Boxing visitors from Down Under
Coaches with the St. Catharines Amateur Boxing Club pose with athletes and coaches from the Corner Inlet Boxing Club in Australia.
Canadians complaining about the polar vortex and the freezing conditions in Niagara this week have nothing on Australian boxing coach Scott Bindloss and his group.
While training Wednesday night at the St. Catharines Amateur Boxing Cub, Bindloss mentioned it was 41 degrees when he left Australia. For anyone with a basic grasp of math, it means the Aussies have seen a 60-degree plunge in temperatures since landing in North America.
“It has been a baptism of fire,” he said. “I had to learn how to drive on the opposite side of the road in New York traffic and once we landed, it started to snow,” Bindloss said.
The cold has been an eye-opener for him.
“Today (Wednesday), I stood at the top of Niagara Falls trying to film and I couldn’t because the cold was actually hurting my hand,” he said. “It is the coldest I have ever been.”
The cold hasn’t deterred his enjoyment of Canada.
“We are having an absolute blast,” he said. “We really love it.”
The Aussies have spent two nights in Niagara Falls and they’re impressed with the natural spectacle.
“It’s amazing, but cold and there was a lot of mist coming up,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting all the buildings to be around it. We were driving through the town and there it was.”
Since landing in North America and beginning their trek towards this weekend’s Brampton Cup boxing tournament, the Australians have been busy visiting local boxing clubs.
“All you do is look in a phone book or on Facebook and say hello,” Bindloss said. “We tried to get fights in Brooklyn and Buffalo along the way, but things didn’t work out. Maybe next year.”
The Australians have been welcomed at whatever club they have visited.
“Boxing is a funny sport. We’re always at each other’s throat, but we are also willing to give our last dollar to each other,” Bindloss said. “We are passionate about what we do.”
He sent a message to the St. Catharines Boxing Club’s Facebook page saying they were passing through the area and were looking for a place to train. St. Catharines coach Joe Corrigan told Bindloss the club would love to host them.
“They are friendly, they brought me coffee and they are helping out my guys,” Bindloss said Wednesday. “They also have a 75-kilogram guy and if my guy wins and their guy wins, they will clash in the semifinals.”
Corrigan and the other local coaches and athletes were clearly enjoying the visit.
“You respect someone who has put all the time into the sport and if someone wants to come, we would do anything to help them out,” Corrigan said. “There’s a lot of hockey, football and basketball teams, but there’s really not a lot of boxing clubs and boxers. We have to stick together.”
The friendships made between clubs often lead to reciprocal visits from one country to another.
A perfect example of that happened last year when the St. Catharines club was touring Ireland with a number of boxers from Sudbury. The boxers from Sudbury were sightseeing in Ireland and ran into a boxer from Boston. It resulted in some fighters from Boston coming to compete in Sudbury and fighters from St. Catharines heading down to Boston to train and compete.
Bindloss brought three fighters from the Corner Inlet Boxing Club in Gippsland, Victoria, Australia to compete at the Brampton Cup; A 74-kilogram open elite fighter age 19; a 60-kilogram youth open age 16; and, a 52-kilogram junior open fighter age 15.
“I chatted with the Canadian coach at the world championships and I have been scouring for opportunities,” Bindloss said. “To become world class, you have to fight world class.”
Next year, he’s hoping to bring upwards of 20 boxers to compete at the Brampton Cup.
