Ke Aliʻi - Damien Canoe Paddling

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Damien Canoe Paddling

By: Alika Namoca

Since ancient Hawaii, paddling has been a part of Hawaiian culture and was used for things such as fishing or transportation. Nowadays, canoe paddling is a very popular sport across the state where many schools and clubs race against each other and compete for a title. Over the 2022-2023 winter season, Damien Memorial school - along with many other ILH associated schools - participated in another Canoe Paddling season. Here is a little recap of how the paddling team’s season went.

Damien Memorial School’s paddling team is led by coach Lono Koholua, followed by coach Phil Paragoso, Marcus Dacanay, Jaymar Bucasas, and Jonah Napoleon. There are a total of 11 teams in the ILH division. These teams included Punahou, Kamehameha, Iolani, Maryknoll, Le Jardin, St. Louis, Sacred Hearts, Mid Pacific, St. Andrews, and Pac 5, along with Damien. For the races, the divisions were split by Varsity and Junior Varsity. Inside of those divisions, there is a division I and II of the boys crew, girls crew, and a mixed crew.

Photo Credits: Caleb Ceberano

Although the races occurred at Magic Island, Damien held their paddling practices from Monday to Friday at Sand island after school from 3:30pm to 5:30pm. During these practices, the team conditioned and paddled for long distances at a time. Some days, the team paddled far off shore and paddled for over five miles straight. The season officially kicked off with its first race on December 3rd, 2022 at Magic Island, Waikiki. Damien's paddling crews consisted of Varsity II Boys, Varsity Mixed, Varsity II Girls, JV I Boys, and JV Girls. There have been a total of six races throughout the season and Damien has actively participated in each one.

In the beginning, Damien had a bit of a rough start when it came to the results, but the team used this as motivation to push harder in hopes to improve in the future. The boys varsity crew for example, started their season in sixth place for the first three races. As the season reached the halfway mark, the crew started to pick it up in practice and ended up achieving third place for every single race after. The teams season came to an end on Wednesday, January 18, 2023 with the boys crews and mixed crews being the last to race. Out of the six races, the final overall standings of Damien ended with the mixed crew ranking seventh, Varsity II boys ranking fourth, Varsity II girls ranking seventh, JV I boys ranking fifth, and JV II Girls ranking seventh. Coach Phil, one of the main coaches on the team, stated that "Damien Paddling crews overall represented their families and our school well during the season.".

Photo Credits : Caleb Ceberano

Even though the rankings may have not been what everyone desired, the connections that were made between the team were all that mattered. Throughout the season, the paddling team bonded with each other and this helped them to work together better as a crew. Doing this, the crew learned that working together is key in paddling which led to much bigger improvements in the canoe. This in turn led to much better placements in the races. Some crews even went out of their way to practice on their one rest day out of the week so that they could improve and push together as a team. Senior and first year paddler Jordan Reiny stated that “[His] favorite memory of the season was being out on the water in the canoe practicing with [his] boys”

All in all, the Damien Memorial Paddling team had a great 2022-2023 season. With this season, the team took away Damien’s main goal in sports. which is to train hard and to work together as a team, along with making memories on the way. With the team's hard work and determination, the underclassmen look forward to the next paddling season starting next school year.

Photo Credits : Caleb Ceberano

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