History of the OHSCC

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  • History of the OHSCC

    Reports in the old CFC Bulletin (predecessor of En Passant) show that the Ontario High School Chess Championship began in 1968. We would like to complete the story of the early years and pose this as a challenging project to interested players. E-mail for help with possible sources.

    In 1978, Ed Thompson of Cameron Heights CI in Kitchener re-organised the Championship. It was held in 1978 and for the next several years at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo.

    History of the OHSCC
    A computer beat me in chess, but it was no match when it came to kickboxing

  • #2
    Re: History of the OHSCC

    I played in the OHSCC in 1973, 1974, and 1975, when it was hosted at New College, University of Toronto, for all three of those years. I believe the attendance hit 300 players in at least one of those years. It was a 6-round Swiss, well run, and attracted most of the top high school and junior players in Ontario at that time (Peter Nurmi, the South brothers from Ottawa, Homeric Arvanitis, Jonathan Schaeffer, the Morenz brothers, and Kelly Riley are a few of the big names I remember). Bryon Nickoloff had dropped out of high school, but would come to the tournament and play blitz for money against all challengers.

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    • #3
      Re: History of the OHSCC

      Have you checked this site:

      http://www.ohsca.on.ca/history.php

      Is this a competitor to the OHSCC web site?

      There were also the Canadian High School Championships - the first one was in Calgary in 1975. I think there were one or two more before it died out.

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      • #4
        Re: History of the OHSCC

        Originally posted by Frank Dixon View Post
        I played in the OHSCC in 1973, 1974, and 1975, when it was hosted at New College, University of Toronto, for all three of those years. I believe the attendance hit 300 players in at least one of those years. It was a 6-round Swiss, well run, and attracted most of the top high school and junior players in Ontario at that time (Peter Nurmi, the South brothers from Ottawa, Homeric Arvanitis, Jonathan Schaeffer, the Morenz brothers, and Kelly Riley are a few of the big names I remember). Bryon Nickoloff had dropped out of high school, but would come to the tournament and play blitz for money against all challengers.
        I was the tournament director for some of these events and still have a couple of the crosstables. Some polaroid photos of the winners made it into the CFC Bulletin.

        I provided the list of winners from the early 1970s to the website Hugh mentioned.

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        • #5
          Re: History of the OHSCC

          Originally posted by Erik Malmsten View Post
          I was the tournament director for some of these events and still have a couple of the crosstables. Some polaroid photos of the winners made it into the CFC Bulletin.

          I provided the list of winners from the early 1970s to the website Hugh mentioned.
          I played in an all-Ontario high school tournament that was held in Toronto some time in either 1968 or 1969. It was a 4-round swiss system and there were 4 winners at 4-0, namely (I think) John MacPhail, Ray Stone, Robert Kiviaho and Peter Stark. I was part of a huge tie at 3-1.

          My memory is not what it used to be and I may have missed out on a winner, sorry! Some other very strong young players that were around then or later were Victor Dzera, Peter Nurmi, Stephen Boyd, Joe Hentschel, David Jackson, Peter Murray and in the 1980s Ian Findlay, Robert Morrison, John Pajak and Brett Campbell.

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          • #6
            Re: History of the OHSCC

            I played in three of these events, 1995 at U of T (Reserve), 1996 at Queen's and 1997 at Laurier (Championship).

            The Laurier one I remember specifically because the Championship section was in the Solarium. The Solarium is really nice in the winter at WLU, but in mid-May it gets VERY hot!!

            Another funny anecdote from that event, my school's team was eating at Taco Bell, and our Intermediate section player started playing with one of those plastic knives, bending it one way then the other. We all told him it was bad luck now and the only way to return to good luck was to manage to break it in half.

            He worked on it for over an hour and couldn't manage to break it in half. Then he went and lost his game - the only game he lost the whole event. Oops.
            Christopher Mallon
            FIDE Arbiter

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            • #7
              Re: History of the OHSCC

              The Ontario High School Championships were a big deal in the 1970s, especially for players who lived in smaller centres. There were nowhere near as many events for young players; the World Youth Championship (along with provincial and national youth championships tied in with that) didn't start until the mid-1980s. Junior and youth chess in Canada were thriving before CMA expanded it in the 1980s, let us not forget; this was especially true up to the late 1970s, riding the Fischer boom, which expanded interest greatly.

              I was living in Deep River at the time, halfway between Ottawa and North Bay, and roads were nowhere near as good as they are now, so it took three hours to get to Ottawa to play an event, cutting down on the ease of travel and competition. Winters were also much longer and more severe. But in our rural Renfrew County region, we had an incredible group of high school teachers who coached chess, and we usually sent quite a few players to the OHSCC each year during that era. Take a few days off school (!), hop into the coach's station wagon (Mr. James Hegney was a good chess player, good golfer, volleyball coach, great guy!), drive for 8 hours (now it would be more like 5 or 6), arrive in the Big Smoke, bunk in at U of T, test yourself against the best from other regions (whom you wouldn't normally see otherwise), play speed chess late, get a few wagers going, grab some junk food, etc. It was awesome! :) :)

              I helped to run the event in Kingston in 1996 that Chris Mallon (see above post) played in; by that time, they were letting kids from primary grades play in their own section (which I directed in 1996), and talented players below high school age could enter the high school section if they wanted. The high school group was held in two sections. Still six rounds. I think our total numbers were in the 120-130 range, even counting the primary kids (about 50), and this with the population of Ontario probably increasing by 70 per cent in the intervening years. But more of the better players were not playing in the tournament, compared to the 1970s, when the big names all showed up.

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