Duckworth Challenge can turn friends into enemies

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This article was published 20/09/2021 (1471 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

JESSICA Tsai and Taryn Raabe are old friends and former teammates.

But nothing stokes their competitive fires like a face-to-face grudge match on the Canada West Universities Athletic Association soccer pitch.

“I’ve played with her since I was probably seven years old and played with her until we split up in university,” said Raabe, a goalkeeper whose University of Winnipeg women’s squad who will meet Tsai’s Manitoba team in a Thursday night matchup at the U of M’s West Turf Field.

“It becomes frenemies when she scores on me and that’s when it’s no longer happy anymore. That’s when we’re no longer friends.”

The game, pitting the 0-3-0 Bisons against the 0-2-2 Wesmen, serves as the opening salvo in the Duckworth Challenge, the annual competition between the crosstown rivals.

Women’s soccer, men’s and women’s volleyball and men’s and women’s basketball teams from the U of W and U of M will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the yearly event with select games making up the competition.

The challenge, instituted by university administrator Henry Duckworth in 1991-92, was wiped out last season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Winnipeg and Manitoba’s soccer teams played to a 0-0 draw in pre-season and that has added further heat to the rivalry. The Bisons swept both games with the Wesmen in 2019, Tsai and Raabe’s rookie year at the university level.

“In my first year we did lose to them in both games we played and it was interesting to see that we had a 0-0 tie with them (pre-season), so we were kind of like, ‘Oh, we could maybe do it this year,’ “ said Raabe.

Tsai, a midfielder, scored on Raabe in their first year and she’ll be primed for the rematch.

“I think the fact that she used to be my teammate makes me want to score on her that much more,” said Tsai. “Obviously we keep it friendly but there’s definitely a little bit more motivation I think.”

The 18 months spent away from the game and their teams hit university athletes hard, Raabe and Tsai included. Keeping their skills sharp took extra effort. Raabe faced many shots from her brother in her backyard during the shutdown.

“It was a lot of off and on, off and on, and I think that was hard for a lot of us, especially some positions given when you can’t be with a lot of people,” said Raabe. “It’s hard to actually string together passes when we have so many people on the team and so many people on the field. It was very hard to actually get practical practices going.”

Tsai admitted returning to the game wasn’t easy.

“I think for me since the beginning of the season a lot of it has just been about falling in love with playing soccer again,” said Tsai. “So more than anything it’s just been so much fun to be back out there on the field.”

Tsai said the challenge helps to elevate interest in the games.

“I think it adds something just because the Duckworth Challenge goes past just women’s soccer because we also have the basketball and volleyball teams involved in it, too,” she said. “There’s more community support from Manitoba and all the other athletes, too, so that definitely adds to it.”

Over in men’s volleyball, there are familiar faces everywhere when the Bisons and Wesmen meet.

U of W libero Darian Picklyk, who hails from Pine Ridge, and Bisons left side Owen Schwartz of St. Clements are former teammates and even coached a team together last year.

What happens when they play each other?

“Away from the floor, I think we’re pretty good buddies but once we get to the floor it’s strictly business out there with the guys and I hate to lose so I kind of do whatever I have to do to get a ‘W’,” said Wesmen libero Darian Picklyk.

The long layoff has also brought about big changes in personnel and on the bench.

“I’m not too sure what they’re bringing to the table — I guess they have a new coach (Lupo Ludwig replaces legendary Garth Pischke) so we’ll see how that goes,” added Picklyk. “I know we did a lot of off-season work with a psychologist Cal Botterill so I think we’re ahead of what we normally are for the season. We’re building a team culture and we’re knowing out goals for the season already, so we’re feeling pretty good.”

Schwartz, for his part, is still licking his wounds from having the 2020 nationals cancelled by the pandemic. The event was to be hosted by the U of M and was to have served as a fitting swan song for the retiring Pischke.

“When we found out that we couldn’t host nationals a lot of the guys were really, really upset about it and angry and confused,” said Schwartz. “… But then, a few days later that anger kind of goes away and you start to feel a little bit more passion, a little bit more drive, and you can put that towards training both in the weight room and on the court.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14