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Ponoka Quidditch player wins gold at nationals

Anyone familiar with the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling will have heard of the sport Quidditch. There's a team in central Alberta.
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Quidditch winners (l-r) Ricky Boyce of Ponoka and Brian Gallaway of the Central Alberta Centaurs helped the Edmonton Aurors earned gold at the Quidditch Canada National Championship at the University of Victoria in British Columbia from April 1 to 2.

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Anyone familiar with the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling will have heard of the sport Quidditch.

The books feature a “wizards” sport, which has garnered enough fans that people have put together their own real-life version of the game. Enough so that in Canada there is a Quidditch Canada National Championship.

Held April 1 and 2 the event brought two central Alberta residents to nationals with one, Ricky Boyce, coming from Ponoka.

Held at the University of Victoria in British Columbia the two players are part of the Central Alberta Centaurs who joined up with the Edmonton Aurors to help the team win gold.

Boyce and Brian Gallaway from the Centaurs aided the Aurors to bring home the gold after a gruelling two-day tournament.

With this win, the Aurors become the first team from western Canada to win the Canadian title. This monumental win was accomplished through the strength of teamwork, hard work and determination present among the Aurors. “We got there with teamwork and we finished it with teamwork,” reported Boyce who grew up playing lacrosse and competitive darts for many years before finding quidditch.

The inclusion of Boyce and Gallaway shows just where the local quidditch club in Red Deer could be in a few short years as it continues to grow and prosper as a team. Both adult and youth programming start again in May, including a new youth quidditch program in Lacombe.