Canada Play Day for Pan Am Games at the CBC Tower in Toronto. There was over 600 kids at the CBC Tower downtown Toronto that came in to celebrate Pan Am Games with different athletes from fencing, badminton, gymnastic, boxing and one Para Pan Am sport. Mark Peros (2015 Pan Am Games saber fencer), Eleanor Harvey (2015 Pan Am Games foil fencer), Marc-André LeBlanc from Vango (national champion), Vanessa Lacas-Warrick (national champion) and myself (2015 Pan Am Games épée fencer) took the fencing demonstration in hand and made an instant hit out of it. The fencing demo was the only one that was not at the same place as the other four sports but it was the only thing that was echoing in the CBC tower. Kids were coming into groups of forty to sixty at the time to have a short presentation of the Pan Am Games athletes and what is fencing all about. Then our national champions were doing a quick bout showing couple of fancy fencing moves to the kids to end up with a challenge to everyone watching the demo: put on mask, grab an épée and try to land an attack on them. The kids were having a blast trying to hit, one at the time of course, Marc-André or Vanessa. Their job on the other hand was to defend themselves without fighting back because the kids did not were a fencing jacket. All the kids present at the CBC tower that day actually landed a successful attack on either one of the national champions. After over four hours of demo, we went upstairs to see the other events finishing and all we could hear was great feedback from everyone regarding the fencing part of the day. Promoting Pan Am Games: check! Promoting physical activities and healthy habits: check! Giving a great time to hundreds of kids: check! Promoting fencing: check! Mission accomplished for today!
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