{"id":282,"date":"2017-04-13T20:42:53","date_gmt":"2017-04-13T20:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/www.gh360.ca\/?p=282"},"modified":"2017-08-29T18:06:38","modified_gmt":"2017-08-29T18:06:38","slug":"a-decade-of-dominance-for-the-humber-hawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/?p=282","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A decade of dominance\u2019 for the Humber Hawks"},"content":{"rendered":"A<\/span>s the school year comes to a close, so do the seasons for the last of the varsity teams. And this year, Humber College is once again the all-time top sports school in Canada.<\/p>\n

College sports is run by the Ontario Collegiate Athletic Association provincially, and the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association nationally. The Humber Hawks finished this year with 516 all-time OCAA medals, and 127 CCAA medals. Over half of the OCAA medals are gold, according to a recent study by the OCAA of their competition history.<\/p>\n

Humber College has 14 varsity teams, seven men\u2019s and seven women\u2019s. All but two of those teams, the women\u2019s softball team and the men\u2019s badminton singles, won OCAA medals this year, and four won at the national tournaments. This is a normal year for the Hawks, said Michael Kopinak, associate director of athletics and recreation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of good years, and I\u2019d say it\u2019s been a decade of dominance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ashleigh Darrach, captain of the women\u2019s volleyball team, said Humber has depth that other schools do not. The women\u2019s squad won gold at OCAA this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur practices are quite often harder than our games in Ontario because we have a lot of the talent right there in that gym.\u201d She said that all those athletes create an environment at Humber that pushes players to want to do better, something that other schools may be lacking.<\/p>\n

Ajay Sharma, coach of the women\u2019s basketball team, also said he thinks the environment plays a strong role in the school\u2019s competitiveness. \u201cI think there\u2019s an unspoken pressure and competitiveness amongst teams to want to perform to Humber\u2019s standards and Humber\u2019s levels,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The athletes, coaches, and athletic facility staff all say there is one element that pushes Humber above other schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got an exceptional support system for our athletes to be successful,\u201d said Ray Chateau, director of athletics and recreation at Humber. \u201cOutstanding coaches, really strong high-performance centre, strength and conditioning, our varsity academic centre, then our therapy clinic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t believe when I first came here and you go into your locker room every now and then and there\u2019s free, like, deodorant and stuff,\u201d said Chloe Rowe, one half of the badminton women\u2019s double team. \u201cIt provides a really good atmosphere for all the athletes because we feel really supported.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of all the teams at Humber, the badminton squad had the most success. They won three national gold medals this year, and have several OCAA Badminton All-Stars on the team, including Adam Dong.<\/p>\n

He said Humber gets its edge from \u201cthe support to student athletes and the environment.\u201d Dong moved to Toronto three years ago from China to go to school and play badminton.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think because we have a lot of good players\u2026 it makes a lot of good players want to go to Humber.\u201d<\/p>\n

One other element plays into Humber\u2019s success are the students, said Kopinak. He said the student body at Humber deserves more credit for its support for teams. \u201cWe have great support from students\u2026we have great fan support,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the school year comes to a close, so do the seasons for the last of the varsity teams. And this year, Humber College is once again the all-time top sports school in Canada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[115],"tags":[116,117,118,119,120,121,122,123,124,125,126,127,128,129],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gh360.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}