By Joanne Steventon
The Ottawa River is drained from winter, but as soon as the water starts flowing again Centretown resident Sarah Reynolds and her dragon boat team the Kentucky Waterfalls will be ready and waiting.
Reynolds had her first experience barreling down the Ottawa River in a 44-foot long dragon boat two years ago, when she joined 21 of her fellow Natural Resources Canada employees in the Nortel Networks Ottawa Dragon Boat Race Festival.
“In the first race, I just felt such a thrill from the actual event, to have so many people working together,” she said.
That year, they finished 160th out of about 170 teams. As a competitive athlete, Reynolds didn’t blame her team for the rough finish but she knew it was possible to do better with a more determined crew.
“Not everyone was an athlete per say. I guess I just saw room for growth and I saw the room for creating this really great team with a really great attitude,” she said.
So she took it upon herself to organize her own team later that summer, consisting of people from her old team along with a number of her friends.
They reassembled in the summer of 2003 and they are now known as the Kentucky Waterfalls.
While the name may seem fitting with the water theme, Reynolds says it’s actually another name for the infamous short-on-top and long-in-back hairstyle known as the mullet. From Reynolds’ description, this “business on top, party in the back” coif suits their team spirit.
“We do take the sport seriously and we are competitive, but we’re there to have a good time,” she said. “Bottom line, we’re there to have fun.”
The combination of new determined teammates and a festive spirit has even inspired some participants to buy mullet wigs. This camaraderie took the Kentucky Waterfalls a long way last summer — and much faster too.
“Last summer we had one of the greatest races ever,” said Reynolds. “It felt perfect, everyone just felt it, we clicked we were in sync and we ended up coming in mid-thirties out of 180 teams.”
Team member Philroy Lopez says the team attributes this success to their devoted captain.
“When Sarah took it over she really focused people on the whole competition and got people to focus on practices. It was a lot of fun,” Lopez said.
The Nortel Dragon Boat Festival has been an annual event in Ottawa since June 1996, but dragon boating is a Chinese cultural tradition that dates back almost 2,400 years.
The long boats racing down the river are said to be a re-enactment of fishermen racing to save a respected statesman they believe had been lost in the river. Today, a drummer sits at the front of the boat to set the rhythm for the paddlers, which the tradition says was done to scare away the fish that may have eaten the statesman’s remains.
The boats are decorated with a large dragon head protruding from the front of the boat and a tail from the back to represent the dragon spirit.
The Nortel Dragon Boat Race Festival website brags their Ottawa festival is the second largest of its kind in Canada.
Executive Director John Brooman says they began with 30 teams at their first event in 1996 and now have up to 180 teams competing.
“From the beginning I have been very impressed with how well received the festival is from the corporate community and the community at large,” said Brooman.
He says they will be importing 14 of the 1,500-pound boats from Toronto to accommodate the teams that will be competing on June 26 and 27.
Thanks to Reynolds’ organization, the Kentucky Waterfalls have already submitted their registration for this year’s festival and begin training in May.
So in a couple months time when a boat comes charging down the river full of mullet coiffed paddlers, wave to the Kentucky Waterfalls.