The Canadian Ninja League is growing in leaps and bounds – and coach Patrick Drolet and the Nickel City Ninjas are more than happy to be growing right alongside the CNL.

Where the local obstacle racing team that loosely emulates the American Ninja Warrior series travelled to CNL nationals in Langley (B.C.) last October with a crew of nine athletes, it’s double that total that made the trip this year to Edmonton at the end of November.

“That’s just due to the growth in the sport, more gyms coming along, more kids getting into the sport,” said Drolet. “The national competition will have twice as many athletes this year (versus last year).”

With seven of his youngsters participating in a new elite program at the Coniston facility and the remainder still tackling their weekly workouts with an impressive level of excitement, Drolet has introduced a great deal of obstacle-specific training – even though the exact details of the courses they will tackle in Alberta was unknown until less than 24 hours prior to the event.

“We’re looking at more of the technical skills of the obstacles, moving obstacles in the air, pushing a ring and flying and hooking into something else,” said Drolet. That is exactly the type of challenge 14 year old Camille Brisebois needed as she followed her brother out to the Ninja sessions after establishing a strong base of athleticism via gymnastics.

“Ninja is kind of like parkour and gymnastics mixed together,” suggested Brisebois, who finished first earlier this year at an event hosted at Apex Warrior Gym in Sudbury. “In Ninja, you do a lot of hanging obstacles, swinging from one obstacle to another instead of staying on one bar and flipping around it.”

Still, she is quick to acknowledge the head start she enjoyed as she first set foot at the home of the Nickel City Ninjas some three years ago, just because of her previous background in sport.

“Gymnastics helped me a lot,” said Brisebois. “I already had pretty good grip strength and core strength. Doing Ninja only improved it.”

That said, as with any athlete, there are going to be some aspects of the passion she pursues that come easier than others. “A lot of the obstacles are different – and it really varies from one person to the next,” suggested Brisebois.

“Some people have a hard time with balance. One of the most difficult obstacles for me is the far lache*.”
(*swinging from one bar and releasing completely to then connect to another bar a certain distance away)

“You have to really pop with your shoulders and get your feet up high to get to the next one,” Brisebois added.

If this sounds a little like “coach-speak”, that only makes sense as the young woman who is not only attending her first set of nationals but also enjoying the joy of airplane transportation for the first time jumped head first into her role as a coach with NCN this September.

“I didn’t realize with coaching just how much I would have to describe a skill,” she said. “With some kids, you actually have to describe exactly what you want them to do. That’s something I had to work on a little bit.”

“But it 100% helps me a lot as an athlete,” Brisebois continued. “Sometimes I see a student doing something and it makes me wonder if I am doing that too.”

While many of the Nickel City Ninja athletes are simply looking to garner valuable experience from a setting unlike any other that they have seen, there are also some clear-cut medal hopefuls, including eight year old Luka Montpellier.

The soft-spoken third grade student at Alliance St-Joseph in Chelmsford gave both hockey and basketball a shot before joining his brother in this notably less high profile sport. “I didn’t know what sport I wanted but we found Ninja and then I wanted to do that,” he said.

And did it quite well, apparently.

“I did a full course clear, getting through all of the obstacles without a re-try,” he recalled of an competition earlier this year in either Hamilton or Milton. “”At the other competition, I did one run really good but bad on the other. I completed more obstacles in the good run.”

A young man of few words, Montpellier is content to let his performance do the talking – with coach Drolet fully appreciative of this approach. “The commitment level of both the athloetes and the parents has been fantastic, to be completely honest,” said Drolet. “I am overwhelmed by the support I have received, with the team and with the business, in general.”

The kind of support that leads to plenty of growth in a sport that is clearly gaining a following.

Rounding out the Nickel City Ninjas team that competed at nationals are: Jack Harmon, Landon Zelonko, Alec Montpellier, Whitney Marshall, Zoe Howard, Etienne Brisebois, Ellie Martikkala, Tricky Trent, Risky Ridge, Sophie Auger, Cedric Bluteau, Jonathan Kelly, O. Chenard, A. Chenard and Coach Julien and Coach Pat.