Congratulations to all our UVPCS swimmers and coaches on their fine performances in Comox at the Vancouver Island Region (VIR) Short Course Championships!! Highlights included lots of best times, top-8 and medal finishes and a new club record.

... story to come...

As always, complete details are available on our results page.

The Junior Pan Pacific Championships are taking place January 8-12 in Guam, and UVPCS swimmer Nicholas Sinclair is on the Canadian team.

Like the Pan Pacific Championships, there are restrictions on how many swimmers from each country proceed to finals - only three swimmers advance, with a maximum of two in A-finals - so not only must the athletes swim fast in morning heats, but they have to rank top-3 within their country to earn a second swim.

Calgary Patriots’ coach Jamie Connors clearly suffers from an excess of curiosity – over the December break he collected results from eight meets at the end of the Fall 2008 cycle and pooled (pun intended) the results to form a “virtual” Western Age Group Championship meet.

In November, Swimming Canada sponsored a 5k Freestyle Pool Challenge across the country. Congratulations to UVic-PCS athletes Richard Weinberger (1st) and David Creel (1st) for being the top finishers across Canada in their age groups. Other top-8 finishers were Ryan Clouston (2nd), MacKenzie Downing (3rd), Caleigh Filmer (4th), Ryan Howe (4th), Evan Letkeman (5th), Stefanie Schmidt (6th), and Zac Parkes (7th).

Starting Monday, coach Mark Lancaster is taking a sabbatical, during which Mark and his family are travelling to Australia. UVPCS wishes Mark and his family a wonderful trip and safe & happy return!! Coach John Stamhuis, who has been working with Mark and C-group since September, will be taking over C-group during Mark's absence.

The following UVPCS swimmers have been selected to attend Vancouver Island Region training camps in the coming months:

VIR 10 & under Regional Training Camp – Ladysmith
January 24, 2009; 9am – 230pm
Patricia Horwood
Grace Thomas
Heidi Ullrich
John Willcox

Zero degrees ... and colder! +
One snowstorm +
Two overnights +
Three pools +
Four printers +
Five computers +
Six sessions +
Seven safety vests +
Eight whistles +
Nine stacks of curtains +
Ten potted trees +
Eleven portable bleachers +
... and twelve months until the 2009 Xmas Cracker Invitational!!

Times Colonist story
by Brian Drewry

Saanich Commonwealth Place will be busy this weekend as more than 600 swimmers hit the pool for Pacific Coast Swimming's Seventh Annual Christmas Cracker Invitational Meet.

The three-day event begins tomorrow with swimmers ranging in age from 7 to 26. Twenty-four swim clubs are expected to take part including teams from Alberta and the Yukon.

And to mark the season, the pool will be all decked out for the holidays and participants will receive Christmas crackers throughout the event.

Several UVPCS senior swimmers and coaches Ron Jacks and Peter Vizsolyi travelled to Toronto November 28-30 to compete in the Canada Cup Grand Prix event at the Etobicoke Olympium.