Racquets up to Robert de la Riva who is drilling and demonstrating the ins and outs of squash to more than a dozen classmates at Sudbury's College-Notre Dame. Robert is one of 10 student leaders awarded a $500 bursary from Squash Ontario to prepare a one or more teams to compete in Jim Mason Cup high school team tournament this April in Toronto. The tournament is an OFSAA event for the first time this year.
Robert takes the teams to the nearby YMCA in Sudbury to help his teammates learn the finer points of the game.
"We have had 2 tryouts and 1 practice and are hoping to take 2 teams to the Jim Mason Cup in April. One Division 2 team which has some experienced players and one Division 3 team which is made up mostly of beginners.”
Robert is especially excited because his school is covering over 50% of the total costs to create a squash program. They practice at the 'Y' for 90 minutes, using two courts at a time where everyone involved is really excited to play!
THE VISION
Squash Ontario has launched Operation OFSAA (Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations) with the goal of having squash achieve full OFSAA status by 2022.
THE PURPOSE
This initiative will be the catalyst for the greatest participation increase in Squash Ontario history and will be a critical springboard to feed our existing programs and member clubs. Operation OFSAA aims to provide every high school student in the province with access to the sport of squash -- through their schools -- 2022. OFSAA currently oversees more than 650,000 high school student athletes competing across 41 sports. We are aiming to have squash achieve full OFSAA status by 2022, which will change the landscape of our sport. This is an ambitious project which will require us to more than double the number of schools currently participating, while also diversifying gender and regional representation.