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The McCain Global Technology Centre in Florenceville recently held an internal squash tournament.

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The McCain Global Technology Centre in Florenecville recently held an internal squash tournament in celebration of the sport. Winners and participants included, back row, from left, Aditya Mosale (Beginner, second place), Ramprakash Krishnamurthy, Martin Foster (Tier I champion), James Braithwaite, Peter Brennan, Claire Poirier, Mark Chase, Prasanna Sudharsan, and Jeff Kelly; middle row, from left, Vaughn Palin (tournament organizer and participant), Tim McKenna, Carlos Valencia (Tier II champion), Juan Quintero, Hector Duran (Beginner champion); front row, from left: Peggy Budrow, Jody Anderson (Tier I, second place). Missing from the photo: Josh Ellis, Fernando Zapata (Tier II, second place).

Squash is growing in popularity inside the walls of McCain, as well as surrounding areas.

The outcome of the tournament was an established ladder play within the Information Systems department.

Through the snows of winter (and the slow melt of the same), while the inhabitants of the Global Technology Centre were in competition with Mother Nature, 20 ‘Techies' competed with each other for its 2008 tournament titles.

The tournament was organized and co-sponsored by the Rec'ing Crew, which is an internal recreation committee.

Cleve's Source For Sports in Fredericton also co-sponsored the event.

Twenty athletes originally began the journey, but four were lost along the way to various reasons.

The tournament ended in mid-April, with 16 athletes still standing.

Three rounds of play were established: a placement round, a qualification round, and a semi-final round.

Three tiers were established, and placement into those tiers came as a result of the placement round.

The qualification round was round robin in style, producing the four top players in each tier.

The playdown within each tier produced the tier finalists, and finally - the champions in each tier.

Play was aggressive at every level.

Semi-finalists within Tier I were: Martin Foster, Jody Anderson, Prasanna Sudharsan, and James Braithwaite.

In the end, it was Martin Foster meeting Jody Anderson for the final match.

Foster eliminated Anderson in three games of the five game set with scores of 9-3, 9-5, and 9-7.

Anderson proved to be a worthy opponent, though.

Tier II actually had a second playdown for fourth place entrance into the semi-final round.

Semi-finalists in Tier II were: Carlos Valencia, Fernando Zapata, Tim McKenna, and Vaughn Palin.

The outcome saw Valencia match off against Zapata for the championship.

Valencia defeated Zapata - though not easily.

One of the goals of the tournament was to draw in new players to the sport.

The other goal was to promote fitness within the McCain Global Technology Centre.

Four players advanced through the three rounds in the Beginner class.

In the end, two had to drop out -one for absence, the other for health reasons.

Hector Duran advanced steadily in the beginner round, and was claimed Beginner Champion.

Aditya Mosale was accredited second place honours.

We will see more of these two players as they push their way up through ladder play.

A special thank you goes to Cleve's for co-sponsoring this event.

As well, plaques were engraved by Jazz Sports in Woodstock who did an excellent job touching up the well-worn plaques, and adding the champions for 2008.