When I came to Queen’s I had no intention of joining a varsity team.
I was an avid soccer player and referee throughout high school but I lacked the time and skill (mostly skill) to try out for the varsity soccer team. The combination of my enthusiasm as a frosh and the persuasiveness of fencers at the Sidewalk Sale led me to sign up for the fencing club.
That year, I ventured to West Campus from Waldron Tower four times a week for practices and my efforts were rewarded with a selection to the OUA team. After four years of training, I was fortunate enough to earn an OUA individual gold and a team silver medal.
Queen’s fencing is one of—if not the most—diverse group of athletes on campus. We’re made up of students from a variety of backgrounds and fields of study. As a club, fencing also has Kingston community members in its instructional programs. As a team, we compete in several tournaments throughout the season, culminating in the OUA Championships every February.
Fencing doesn’t draw crowds and isn’t a sport many first-year students have tried before coming to Queen’s. Recruiting and training students who have never fenced is essential for our growth and success. Unfortunately, our status as an interuniversity team has reduced our appeal to students with no experience and has limited our campus-wide recruiting numbers. To this point, we’ve had a hard time keeping up with the new direction of Queen’s Athletics. We are continually compared to other teams in spectator sports students have often played before attending university. Athletic reviews and report cards make these comparisons using criteria that don’t apply to our team, such as fan support and ticket sales. As a smaller team in a sport that isn’t well-understood, our roster information is often inaccurate and media images from fencing competitions are frequently of fencers from other schools.
Next season, however, we will be redefined. Our new title of “varsity club” under the new Athletics model will better describe our goals: to train students who are new to fencing in a club environment and to compete in a varsity environment at the OUAs. We will increase our visibility at Queen’s as one of the leading sport clubs on campus while improving the average student’s understanding of the sport. Our dream is to be part of an OUA club championship weekend hosted by Queen’s in the ARC, where another varsity club like water polo might compete in the pool at the same time as we compete in the gym. A large event such as this would allow Queen’s to showcase its beautiful new facility to other OUA club teams while promoting smaller sports that wouldn’t normally receive as much fan support as a varsity team home game.
Coming to Queen’s without the expectation of being a varsity athlete has made the experience all the more exciting. Fencing for Queen’s has given me the opportunity to meet some awesome people from our school and from other schools and clubs across Canada. I look forward to the opportunity to fence for Queen’s in my fifth year where we will be heavy favourites to win the OUA banner and add to the championship years already printed on fencing banner hanging above the ARC main gym.
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