Stage III Marksmanship (2023) – Part 2

The cadets and coaches assembled in the hotel lobby in the early morning of April 29 and proceeded to breakfast.  The organizers made a paid deal with a local Denny’s restaurant to provide breakfast meals to the cadet teams staying in the hotel.  We were allowed to order anything from the menu.  I ordered a Classic Benny meal.  Breakfast lasted an hour.

Everyone loaded their air rifles, shooting jackets, and other necessary equipment into two military vans after breakfast.  The competition was taking place in another part of town so we needed to bring everything for the day because we wouldn’t come back to the hotel until the late afternoon.  I drove one of the vans.  The cadets in my van appeared excited. 

The organizers booked the Charlie Gardiner Arena for the weekend.  The arena is named after the late Charlie Gardiner, “a Scottish-born Canadian professional ice hockey goaltender who played for the Chicago Blackhawks in the [NHL].”  The hockey rink had been drained and turned into a shooting range.  Cadet competitors shoot using the fancy & expensive SIUS targeting systems.  The systems use microphones to triangulate the precise locations of pellets hitting the targets using sound.  The information is sent to consoles for the cadets to see and to laptop computers for the judges to review, record, and score.  In short, there were a lot of wires spread across the floor.

My cadets & I were given one of the change rooms to store our rifles & equipment.  They were instructed to put on their shooting jackets & glasses and bring their air rifles for inspection.  The judges wanted to make sure the rifles were working properly and not illegally modified. 

A welcome briefing was held in the arena after rifle checks.  All the cadets & coaches were present.  Iqaluit & Arctic Bay were the only teams from Nunavut.  The rest were from Winnipeg and other Manitoba towns.  The Officer-In-Charge (OIC) explained the layout of the arena, the rules, schedule, and how the competition was to proceed for today and tomorrow.  Teams were divided into two groups.  When one group is shooting the other is resting.  All relays for the first day would be done in the prone position. 

Teams were given 30 minutes of practice time on the SIUS targets.  Cadets were allowed to shoot as many pellets as they wanted.  They also used the time to familiarize themselves with the SIUS target consoles, zero-in their rifles, practice their breathing, and strengthen their focus.

My cadets had lunch before their first timed relay.  The meals were prepared & delivered by Subway.  The fast-food chain specializes in subway sandwiches.  Five different kinds of sandwich meals were prepared; one of them excluded meat.  We selected a meal and had 45 minutes to consume it.  We were allowed to save leftovers for later.

I held a brief final team meeting with my cadets before their first relay.  I wished them the best, to remain calm & focused, and to have fun. 

All cadets shot three timed relays in the prone position.  Each relay lasted 30 minutes and cadets shot 20 pellets per relay.  A perfect shot (bullseye) is 10.9 points due to the tracking accuracy of SIUS computers.  A perfect relay score would be 218 points.  If we were using paper targets, a perfect shot would only be 10 points.

I stood behind my cadets and monitored their shooting.  I also took photographs and posted them to the corps’ Facebook page to keep everyone in Arctic Bay informed.  Two of my cadets shot a 10.9 each during Relay 2.  They were very proud of that.  My cadets & I sat in the stands and watched the other cadets compete when we weren’t shooting.  The time was 3:45pm when we finished our third relay.

We were allowed to leave our air rifles & shooting jackets at the arena overnight because no one else was using the facility.  The interim results were posted in the main lobby after 4pm.  The cadets crowded around the papers to see their results.  My team appeared to be doing just fine.

The cadets were driven to CF Polo Park Mall and given two hours to shop & hangout.  Unfortunately, the store I wanted to go to had permanently closed.  I walked around the mall, making sure the cadets weren’t getting into trouble.

Dinner was held at The Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant in downtown Winnipeg.  This was a first for the Arctic Bay cadets & me.  I ordered pasta.

We returned to the hotel full, tired, and wanting to rest.  The cadets were dismissed to their rooms for the night, but we did remind them to be down in the lobby at 6:30am tomorrow morning for breakfast.

                                                                  To Be Continued . . .