Simon Fraser University Rowing Club – SFU Rowing

On October 16th SFU Rowing hosted it’s first SFU Rowing Alumni, Friends, and Supporters Day on the home course of Burnaby Lake.

Fortunately the sun was shining for the event, as the SFU Crew and the attendees spent an afternoon enjoying the sport of rowing.

Head Coach Jim Gardiner gave a speech about the rowing program and the goals that SFU Rowing aim for in the future; the dredging of Burnaby Lake playing an important role in the development of the team, with the successful dredging resulting in it being one of the best race courses in Canada.

Head Coach Jim Gardiner presenting a speech to the guests of Alumni Day.

It was appropriate then to name one of SFU’s boats after the City of Burnaby, as a tribute to the hard work that went into making the lake more accessible.

The name “City of Burnaby” was unveiled by some of the key people involved in the project: Burnaby Counselor Sav Dhaliwal; Burnaby Counselor Nick Volkow; Katy Alkins-Jang of Burnaby Parks and Recreation; and Lambert Chu of the Burnaby Engineering Department.

The unveiling of the "City of Burnaby".

Coach Jim Gardiner also introduced the Dick McClure Scholarship Fund, which will be presented to an individual that demonstrates good balance of both the academic and the athletic aspects of school. Dick McClure was presented with a memento to honour the occasion. The scholarship will pay for the student-athlete’s rowing dues and cover the cost of school books, and perhaps more as it grows as a fund.

Dick McClure, after the announcement of SFU Rowing's Dick McClure Scholarship.

The freshly named boat “City of Burnaby”, nicknamed the “COB” by the SFU Crew, was launched off the dock by some alumni men for a sunny row. The novice men also spent some time on the water.

Alumni men taking the COB quad out for a row.

Sav Dhaliwal, Lambert Chu, Katy Alkins-Jang, Nick Volkow, SFU Rowing's President Taylor Hardy and Coach Jim Gardiner with the "City of Burnaby".

The turnout was great, and SFU Rowing looks forwards to making this an annual event with more people celebrating rowing!

Help us celebrate the growth of our program and our past alumni on the brand new home course at Burnaby Lake!

We will be honoring special attendees with a boat naming ceremony, special scholarship fund announcement, and a celebration of the sport of rowing.

There will also be food and music to enjoy, so come spend an afternoon with the SFU Rowing Crew and see what we’ve been up to. There will be rowing on the dredged waters of Burnaby Lake as well!

This is an event you don’t want to miss!

Please RSVP by sending an email to rowing-info@sfu.ca – see you there!

October 16^th 2011

@ Burnaby Lake
beginning at noon

Krista Guloien, who started her rowing career with SFU Rowing back in 2001, did her alma mater proud this past November at the 2010 World Rowing Championships, winning a silver medal as part of the Canadian Women’s 8+ with a time of 6:16.12, and placing 5th in the world in the Women’s 2- event.

The 2010 WRCs took place October 31st to November 7, 2010 at Lake Karapiro, New Zealand.

Congratulations Krista! Thank you for being an inspiration to the current SFU Rowing crew, and we wish you all the best in your future endeavours.

SFU Rowing announced today that Jim Gardiner has been hired as the new Head Coach of the club. Gardiner brings with him substantial rowing and coaching experience. He rowed at the University of Rhode Island during his undergrad, where the team was a club, akin to SFU Rowing, in that they competed against crews with full varsity team status. Gardiner also rowed for US national team. After taking time off from the sport, he has returned to competitive form, and now competes at regattas in the Masters division.

Gardiner has stated that his decision to come on board with the SFU Rowing Club partially comes from the potential for developing the club on a long-term basis, including hopefully having the women’s team join the NCAA, where they would compete as a Division II crew. Gardiner will be acting as the the main liaison behind the scenes with the SFU Recreation Department as well. In addition to beginning his coaching duties with SFU Rowing in September 2010, Gardiner currently coaches sculling at Deep Cove, and sweeping at Vancouver Rowing Club.

Welcome aboard, Jim! SFU Rowing is thrilled to have you as our new head coach and we look forward to working with you this coming season.

The SFU Rowing Club is a developing program whose objective is to support, promote, and advance the sport of rowing within both the university and surrounding community. The Club is based out of Burnaby Lake. SFU Rowing has progressed to become a competitive program ranking among the country’s top university rowing programs, and continues to develop elite athletes that compete on both the provincial and national levels.

Even though the SFU Rowing Club is a competitive team that follows intensive training schedules, we are classified as a club, not a varsity team, and only receive extremely limited funding from the school. As our yearly funding constitutes a very small fraction of the operating costs, we must raise all our own funds to buy equipment, and cover travel expenses. Individual athletes currently cover all their own regatta fees and traveling costs. As we have been increasing our competitiveness, the team now travels across the country to attend highly competitive regattas. As a club, we are a student run organization, which is self-administered by our own student executive in addition to our studies and training.