Reliance™ Employees in the Community: Rob Gregoris, HVAC Technician and Installer, Sudbury and Competitive Dragonboat Racer
January 2010
“When we are in the boat -- we are one. Every paddler knows their job. We are not running a babysitting service. We have learned about teamwork. The team is as strong as the weakest link, even though that’s a cliché. As a team we have learned to use each and every one’s strongest assets and use them to advance the level of the team.” These are the words Rob Gregoris uses to describe the experience of dragonboat racing.
Rob is a long-time Reliance™ employee working as an HVAC/water heater technician in Sudbury. He is also a member of Sudbury Canoe Club’s Team Chiropractic (known as Team Chiro) and has been dragonboating since the team’s creation in 1999.
Team Chiro started as a community team before it moved up to the competitive division. Since 2001, the team has been competing at the provincial and national levels. In 2007, it won the national championships in Calgary and qualified for the 2008 world club crew dragonboat championships in Penang, Malaysia. In 2008, they won the Sudbury Dragonboat Championships and then headed to worlds where the team finished with two silvers and one bronze out of 27 crews in the premier/elite division.
In 2009, Team Chiro finished second at the Canadian championships in Montreal and qualified for the 2010 world championships in Macau, China. Explains Rob: “Team Chiro is an extremely competitive team loaded with high achieving, A-type individuals. The team is comprised of a spectrum of paddlers: police officers, engineers, school teachers, construction contractors, dental surgeon, fitness instructors, accountants, mining engineers. And myself, a Reliance™ HVAC technician.”
He believes a variety of factors are behind the Chiros’ success, but notes the one most meaningful to him is the amazing family support he receives from his wife, Laura Young, and their two sons (the two still living at home). Rob says the family loves all sport. “That kind of atmosphere creates an understanding that physical activity and competition as well as being the best that you can be, are key values in the home. In fact the only time the family watches too much TV is during the Summer and Winter Olympics.”
Rob says Team Chiro is self-disciplined and each paddler maintains a high level of personal fitness. The team is always striving to be better and always wants to be the best and first, physically and when it comes to the technical side of paddling. Rob is dedicated to his weight training with his brother, Dan, over the winter months, and to cross-training by canoeing, swimming and cycling.
Rob believes that training is another factor key to the Chiros success. In the winter, the team starts training in the Jeno Tihanyi Olympic Gold Pool on the campus of Laurentian University. This Olympic-size pool has room for a stationary trainer that looks like the seats of the dragonboat. The team sits and “paddles,” trying to improve its technique and get a jump on spring water training. “Lake Ramsey is the training site most of the time but the ice doesn’t usually leave the water until late April. Then it’s not warm or safe enough to train on the water until May.” Explains Rob.
The Chiros practise three times a week, usually up to six times a week during overload periods in the late summer. They train on the gorgeous, clean waters of Lake Ramsey in the heart of Sudbury. Each session lasts up to two hours. “We are all working towards the same goal. There’s lots of communication before practices and at occasional social get-togethers. We try to let everyone have their say,” Rob says.
Rob got involved originally because he was asked to paddle – a sport he loves and to help coach because he has alot of marathon-canoe experience and paddling skills. Years ago, he taught canoeing and white-water kayaking. He has always been competitive and has always looked for events to push his limits: triathlons, lake swimming, cycling, canoe marathons. He is one of a handful of people who have swum the length of Lake Ramsey, 7 kilometres. He has also competed at provincial, national, and world masters’ swimming competitions.
Dragon boating is a growing sport across Canada. “It’s a fun group atmosphere. There are usually different levels of teams from easy-going recreational groups to the serious competitive teams. It’s a good way to meet people, get in shape, and socialize,” Rob says. For Rob, being out on the lake is also an incredible experience. “Every time the lake is just slightly different. Over the summer, paddlers chart the growth of loons and geese families with their babies. Along the lake is a boardwalk where hundreds of Sudburians walking and jogging by can watch the happenings on Lake Ramsey. Team Chiro shares the water with canoeists, kayakers, sailboats, often as the sun is setting over the rocks and trees on the western cove of Lake Ramsey. The gentle scene is in sharp contrast to the hard training of the Chiros. “I like to train hard. There is no better feeling than the time when a team of 20 paddlers makes a 500-pound boat move across the water quietly, yet swiftly, as one,” Rob says.