Coming North

An Inside Look at the Northern Ontario Disc Golf Championship

As I sneakily waited for the wind to die down on my final putt at Dragon Hills Golf Course on August 1, a conversation at the end of June came back to me—Ontario Disc Sports Association executive director Chris Ozolins said “Why aren’t you registered for the Northern Ontario Championships?”

The tournament, a week-long affair in Thunder Bay, was just a month away at the time—I couldn’t possibly make a trip to Thunder Bay from Ottawa happen so quickly, could I? Turns out, I could. Thanks to amazing airfare prices from Flair Airlines, a great discount block of rooms at the Days Inn on Sibley Drive, and a welcoming attitude from Ozolins and the tournament director team at ChainLink Disc Golf (Cara Hovius and Jeff MacKeigan), I made it happen.

It turned into a whirlwind, nonstop week of helping behind the scenes, competing in four tournament rounds and two flex start rounds with 160 other players from across the country. The tournament, about a year and a half in the making, involved multiple trips to Thunder Bay for the coordinating team of Ozolins, Hovius, and MacKeigan—to meet with those who would become tournament sponsors, to chat about opportunities with the Thunder

Bay Community Economic Development Commission, to walk through courses with owners at Dragon Hills Golf Course and Bayview Golf Course, and the City at Birch Point Disc Golf Course, and even to install tee pads where needed.

I snuck into NOC 2021 at the 11th hour, primarily as a player there for fun (and to tour around Thunder Bay of course!) but also as a volunteer. I packed players’ packs— stuffing Heartbeat Hot Sauce into bag after bag as a nice local treat for those who’d come from near and far to play—and hammered tee signs into the ground after the flex rounds had finished for the day before the tournament rounds began. I ran a registration table on the Friday night before the tournament and got to say hello (and good luck!) to almost every one of the 160 participants. All of my little efforts to help out pale in comparison to Ozolins’s, Hovius’s, and MacKeigan’s work ahead of time.

Getting to experience the hard work of the Chain Link and ODSA teams firsthand was just as great as experiencing Thunder Bay—and thanks to the CEDC I got to experience of what Thunder Bay had to offer. Somehow, in my seven days in the city, I played eight rounds of disc golf and visited Fort William Historical Park, caught the views at Ouimet Canyon, hiked at Sleeping Giant, ate cheese from Thunder

Oak, took in the sights at the scenic lookout at Anemki Wajiw (Mount McKay), set sail with Sail Superior, saw Kakabeka Falls, got ice cream at Silver Islet’s 150-year-old general store and picked amethyst at the Amethyst Mine Panorama.

I’ll be back!