'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
BREAKING Legendary hockey broadcaster Bob Cole dies at 90: CBC
Bob Cole, a welcome voice for Canadian hockey fans for a half-century, has died at the age of 90. Cole died Wednesday night in St. John's, N.L., surrounded by his family, his daughter, Megan Cole, told the CBC.
Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction overturned by N.Y. appeals court
New York's highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction, reversing a landmark ruling of the #MeToo era in determining the trial judge improperly allowed women to testify about allegations against the ex-movie mogul that weren't part of the case.
2 teens charged in Halifax homicide: police
Two teenagers have been charged with second-degree murder in connection to an alleged homicide near the Halifax Shopping Centre earlier this week.
MPP Sarah Jama asked to leave Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
MPP Sarah Jama was asked to leave the Legislative Assembly of Ontario by House Speaker Ted Arnott on Thursday for wearing a keffiyeh, a garment that is banned at Queen’s Park.
12-year-old hippo in Japan raised as a male discovered to be a female
When Gen-chan arrived at a zoo in Japan in 2017, no one questioned whether the then-five-year-old hippopotamus was a boy. Seven years later, zoo staff made a surprising discovery: Gen-chan, now 12, was female.
Honda to get up to $5B in govt help for EV battery, assembly plants
Honda is set to build an electric vehicle battery plant next to its Alliston, Ont., assembly plant, which it is retooling to produce fully electric vehicles, all part of a $15-billion project that is expected to include up to $5 billion in public money.
'Deep ignorance': Calls for Manitoba trustee to resign sparked after comments about Indigenous people and reconciliation
A rural Manitoba school trustee is facing calls to resign over comments he made about Indigenous people and residential schools earlier this week.
CTE: Researchers believe widespread brain injury may contribute to veteran suicide rate
Researchers are working to better understand if some Canadian military veterans may be suffering from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, also known as CTE -- a disorder previously found in the brains of professional football and hockey players after their death.
1 arrested in northern Alberta during public shelter order
Residents of John D'Or Prairie, a community on the Little Red River Cree Nation in northern Alberta, were told to take shelter Thursday morning during a police operation.