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Jon Kuiperij Sports Editor sports@oakvillebeaver.com Sports I N F O R C A N A D A 13 | Friday, August 8, 2014 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | www.insideHALTON.com "Connected to your Community" C Z E C H I N G Burloak canoeist hopes to lead sport into Olympics By Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver staff Oakville's Matt Spencer was named to the Canadian under-18 hockey team that will play in the Ivan Hlinka Tournament. The former Oakville Rangers midget captain had a goal and 14 assists in 64 games in his with the Peterborough Petes, who picked him third overall in the Ontario Hockey League draft. He added four more assists in 11 playoff games. The tournament will be held in Breclav, Czech Republic and Piestany, Slovakia Aug. 11-16. Canada has won the annual under-18 summer tournament each of the last six years and begins play Aug. 11 against Switzerland. | photo by Aaron Bell-- OHL Images Hinchcliffe returns to podium at Mid-Ohio James Hinchcliffe earned his first podium finish of the season, taking third place at the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Sunday. The Oakville driver qualified 17th for the IndyCar race but moved all the way up to sixth on the opening lap of the race. The jump came as the result of a daring move as he passed several cars, driving up the middle of the track between the two rows of cars in front of him. Then in turn four, he managed to avoid the car of Tony Kanaan, which spun around in the middle of the track. Other cars had to take evasive action, driving on to the infield or were caught up in the crash, allowing Hinchcliffe to gain more positions. "Obviously, it was nice to finally get a break in the United Fiber and Data car and get on the podium," he told NBCSN afterwards. "This start was manic, man. I kinda went down into [Turn] 4 there and the seas kind of parted before me. "I feel bad for the guys that got involved in that wreck, but obviously it opened a door for us and we were able to take advantage." Hinchcliffe made up further ground on his final pitstop of the day, allowing him to improve on his season-best fifth-place finishes in Detroit and Houston. It was his first podium since Oct. 5 of last year in Houston, a stretch of 15 races. Despite the podium finish, Hinchcliffe remains 12th in the driver standings with 366 points. Three races remain on the schedule, the next in Milwaukee Aug. 17. Every year, Grade 11 students at St. Mildred's-Lightbourn School condense their studies allowing them to pursue something in their field of interest for a month. Looking to chart their futures, some students do job shadows, others volunteer for charitable organizations. Jillian Perrone didn't stray too far from home. She took advantage of the time to get a taste of the life of an elite-level athlete, training full-time at the Burloak Canoe Club, where she was introduced to the sport of paddling. Perrone had been inspired to try the sport after watching the Athens Olympics in 2004. Prior to the Games, her mom had told her to watch and see if there was a sport she would like to try. Then Adam van Koeverden, who trained just kilometres from her home in Oakville, paddled his kayak to a gold medal. Perrone made her decision. She enrolled in beginner's paddling program at Burloak but soon realized kayaking wasn't as easy as van Koeverden made it look. It required incredible balance and her introduction felt more like a dunk tank than what she had seen on TV . "When you first start, you spend more time in water," she said. "As soon as you start to lose your balance, you're over." Fortunately, Burloak always makes sure to introduce prospective paddlers to both disciplines. Canoeing was much more of what Perrone had envisioned. "In a canoe, you sit higher up and the stroke looked more elegant," she said. "I started to gravitate toward it." That led to the ultimate irony: inspired by the Olympics, Perrone ended up choosing a non-Olympic sport. The campaign to include women's canoeing in the Olympics has been gathering steam. It took an important step when it was added to the world championship roster in 2010. The argument against it is that not enough countries compete and the level of competition is not high enough. The problem is that until it becomes an Olympic event, countries won't invest in it. "There something to be said for (females) choosing canoeing," said Burloak head coach Adam Oldershaw. "You know they're doing it because they love it." Without any guarantee that it will become an Olympic sport, Perrone has pursued her sport to the highest level. She won five medals (four silver and one bronze) at the 2012 Ontario Summer Games and a gold and silver the following year at the Canada Sum- Jillian Perrone of the Burloak Canoe Club will represent Canada at the Pan American Sprint Canoe Championships Sept. 4-7 in Mexico. | photo by Eric Riehl-- Oakville Beaver mer Games. At the national championships last year she won Canadian titles. Now Perrone has a new opportunity ahead of her as she prepares to represent her country at the Pan American Sprint Canoe Championships in Mexico City, Sept. 4-7. "I can not be more excited," Perrone said of her first international competition. "There's nothing like it. It's on a whole different level." Perrone got her first taste of international competition earlier this month at the Lake Placid International Regetta, where she teamed up with Jessica MacDonald to win the under-18 C2 500-metre race as well as three silvers. Oldershaw said the goal for Perrone is not just beating those in her own age group, but closing the gap between herself and the top paddlers in Canada. He said her willingness to do the work has never been a question and that will be necessary in a sport that is progressing quickly. "It's a young, growing discipline," he said. "You have to have a willingness not just to compare yourself to the person next you, but to everyone, because the level (the sport) is at today is not the level it is going to be in six months." Perrone will take on that challenge with the hope that one day women's canoe will be added to the Olympics. "Especially when I was younger, I wanted to go to the Olympics," she said. "It's still a dream of mine. (Women's canoe) is so close. It's getting the right publicity. It's not going to happen for Rio but 2020 would be a good year for me."