main Handicap event. Pat bested Rob 24-22 to claim event Champion. Dan Best from Ontario posted a 98 to claim third place while Marco Cannizzaro shot a 97 to claim fourth place. Frank Good of Alberta claimed fifth place after a shootoff with 3 other shooters. Shootoffs for this event required shoot management to keep an eye on scores and instruct shooters to bank shootoff targets as needed. The concept seemed a little overwhelming at first, but with a little guidance from those experienced with satellite shoots everything worked out fine. Basically, shooters are sent out to shoot shoot-off targets in advance of the event being finalized. This is partly done to eliminate concurrent shoot-offs that may not be practical when a large time difference exists between clubs.
The Dan Gris Doubles concluded the preliminary day events with 243 entries. Saskatchewan’s Kahl Boll posted the lone 100 to take AA honours. Christos Tsementzis of Ontario claimed A Class with a 99 while Quebec’s Saleh Chartouni won B Class with a 96. Saskatchewan shooters Brian Bebeau and David Williams tied with 92s, with Bebeau winning C Class after the carry over scores were recorded. Manitoba’s Dwain Mushumanski won D Class.
Ontario Junior Gold shooter Christos Tsementzis posted his first career and the only 200 straight in Event 4 to claim the Canadian Singles Championship. Kahl Boll and Pat Lamont tied with 199s. Boll claimed Runner-up while Lamont took the Open Champion Award. The Class awards had great representation from nearly all Canadian provinces. Quebec’s Sylvain Rossignol took AA honours and Manitoba’s Dallas George took A Class. Ontario’s Darrell Faber won B Class, Saskatchewan’s Derek Petkau took C Class and British Columbia’s Dusan Remias won D Class.
Ontario shooters dominated the category trophies in the Canadian Singles Championships. Dianne Wood won Lady II, Andrew Monck claimed Sub Junior and Dan Gris, Lloyd Beecraft and Keith Saunders wrapped up the Sub Veteran, Veteran and Senior Veteran categories. Brad Mewhinney claimed the Chair category. Manitoba’s Katie Jones claimed the Lady I title, Saskatchewan’s Logan King claimed Junior Gold and Quebec’s Ricky Egeileh won Junior.
Dan Boudreau recorded his first 50 straight at the Petitcodiac Sportsman’s Club in Petitcodiac, New Brunswick during the Singles Championship event. Dan started shooting ATA registered targets in 2019 and this shoot was his first time shooting the Canadian Championships. As expected, Dan’s hat fell victim to a long standing tradition that follows when a shooter achieves a shooting milestone.
The Saskatchewan Trapshooting Association traditionally hosts a soiree and potluck supper after the completion of the Canadian Singles Championship event. This year was no different and CTA President Dwight Smith, Kahl Boll, Dave “Tiger” Williams, John Nuttall and the rest of the shooters at the Swift Current Trap Club welcomed everyone to celebrate with them.
Manitoba’s Pat Lamont posted the lone 100 in the Canadian Doubles Championships to claim his ninth Canadian Doubles title. Quebec’s Sylvain Rossignol won Runner-up and Kahl Boll of Saskatchewan took Open Champion after tying and defeating Ontario’s Paulo Sampaio in a shootoff. Sampaio took AA Class Closed while fellow Ontario shooter Frank Bonaiuto took AA Class Open in a five way shoot-off. Shoot-offs were also need to decide the Lady I and II categories. In a three way shoot-off, Atlantic Provinces shooter Janaya Nickerson claimed Lady I over Ontario’s Lisa Bennett and Manitoba’s Katie Jones. Ontario’s Joanne Pollock and Dianne Wood tied in the Lady II category, with Pollock winning in one extra round.
Clarence Durr of Saskatchewan posted a near perfect score of 99/100 to win the Canadian Handicap Championship. Ontario shooters Brad Kohlsmith and Derek Scrimshaw claimed Runner-up and Open Champion after 97s in the main event and one shoot-off round. Manitoba’s Pat Lamont claimed third place while a shoot-off between Ontario’s Christos Tsementzis , Manitoba’s Richie Joynt and Ontario’s James Cadigan settled fourth to sixth places.
Pat Lamont of Manitoba won both the High All Around and High Over All with a 395/400 and 690/700.
It was definitely a team effort to make this year’s shoot a success. The CTA board were present at clubs offering assistance when needed, the CTA shoot administrators had the “command centre” up and running at the St. John’s Rod and Gun Club for the duration of the shoot and all host clubs had a core group of volunteers ready to ensure things went according to schedule. The CTA Scoreboard worked as designed and not only provided shooters easy access to the scores and standings for each event in real time, but also provided shoot administrators and local shoot committees the information needed to determine shooters who needed to start banking targets for any possible shoot-offs and subsequently the event winners. At the completion of each event, a few quick phone calls, texts or emails between the main shoot coordinators were all that was needed to compile the event results.
Although a satellite shoot format made this year’s event possible, it is safe to say that most shooters would prefer a traditional one club shoot. The comradery, social interaction and experience of being together is something that most of us look forward to. The 2022 Canadian Trapshooting Championships will return to Alberta and will be hosted at the Calgary Firearms Centre June 29-July 3, 2022.
Complete event scores and results are available by viewing the CTA Scoreboard. A complete listing of all events is also available.
CTA 2021 Complete Winners List