Cochrane-born athletes Callum McNeice and Beth Vinnell were both nominated for the University of Calgary’s Dr. Dennis Kadatz Male and Female Athlete of the Year Award during the 51st Annual Night of Dino awards gala on April 3.
Both athletes had fantastic seasons, as McNeice defeated University of Alberta’s Marcus Peterson in the 2018 Canada West Wrestling Championships to come away with the gold medal. He was also named the 2018 Canada West Most Outstanding Male Wrestler and Male Athlete of the Week during the month of February.
Vinnell was part of the Dino’s women’s volleyball team that won their first Canada West Conference title since 2005 as well as a berth to the USports women’s volleyball championship tournament in Quebec City. She posted a Canada West-record .442 hitting percentage – second best in the nation – and finished second in the conference with 112 blocks. Those numbers led her to be named to the Canada West first all-star team and the first All-Canadian team.
While neither McNeice nor Vinnell won the athlete of the year award, as those titles went to female rugby star Temitope Ogunjimi as well as David Kapinga and Mambi Diawara of the Dino’s national championship men’s basketball team, the pair of Cochrane athletes were ecstatic to even be nominated for such a prestigious award.
“It’s really humbling knowing I was nominated beside some of Canada’s best athletes,” McNeice said.
“I’d just like to thank my teammates, coaches and family for helping me get to this point. I couldn’t have done it without them.”
“It was a great season, but there’s definitely still a lot of work that needs to be done both personally and team wise. I came up short at the USport (National Championships) ending with a fourth place finish, but a few weeks later I beat the guy that beat me in a close match.”
“I personally need to be more mentally prepared … I think that will bring me to the next step in wrestling.”
“It feels amazing having been nominated. We have some very talented athletes in our school, so to be nominated within the five is such an honour and is so humbling,” added Vinnell who dealt with injuries in the 2017 season causing her to miss a good majority of her playing time.
“I’m happy with the season I had. Taking last year to actually take the time to get healthy, to get my body strong was such a game changer for me this season and this year was probably the best my body has felt since I was playing U16. Being healthy and in a place where I wasn’t sidelined in practice due to pain allowed me to put in the time to work on my skill and develop, which I definitely noticed in my play this year.”
“We had such a great season team wise … it was honestly such a blast. It was so cool to see everything click for us this year and finally start to come together. We worked our butts off and really pushed ourselves and one another to get better so to have that pay off was very rewarding.”
While both athletes are happy with their individual success, they said team goals triumph everything else.
“It’s cool to receive awards and recognition like that and so humbling to be considered along with all those other talented athletes but individual awards aren’t really what I care about,” Vinnell said.
“Being in a team sport, I care most about our performance and success as a team and would much rather see that than receive individual awards any day.”
Our team didn’t do as good as we were hoping this year but we have a young team so we have some time to make some improvements, McNeice said of the Dino’s wrestling team.
“Our goal is to win the Canada West banner next year and I think we have the pieces in place in order to do so.”
McNeice also mentioned how cool it was for both he and Vinnell to be nominated as both were born and raised Cochrane athletes.
“It’s definitely special when two Cochrane kids get nominated for such an important award,” McNeice said.
“It’s very special to have support not only from our coaches, teammates and family but also the community. Because without that, none of this would have been possible … as a town, Cochrane has produced many great athletes and I think that’s because we have a strong support base.”
