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[Menu]The Time Bandits Flyball Club
represents a new beginning for most of its current members. With just one
exception, everyone who belongs to the team has participated in competitive
flyball with at least one other team first. This fact should not come as a
surprise, for the founding of the Time Bandits reflects the commitment of
its original members to a competitive philosophy of flyball based on the idea
that improvement is a worthy and attainable goal. The founding members -- Viki
Kidd, Teresa Castonguay, Richard
Kelly, Evan Gross, Greg
Williams, Chad and
Nancy Metcalf, and Mary Lou Campbell – had all belonged to The Away Team,
itself formed by Viki, Teresa, and Victoria Lamont, among others, when they
separated from the Eastenders in 1993. But The Away Team, despite
notable success, did not allow a satisfactory pursuit of our collective goals
and several of us decided to leave in favor of new challenges. We created the Time
Bandits Flyball Club in 1997 and have continued to mature as a team ever
since.
Acquiring a name for the new team did not come easily. While playing through the
entire House League season under the jocular name, Brand X, we vigorously
debated the many possibilities that had been advanced by members of the team –
among them, Bound for Glory, Stealth Bombers, Quantum Force, Upgrade, Crash
Test Dummies, and the winning choice, Time Bandits, from the title of
a Terry Gilliam movie.
In our very first tournament (Toronto, 1998) as a new team, we achieved a
first-place standing, largely with dogs that had been trained and seasoned
within the fold of The Away Team. They included Shaunessey, Thunder,
Shelby, Briar, and Digger. By the end of that year, while we still relied on the
experienced dogs, it was clear that several of our novice dogs would find their
own niches. Chad and Nancy Metcalf left the team at the end of the 1998 season
after several years of dedicated effort both to The Away Team and the Time
Bandits. Their contributions and good cheer will always be missed.
It has been our remarkable good fortune since the departure of Chad and Nancy to
see our ranks grow, first by the addition of Patricia
Harper, and shortly
thereafter by Gord Travis and Victoria
Lamont. All three have enriched the team
with experienced dogs, as well as with promising young dogs, and they have done
so with a variety of different breeds. Our success at integrating the new
members quickly into the existing team structure was demonstrated repeatedly
throughout 1999’s tournament season, when Disney and Whisper, along with Viki’s
incredible newcomers, Galla and Ivy, and Teresa’s Dodger, gave us enough speed
and versatility to compete for the first time in the 18-second range. On
occasion, the team even recorded times in the 17-second range.
At the beginning of the year 2000, we invited four members of the disbanded MegaCity Motor Mutts to join us as permanent members of Time Bandits – Wendy Simpson, Carole Paquin, Sheri Sabourin, and Cathy Melnike. They immediately added depth to our team, as once again we found ourselves blessed both with experienced, talented dogs and with determined, competitive team players. Carole's daughter, Laurie Paquin, joined the team in September, 2000. In July, 2001, the team again added an experienced player, Chad Marquis, formerly a member of the disbanded Paws United. With the retirement of Carole, Sheri, and Laurie, at the end of the 2002 season, Time Bandits accepted several new members, all from another disbanded team, The Posse: Morgan Jarvis, Yuka Amano, and Dawn Dorazio.
At times it is hard to distinguish between "historical" experiences belong to the Away Team years and those belonging to the subsequent Time Bandits years. For those of us who moved directly from the one team to the other, a sense of continuity can be felt in many aspects of the way the new team functions and how the team members interact. But that very sense of familiarity has made it possible for us to pursue our goals, grow as a team, and finally come to see a fulfillment of the ideals we sought out in the beginning.
See also: Team Photos Team Trivia Memories Team Alumni