Posted: April 29, 2012

Come out and help celebrate OVC’s 150th Anniversary with your fellow alumni on Alumni Weekend 2012!

There are lots of activities going on:

8:30 AM: OVCAA Welcome Breakfast (free!), come mix and mingle!

10:00 AM: OVCAA Annual General Meeting in room 1714, Lifetime Learning Centre

12:00 PM: UofG President’s Lunch, Peter Clarke Hall ($28)

1:30-4:30 PM: Tours of OVC every 30-45 minutes, hopefully also to include part of the new AHL/Pathobilogy building.  Meet by the cafeteria in the Lifetime Learning Centre

5:30 PM: OVC 150th Celebration Reception and Dinner, Creelman Hall - Join fellow OVC alumni, friends and family, as we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the College. Class photographs will be taken during the reception on the steps of Creelman Hall. ($35)

The following OVC classes are also having reunions this year.  Contact us if you need any information!  (ovcaa@uoguelph.ca) or go the the reunions page (http://www.alumni.uoguelph.ca/involved/involved_aw2012_reunions.shtml):

OVC’52, OVC’57, OVC’59, OVC’62, OVC’66, OVC’67, OVC’70, OVC’72

For more details on these and other events happening on Alumni Weekend, and to register for any and all events, please go to the main events page:

http://www.alumni.uoguelph.ca/involved/involved_aw2012_mainevents.shtml

Posted: April 6, 2012

The 82nd Challenge Cup Finals were a fantastic spectacle this year - the stands were crowded with students and alumni, there was music and announcers, popcorn and cotton candy, flags waving, mascot competitions… oh, and somewhere in there was also a couple of hockey games!

At the end of the co-ed final was a very special presentation.  A line of 27 OVC alumni spanning the last 60 years took to the ice, most of them wearing their old well-worn class hockey jerseys.  Each alumus was announced with his or her year, and then both teams from the co-ed final and the winning women’s team walked down the line and shook hands with all the hockey-playing alumni who came before them.

Then came the moment everyone had been waiting for for months.  Dr. Brad Hanna, OVC 1989, brought forth the newly-minted Challenge Cup trophy he had been crafting himself for so long.  It was presented to the captains of the winning teams by himself and Dick Jullian (OVC 1952) on behalf of the OVC Alumni Association.

It was a moment to remember.

A hearty congratulations to the winning OVC 2012 Silver Foxes women’s team, and the OVC 2013 Golden Phoenix co-ed team, and everyone past and present who participated in the Challenge Cup tournament, and special thanks to all those alumni who came out to make the celebration this year so special.

Posted: March 21, 2012

Come on out for the final women’s and co-ed games of the 2012 OVC Challenge Cup tournament on Friday March 30th!  This year the championships are going to be an exceptional event - a brass ensemble will play the national anthem before each game, the teams will be lead onto the ice by members of the Fergus Pipe Band, the varsity staff will ensure you’re entertained with music during all stops in play, and come on up to Gryphs for a reception after the winners are decided!

To top it off, Dr. Brad Hanna (OVC 1989) will present the new hand-crafted Challenge Cup trophy to the winning teams on behalf of the OVCAA, along with representatives from numerous alumni teams from years gone by.  It promises to be a great time, and you may even bump into an old friend or two (or make a new one!).  Nothing brings OVC alumni together quite like hockey :)

Photo: Hockey Hall of Famer Ken Dryden (yes it’s him!) showing off the new OVC Challenge Cup trophy, designed and made by Dr. Brad Hanna

Posted: January 16, 2012

Dave Easter, Marketing & Communications Manager for U of G varsity sports, offered to feature OVC Challenge Cup at the Gryphon men’s varsity hockey game (the “Frosty Mug”) at the Sleeman Centre this Friday Januray 20th.  There will be a ceremonial puck drop conducted by Tony Calverley, a member of the OVC’52 hockey team that won Challenge Cup every year from 1949-1952.  He will be accompanied onto the ice by second-year DVM student Dave Renaud, who will be carrying the new Challenge Cup trophy.  Photos and videos related to Challenge Cup, which started in 1931, will be shown on the scoreboard during the intermissions.  It would be great to have a good OVC crowd on hand to help mark the College’s 150th anniversary, so come on out and enjoy the game!  Puck drops at 7:30 PM.  Tickets are just $5 for students and $10 for others, and can be purchased through the Gryphon Box Office.

Photo credit: OVC Emeritus Professor Keith Betteridge, Biomedical Sciences.

Challenge Cup information can be found at www.ovchockey.ca  

Photos of the construction of the new Challenge Cup trophy can be seen on Facebook (click here!).

For more information about the new Challenge Cup trophy, you can also read the article in At Guelph.

