A short history of Oak Bay High’s ski and board team
VICTORIA, British Columbia — Eleven years ago, Nicola and Patricia Horwood begged their mother, Tina Horwood, to start a ski and board team at Oak Bay High. At the time, Reynolds was the only Victoria school with a team and the two sisters wanted to bring the wonderful opportunity to Oak Bay’s extensive athletics program.
Oak Bay High’s first ski and board team had just nine athletes and two dedicated coaches who drove the team to the hill at Mt. Washington for each training session and race: Oak Bay Alumni and teacher Tina Horwood and district teacher Mathew Martin. Since then, Tina and Mathew’s dedication to the team, including giving up their Sundays, Mondays and countless hours behind the scenes, has helped hundreds of athletes achieve their dreams and aspirations.
Today, with Stephen Bagan taking over as co-coach, Oak Bay’s team is stronger than ever, with over 50 students requiring a charter coach to transport them to the hill. One thing that hasn’t changed is the commitment and support of parents and teachers involved in making Oak Bay High’s largest athletics team thrive. From food ‘mommas’, emergency drivers, and chaperones to technical coaches and paperwork masters.
All of this support and dedication has led Oak Bay to become the reigning Island Champions in up to four disciplines – boys’ ski, girls’ ski, boys’ snowboard and girls’ snowboard – qualifying them to compete at the Provincial Championships each year since 2017.
The first Oak Bay team to head to provincials was the boys’ ski team in 2017 at Whistler. After their inaugural Provincial Championships, the girls’ ski team, and a single boy and single girl snowboarder joined them at Sun Peaks the following year.
Oak Bay has attended each Provincial Championships with a full roster of skiers and snowboarders, traveling to Smithers in 2019 and Panorama in 2020. In 2022, at Kicking Horse Mountain in Golden, snowboarder Jeff Trumble showed the mainlanders what Oak Bay was capable of, making the podium in 2nd place for Terrain GS, the best individual result for Oak Bay.
At the 2023 Provincials at Sun Peaks, Oak Bay had all four disciplines represent the Vancouver Island Zone, with the boys’ ski team winning silver, and both combined boys’ and girls’ ski team and snowboard team each winning bronze. “These phenomenal results were beyond anything I could ever have imagined when I started this team,” Coach Horwood said, “We have grown from nine members to having to make significant cuts this year to bring it down to a manageable size of 55.”
Gavin Bayley (Grade 12) is the current co-captain of the boys’ ski team: “The Oak Bay Ski and Board team has not only given me the opportunity to carve through the gates, pushing through the finish line, but it has connected me with like-minded individuals who I’ll always have an awesome time with.”
As many members of this team have learned, however, results only make up a fraction of what makes this team so special. The bond between teammates lasts a lifetime, from enjoying a hot tub on a cold evening, tuning skis, crazy tobogganing nights, singing karaoke on the bus and much more.
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