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Women drawing strength from sport

Paddling gave Kate Zubick friends. It gave her her husband. It gave her the confidence to return to school and change careers. Most importantly, it gave her a way to reach her potential.
Kate Zubick
Paddling on an elite dragon boating team helped give Kate Zubick the confidence to return to school and take on a new career.

Paddling gave Kate Zubick friends. It gave her her husband. It gave her the confidence to return to school and change careers. Most importantly, it gave her a way to reach her potential.

On Saturday, Zubick will convey the importance sport has had in her life as part of a panel of women athletes at the second annual Wine, Women & Sport social event to benefit programs for women and girls by Soroptimist International of the Tri-Cities. The other panelists joining Zubick will be former  Canadian national soccer team player Melissa Tancredi and ultra-marathoner Stacey Shand.

Zubick, 59, started paddling recreationally in 1988 with various local dragon boating teams. She said it was a fun way to get active and meet new people.

But it was her ascent a few years later to the elite paddling corps with a world championship team out of False Creek in Vancouver that was empowering. 

Travelling to competitions in far-flung places like Hong Kong and Macau with other driven, motivated women couldn’t help but rub off.

“Aligning women to a single focus gives them confidence to do other things,” Zubick said.

As it did for her.

Feeling she had something more to give the world than as a special education assistant, Zubick started upgrading her education part time, earned her Bachelor’s degree at the University of British Columbia and then her teaching certificate. At the age of 40, she stood at the front of the classroom as a fully-certified teacher.

Zubick was also recently married and starting a family.

Her constant, her rock through it all, was paddling.

“It’s my zen,” she said. “It became part of who I am.”

When Zubick was pregnant with her son, she coached, eventually connecting with a team of breast cancer survivors. Pulling them together, beating the big drum to keep them in sync, took her motivation to a whole new level.

“Those women taught me so much more about what it means to live your life, what it means to be a paddler,” Zubick said.

That strength has served her well as the years have flowed by. 

Zubick said it’s especially important for older women to nurture the camaraderie of sports, the friendships they’ve made through activity, even as the demands of life close in.

“I am a better person for surrounding myself with women who are not afraid to be strong and aggressive,” she said. “It’s integral to our mental and physical health.”

And women should never be afraid or intimidated by new challenges.

“You have to push your boundaries, otherwise you get stale and stagnant.”

• Wine, Women & Sport is being held at Centennial secondary school (570 Poirier St., Coquitlam) from 7 to 10 p.m. on Saturday. Each ticket includes a glass of wine, and the souvenir glass it comes in, as well as tapas prepared by the school’s food service students. For more information and to buy tickets online, go to https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/wine-women-sport-tickets-41354411157?aff=efbneb