The 78th Fraser Highlanders opened their 2014 campaign with a win in the Grade 1 MSR contest at the Georgetown Highland games on Saturday, June 14, 2014. An overall solid performance, including a 1st in ensemble, was enough to give them the win. What began as a cool day for the early soloists, settled in to perfect pipe band weather in time for the afternoon band contests.
With no opposition in its own Grade 2 medley, Ottawa Police challenged up in the Grade 1 MSR, where they managed a very strong second place performance, including two firsts in piping, followed by Peel Regional Police in third. Congratulations must go to Ottawa for all of the extremely hard work they have put in over the last couple of years to raise their level of performance to this standard. Anticipating that Ottawa will challenge up in most of the PPBSO contests this year, we should expect to see a strong response from our established Grade 1 bands, which will make for some exciting contests in 2014!
In the Grade 4 contest, Rob Roy took the win in their first contest since dropping down from Grade 3 last year. Interestingly, Pipes and Drums of Lindsay, who were challenging up from Grade 5, placed second, with Chatham Kent continuing their strong performances from last year, finishing 3rd.
As an organization, no band had a better day than Paris Port Dover, who took both the Grade 3 and Grade 5 contests on Saturday. With lots of stiff competition in both of these flights, PPDs double was a very impressive accomplishment indeed! They will certainly be looking to consolidate these results in Cobourg this weekend. Finishing second and third respectively in each grade were: Grade 3 – Windsor Police and Toronto Police; Grade 5 – Hamilton Police, Pipes & Drums of Lindsay.
Another impressive story line was that these games marked the inaugural band contest for the recently formed Ryan Russell Memorial Pipe Band, formed in honour of Toronto Police Sgt. Ryan Russell, who was killed in the line of duty on January 12, 2011. The juvenile band finished a very respectable 7th out of 12 bands in Grade 5, which was cause for immense pride for all of the players’ parents!
Ian K MacDonald was the professional piper of the day, while Zack Miller took the same honours in drumming. Amateur piper of the day was Tyler Harris, the drumming went to Kyle Wardell.
For the full results of the day, please refer to the results page for Georgetown.
* Following an experimental year in 2013 regarding bands challenging up, the PPBSO formalized the challenging up rules for the 2014 year. Rule D-1.6, excerpted below, explains the rules regarding challenging up.
D-1.6 Challenging up: Bands registered in the PPBSO (i.e. “home” association bands) may challenge up one grade at designated PPBSO-sanctioned contests, provided all of the following conditions are met:
The band finished first or second in the previous year’s PPBSO Champions Supreme in its current PPBSO grade
The band informs the PPBSO Administrator of its intention to challenge up by April 30
The band submits a repertoire conforming to the complete musical requirements of the grade into which it intends to challenge up during the season
Bands wishing to challenge up must submit entries as per PPBSO rules and registration deadlines
Bands challenging up must register and compete in their assigned (lower) grade for any contest where they wish to challenge up. Failure or refusal to compete in, or disqualification from, the assigned (lower) grade event at that contest may result in disqualification from the higher grade event at that contest.
Bands are subject to all requirements for each event in which they compete.
Bands challenging up may only receive Championship Supreme (CS) points on results achieved in their assigned (lower) grade.