Promising Ontario wrestlers, pinned by politics, making peace with missing OFSAA

Talk about the hollowest victory ever for a high school wrestler — easily winning a regional meet, while knowing that's it.

Many of Ontario's most dedicated and gifted high school wrestlers might feel like what happened to their sport on a global scale last month is being repeated on a small scale. In some circles, the OFSAA provincial championships which climax Thursday in Guelph have been called 'the asterisked OFSAA.'

Essentially, the end to the dispute between Ontario's public high school teachers' union (OSSTF) and the provincial Liberal government that led to many educators choosing to not to volunteer after school couldn't have been more ironically timed. It came before the provincials, but not in time to qualify. It might cut the deepest in wrestling, where many of the top high schoolers who practice 15-18 hours weekly might not compete in a spring sport.

That's why 17-year-old Pawanpreet Sekhon, who's competed for Canada internationally, ended up competing in the Region of Peel meet on Feb. 20 knowing full well OFSAA was off the table. He won his 95 kg class easily — he was second-best in all of Ontario in 2012 as a Grade 11, after all. There's no knowing if his heavy heart was detected at weigh-ins.

Without revisiting the divisiveness over Bill 115, it's worth saying, here's who got hurt.

"The reason I did do ROPSSAA [the Peel Region championship] was that I just wanted to know that I would have won OFSAA," explains Sekhon, who's in his final year at Louise Arbour in Brampton, Ont. "After OFSAA's over, I'm just going to see the videos of the other wrestlers who won. I'll try to compare my stats and stuff like that and know that I would have won anyways... but yeah, I wanted OFSAA."

"The timing was terrible," says Bolton, Ont.'s Oren Furmanov, who's also worn a Canadian singlet overseas, competing in the cadet worlds. "The job action ended two days after the regionals.

"People who won want to come back and defend their title," adds Furmanov, who was a gold medallist in 2012 for Humberview Secondary. "I think I had a pretty good shot at moving up a weight class and possibly winning."

It might seem straightforward, especially in wrestling, where the symbiotic relationship between high school and club competition very strong. If an affected wrestler had the body of work, why not make a one-time-only exception, especially in a sport which isn't as mainstream as basketball, volleyball or hockey?

'Stick with what our bylaws say'

The reality, though, is that in recent years, high school associations in Ontario from the local level on up have increasingly formalized eligibility rules. The criteria for wrestlers, for instance, includes attending 30 practices in a year. The 18-year-old Furmanov is old enough to see that's a good thing. Under normal circumstances.

"You didn't really want a wrestler who has gone to five, 10 practices in his life somehow getting to OFSAA and fighting really experienced wrestlers," he says. "They need to have that experience."

The subtext is the symbiotic relationship between high school athletics and club sports. Every high school coach knows he or she cannot win without 'club athletes.' Yet OFSAA and its regional and local associations want to encourage a honest effort to build a program. The days of track coaches trawling the halls the day before a meet for someone to half-ass run the 3,000 metres and collect points toward the overall team title are over.

"We had to stick with what our bylaws say," OFSAA executive director Doug Gellatly says.

"It's not just as simple as saying 'let's just send the best kids from this area' because it's not fair to the kids who have been part of a program," he adds. They've practised, they've trained, they've gone to meets, they've been part of a high school program."

'Their world championship in high school'

Veteran wrestling coach Greg Cappuccitti, who coaches both Furmanov (at the Matmen Wrestling Club) and Sekhon (at Louise Arbour), notes that controversy flared because of how the decision was communicated.

"When they say it's about deadlines, people will say, 'come on, you can be flexible on deadlines,' people are going to be upset," says Cappuccitti. "But I see both sides of it... OFSAA has their rules that apply to winter sports and wrestling is one of those high-liability sports, Any injuries of any kind, people are going to start asking questions. Some of the kids who are affected are well-seasoned and there probably could have been a little more flexibility on their [OFSAA's] part.

"It's a unique situation. At the same time, where do you draw the line? What makes one kid eligible and another one eligible. It's a tricky one and it happened so quick."

In Sekhon's case, Cappicutti acknowledges "I went against the union" while trying to see if he could get his pupil into OFSAA. Sekhon, who took up wrestling at age 10 with the encouragement of his father, Makhiat, who wrestled himself as a young man in India, had been practising at nearby Turner Fenton high school. But the "not part of a program" principle kicked in. The coaches notes it took some leniency just for Sekhon to be cleared to compete in Peel Region, whose eligibility rules are said to be stricter than OFSAA's.

"I submitted all my paperwork three weeks ahead of time," Cappicutti says. " I'm thinking, 'This kid's in Grade 12, it's his last shot.' For wrestlers, this is kind of their world championship in high school, what they work four years toward and some of them only get one shot.

"I said, 'am I going to stick my neck out for this kid? Am I going to be able to look him in the face?' I've seen what how going to OFSAA can be a life-changing event."

High school and university wrestlers also have a unique calendar. Their final meets in the 'school stream' are a precursor to the national championships. Without OFSAA, it's harder to figure out where they stack up in their weight class.

"To be able to say, 'I'm OFSAA champ,' it increases my status and my confidence for other tournaments," says Sekhon, who plans to take a firefighting course next year at Humber College and then wrestle in university.

"It shows me that I've won something that a lot of wrestlers have tried to win."

"With OFSAA you get the ball rolling and you feel confident," says Furmanov. "Nothing happens last-minute. Those big championships and tournaments before the nationals are just a test. If you do well in those so-called 'tests,' it boosts up your confidence — 'I'm doing well, I'm where I want to be.' "

Meantime, wrestling is on the bubble for the 2020 Olympics. All three bid cities, Istanabul, Madrid and Tokyo, are in wrestling hotbeds. That might help convince the IOC to reinstate it. The IOC and Ontario provincial politics are not intertwined. It does lump together for someone such as Pawanpreet Sekhon who's had the carrot snatched away twice in the last few weeks.

"It's the same thing for Olympics," he says. "If it's gone for 2020, then I'm going to have to work that much harder for 2016."

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet. Please address any questions, comments or concerns to btnblog@yahoo.ca.