Meet the Fab Five...

By Vern Faulkner The Saanich News

If they played another sport, perhaps, or in a different nation, then the five local teens selected to represent Canada would certainly have attracted more attention.
In Canada, however, obscurity is the common tie that binds water polo players. That's the lot of Erica Brown, Katie Paton, Brad Ward, Lars Yunker and Laura Kesteloo.
All five train out of Commonwealth Place with the Saanich Water Polo School, which was founded by Ferenc Vindisch.
Vindisch, now 47, played and coached water polo in his native Hungary before moving to Canada in 1991.
All five teens have the tools and potential to play at the highest level, including the Olympics.
"They're working really hard. For the last five years, the early years of their lives they've played water polo," Vindisch says.
The three girls are well positioned at some point in their futures to crack the line up of the Canadian senior women's team, which is considered one of the top four in the world.
Simply put, he says the Olympics are a realistic goal for the girls.
"It's up to them," he says. "If they have the desire and the driving force ... all three of them have the talent."
Paton is making a bid to join the junior national team this year although she's still waiting for confirmation that she has been invited to try out. If she doesn't make the team, she'll play with the youth national team instead.
Like many drawn to water polo, Paton was once a competitive swimmer. Tired of endless laps of the pool, the contact, competition and camaraderie of water polo reeled her in about seven years ago. She finds the travelling detracts from her enjoyment of the game "because I don't like airplanes very much."
Earlier this month, she returned from a development tournament in Cuba and last weekend was in Vancouver for a junior national tournament.
The stint in Cuba was a wonderful experience, the 16-year-old says, and the highlight was the competition against the Cuban senior women's team.
"It was really fun playing them - it was a challenge. It's always good playing against people that were better than you," she says.
Paton will have to get used to travelling. She will compete at the B.C. Open in February, journey to Alberta in March, and if everything goes her way embark on a summer tour of Germany and Holland with the national team.
She works part-time in a bakery to cover some of the costs but her family picks up the tab for most of her expenses.
Sixteen-year-old Laura Kesteloo, a member of the youth national team, hopes that her blazing speed and strong defensive play will be enough to graduate to the junior squad.
Speed is essential in water polo, a game with similar offensive-defensive strategies as sports like basketball or lacrosse. Defensively, she is often assigned the "hole" player, who is the opponent positioned in front of her team's net.
She says her weaknesses lie in the offensive end, where she has to overcome a reluctance to shoot.
"Normally, I'll be the one to pass it off," she relates. "There are things that I have to learn, because I'm pretty new to the sport."
The Pacific Christian secondary school student latched onto the water polo for four and a half years despite previously hating anything to do with sports.
Today, not even the nine training sessions per week that she and the other national-level athletes in the area must endure or the busy traveling schedule can dampen her enthusiasm for the sport.
"It's a different lifestyle from most people. It's a lot of work, but it is very, very rewarding," she says. "It's inspiring to be accepted on the national team."
Brown launched a concerted bid to make the junior national team this winter, which would mean playing with the defending world champions. If that doesn't happen, she'll resume her position with the youth national team.
She says her strengths are not just athletic, but perceptual as well.
"I have a really good game sense. I know what's happening and I'm physically very strong," she says.
Yunker didn't realize what he had accomplished until he got his official "team Canada" gear.
"It sunk in at that point, when they handed me the sweatshirt with the team Canada logo," says Yunker, who is angling for the junior squad, but will retain his current youth team if that doesn't pan out.
Ward, a Stelly's student like Yunker, concurs.
"You don't really realize it until they give you the suit that has Team Canada on it - then you realize. It's really nice."