THE SPITFIRE CHALLENGE
and Spitfire Team history
We are happy to announce that we will be hosting our 29th Spitfire Challenge July 29th to August 1st, 2011. Please contact me if you would like to enter your team. spitfirechallenge@bell.net or by phone 905-854-0231.
ENTRY
FEE: $395.00 per team
consisting of a max of 12 players
and 6 team personal
HOTEL:
Not confirmed yet but will be in
the $99.00 per room range with 2
beds
and 1 to 4 people allowed in each
room.
BUSING:
Busing will be provided on July
27th and July 28th from Airport to
Hotel.
Busing will be provided during the
event from Hotel/Gymnasium.
Busing will be provided on August
2nd from Hotel to Airport.
Teams can come earlier and depart
later and we will try and help out
with minivans and the hotel
shuttle buses (ambulatory people
can use shuttle buses).
More information will be provided in due course.
We once again would like to thank all of you who have come in the past to participate in our 28 previous Spitfire Challenges.
We hope that you enjoyed the basketball competition and our fine city. We are proud to have now hosted more than 700 teams from 26 countries in the history of this event. One of the best parts of this event, is the friendships that develop among the participants.
We wish thank all the people who have contributed to making the Spitfire Challenge a success. Special thanks to our Spitfire Challenge sponsors, the people who have bought our restaurant coupon books, souvenir t shirts, advertisements in the souvenir program, the bus drivers from Denny’s, all on court and table officials, Town publishing, Coloplast our hospitality night sponsors, Remington Home builders for their support in purchasing coffee mugs for awards, Milton Home Hardware door prize donators, Henkel Canada , Casco Canada and all companies that made donations to help support the Challenge, Our photographer Eric Morse, snack bar volunteers, hospitality volunteers, Emergency Patrol first aid and security volunteers, souvenir & tire stand volunteers, the staff at Etobicoke Olympium, hosts and hostesses, teams helping out at the scorekeepers table, translators and all of our other volunteers.
The Spitfires Wheelchair Sports Association was formed in 1976 and promoted wheelchair sports, encouraged the integration of able and disabled people, and provided competitive and recreational sports for all to benefit from. Initially we were involved in many sports including track and field, wc gym hockey, swimming and basketball. Over the years the Spitfires concentrated on wheelchair basketball and hosted many tournaments including the Glenn Hibbert tournament, the Paul Lane Classic, the Cynthia Bryce tournament and the famous Spitfire Challenge.
Unfortunately our Spitfires wheelchair basketball team will no longer continue. The high cost of fuel, other sports and interests, high transportation costs and lack of commitment common to many other sports and hobbies have caused this. I hope that the sport will continue to thrive with the Variety Village wheelchair basketball program in the Greater Toronto area. And I want to thank every member and volunteer over the years for making the team such an enjoyable experience.
We will if funding allows us to still be active in Ontario helping schools, groups and organizations with disability awareness programs by loaning them wheelchairs for their function.
Also we will continue to help out programs like Participation house in Brantford, Ontario with the loan of 12 wheelchairs for their disability awareness programs and fundraisers. We also will continue to help out the University of Waterloo in Ontario with the loan of wheelchairs for their charity events. We also will try and help students at the University of Guelph in Ontario with their formation of a wheelchair basketball program for disabled and able bodied with technical support and loaner wheelchairs whenever they need our assistance.
I am however very happy to inform you, that I and my many friends who help organize and co-ordinate this event have pledged a commitment to future Spitfire Challenges. We wish to thank the many teams that have traveled to Toronto and participated in the Spitfire Challenge over the years. We also wish all club teams the best in their league championships and national paralympic teams the best in future World Championships and Paralympics. For comprehensive compilation of Paralympic statistics from 1992 to the present, complete Spitfire Challenge statistics from 1980 to the present please check our Spitfire Challenge website.
We will continue to try and field a Spitfire team in the Challenge composed of players who have been past members of the Spitfires.
The Spitfire Challenge
C/O Michael C. Bryce
2077 Cameron Drive, RR#1 Campbellville,
Ontario, Canada L0P 1B0
Phone 905-854-0231
E-mail spitfirechallenge@bell.net