'We are a sisterhood of survivorship': Winnipeg dragon boat team celebrates 25 years
A Winnipeg dragon boat team is celebrating 25 years of competition, and fighting breast cancer.
Every member of team "Chemo Savvy" has faced or still faces a breast cancer battle. This year the dragon boat team is marking 25 years of fighting the mighty waters of the Red and Assiniboine rivers.
Sylvie Mathers is one of the original members. She fondly remembers the team's first race in 1998, "We still raced with a smile on our face and we finished last, but we were still smiling," she said.
Mathers says at the very first team meeting there was a roomful of women hoping to paddle.
"They needed twenty to be in the boat. At that time they just drew names out of a hat and my name got drawn - number 36."
Eventually she got the call and training started.
"We didn't have a dragon boat. We trained in war canoes. We didn't know the stroke. We just were so happy to be together and to tell our story through dragon boating."
Team president Tammy Mayer says breast cancer dragon boating was born from research that showed paddling was ok for those diagnosed with the disease, "Back in the day when a woman received a breast cancer diagnosis it was understood that you couldn't exercise anymore, you shouldn't use your upper body," she said.
Mayer says the team now trains year-round in the gym as well.
"We are a sports team. So we are what we consider elite athletes but it is way more than a sports team. We are a sisterhood of survivorship."
Brenda Millan joined the team three years ago, "I was diagnosed in 2018 at 31, triple positive so I've had multiple surgeries, multiple times of chemo, its metastatic cancer so I've been diagnosed four times," she said.
Millan says dragon boating is the right sport for breast cancer, because the team works together on and off the water.
"Once you're with these women you are enveloped, it's a second family really."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Bodies found by U.S. authorities searching for missing B.C. kayakers
United States authorities who have been searching for a pair of missing kayakers from British Columbia since the weekend have recovered two bodies in the nearby San Juan Islands of Washington state.
Amid concerns over 'collateral damage' Trudeau, Freeland defend capital gains tax change
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
'It's discriminatory': Individuals refused entry to Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity— and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it.
Tom Mulcair: Park littered with trash after 'pilot project' is perfect symbol of Trudeau governance
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
Saskatchewan households will continue to receive carbon tax rebate: Trudeau
Households in Saskatchewan will continue to receive Canada Carbon Rebate payments, despite the province refusing to remit natural gas levies to the federal government, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday.
'It's just so hard to let it go': Umar Zameer still haunted by death of Toronto police officer
'We hoped for this day, but we were scared that it would not never ever come because it took so long.' That’s what Umar Zameer, the man recently acquitted in the death of a Toronto police officer, told CTV News Toronto in a sit-down interview on Tuesday.
Senate expenses climbed to $7.2 million in 2023, up nearly 30%
Senators in Canada claimed $7.2 million in expenses in 2023, a nearly 30 per cent increase over the previous year.
Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko won't play in Game 2
The Vancouver Canucks will be without all-star goalie Thatcher Demko when they face the Nashville Predators in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series.
Pedestrian, baby injured after stroller struck and dragged by vehicle in Squamish, B.C.
Police say a baby and a pedestrian suffered non-life-threatening injuries after a vehicle struck a baby stroller and dragged it for two blocks before stopping in Squamish, B.C.