Posted: January 14, 2012

The Ontario Veterinary College Business Club would like to invite all clinics to attend a networking evening to meet the soon-to-be new graduates of OVC 2012!

The event will take place at OVC in the Lifetime Learning Centre cafeteria (room 1707 B&C) on Wednesday January 25, 2012 from 5PM to 9PM.  Appetizers will be served for all final year students and interested employers/mentors.

There is no cost to participants. The sole purpose of this event is to bring together prospective employers and students in a friendly “get to know you” atmosphere, just prior to the OVMA Conference in Toronto.

Please send an e-mail to cremy@uoguelph.ca, or 519-835-5438 by January 18th 2012 with the number of attendees from your clinic, if you are interested in participating in this event.

The OVCAA is proud to sponsor this event as the evolution of the annual “Watering Hole” event that has been held in January for the last two years.  The evening is also being supported by RBC Financial.

Posted: December 5, 2011

Last week, on November 30, OVC held its annual in-course awards ceremony at the Lifetime Learning Centre.  Among the awards given out were the OVC Alumni Association Proficiency Prizes, which go to the student with the highest GPA in each Phase (year) of the DVM program, as well as the OVC Alumni Association Spirit Prize.  This year’s recipients are pictured below, along with OVCAA President Janet Sunohara-Neilson.  A hearty congratulations to them and all the in-course award recipients for their hard work and college participation over the last year!

OVCAA Proficiency Prizes:

Phase I: Matthew Kornya 

Phase 2: Galya Schwartz 

Phase 3: Alison Grant (absent)

OVCAA Spirit Prize: Whitney DeGroot   

Posted: November 14, 2011

The OVCAA is very pleased to present the long-awaited update to its website!  We hope you’ll find its many new features both interesting and informative.  Our most significant new addition is the OVCAA Blog, on which you’ll find posts about our alumni, award recipients, board members, recent or upcoming OVCAA events, and even profiles of some of the great figures in OVC history.  If you are an alumnus, or if you know an alumnus (mentor, colleague, friend) whom you would like to see profiled on the OVCAA blog, please e-mail us at ovcaa@uoguelph.ca.  We love to hear from our alumni!

Other features of our new website include descriptions of all the OVCAA Alumni Awards, as well as links to the nomination forms to make it easy to nominate the deserving alumni you know!  This year’s nomination deadlines are March 1, 2012.  Don’t miss out, as it will be a very special year celebrating OVC’s 150th anniversary!  You’ll also find links to the OVC Crest, information about volunteering with and donating to the OVCAA, and a calendar of upcoming events.  A few of our links are still being updated, so keep checking back for new posts to the blog, more information and ongoing updates!

We also welcome your feedback!  If you have any suggestions for our new website, pictures or stories you’d like to contribute, or other information you’d like us to include, please let us know!  Just e-mail us at ovcaa@uoguelph.ca!

Posted: August 16, 2011

There’s some thing about OVC and hockey.

Next year will mark the 80th anniversary of the Challenge Cup — the holy grail of inter-class play. For each DVM class, the annual tournament is a major highlight of their time at OVC.

But for many alumni, the passion for Canada’s game doesn’t stop after graduation. Every April, veterinarians from across Ontario and beyond return to Guelph for the OVC Alumni Hockey Tournament.

The tourney has been an unofficial rite of spring since 1991. But the seeds were planted in 1990, when the Class of ’89 Panthers were invited to come back to OVC a year after graduation and enter a team in the Challenge Cup. “We came from all over, from B.C. to Maine,” said Dr. Brad Hanna, Biomedical Sciences, a member of the ’89 team. “As I recall, I bumped into Grant

Maxie in the halls and he was quite impressed that we’d all come back to OVC to play hockey.”

So a tradition was born.

“This is a fun, social tournament rather than a highly competitive one, and it’s restricted to OVC grads, faculty and staff — no ringers,” said Maxie, who organized the inaugural tournament. “So a good time can be had by people of all ages and abilities, men and women.”

All but seven classes since 1972 were represented in the 2010 OVC Alumni Hockey Tournament. The combined team of OVC ’93/’95 won the men’s side while OVC ’92 won the women’s event (see photos). The men’s team included, from left, Ameet Singh, Scott Hobson, Kurt Streib, Gerald Geoffrey, Kirk Als, Adam Als, John Barta, Peter Sponagle and Geoff Beck. The women’s team was made up of Jane Steckle, Cindy Findlater, Marie Hardy, Mary Thompson, Cathy Gartley, Helen Wojcinski, Dee Croft, Kate Krouskie, Sara Ayres and Tracey Chenier.

Photos by Martin Schwalbe