With more than 50 athletes from here expected to compete in the 2015 Pan Am Games in Toronto next month, the Island could be its own country.
The latest three announced this week were in team sports — Fred Winters in men’s volleyball, Shanice Marcelle in women’s volleyball and Jesse Hodges in baseball were named to their respective Canadian sides for the Games.
Hodges is out of Lambrick Park Secondary and the Victoria Mariners of the B.C. Premier League and his versatility will come in handy in the Toronto Games for Canadian team coach Ernie Whitt because the six-foot-one, 212-pounder can play second and third base and can also pitch, in a pinch. He even filled in as catcher this year for the Single-A pro South Bend Cubs.
The Islander has worn the Maple Leaf previously, for silver-medallist Canada at the 2012 world junior championship, in a breakout performance that earned him a contract with the Chicago Cubs after he was overlooked in the MLB draft.
“Jesse was greatly disappointed . . . terribly upset when he didn’t get drafted,” recalled grandfather Lowell Hodges, on Thursday.
“I said: ‘You know you’re better than that. Now, go out and prove them wrong.’ Which is exactly what he did.”
Hodges is currently hitting .247 with three home runs, 18 RBIs and 17 runs in 48 games this season for South Bend in Indiana.
Canada is the surprise defending Pan Am Games gold medallist from Guadalajara 2011.
The 33-year-old Winters, out of Claremont Secondary and Pepperdine of the NCAA, is the captain of the Canadian men’s volleyball team and has led it to some notable results the past two years, including into the six-team 2013 World League final and to seventh place at the 2014 FIVB world championships.
“As a player, I realized the importance of the multi-Games experience. And as a coach, I am looking forward to the Toronto Pan Am Games as part of our journey to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio,” said Canadian men’s volleyball head coach Glenn Hoag in a statement.
Marcelle, a graduate of Spectrum, has won two women’s pro volleyball championships in Germany after five consecutive CIS titles with the UBC Thunderbirds. The Islander was named 2013 BLG Award winner as the outstanding CIS female athlete across all sports.
Just over half the Canadian team for the Pan Am Games has been named. Notable Island-based names to watch for in Toronto will include Winters, Marcelle, Olympic medallist swimmers Ryan Cochrane and Richard Weinberger, world championship swimming medallists Hillary Caldwell and Eric Hedlin, Olympic rowing medallists Will Crothers, Conlin McCabe, Rob Gibson and the rising Kai Langerfeld from Parksville, Olympian and Commonwealth Games medallist runner Cam Levins from Black Creek and the likes of rugby players Phil Mack, Connor Braid and Langford-based Jen Kish.
But in a twist, no Island athletes were named to the Canadian Pan Am teams in triathlon or mountain biking, which is the first time that has happened in a major Games in nearly two decades. The national training centres for both sports are located on the Island, with most of the Games support staff for both those sports hailing from Victoria. Bear Mountain was recently announced as the new home of the national mountain-biking team under coach Dan Proulx of Victoria.
Also, in a sign of how far men’s softball has fallen off the sporting landscape here, no Island players were named in that sport. That would have been unheard of in the past. Canada had a run of seven consecutive men’s gold medals in the Pan Am Games from 1979 to 2003, fuelled largely by Island players from an era when softball dominated the Royal Athletic Park diamond during the Victoria Senior A dynasty years.
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