In the early 1990’s, the lower mainland was divided into two regions for water polo referred to as the Vancouver and Simon Fraser. Each of the two regions had designated technical directors overseeing the respective areas with Michel Roy in the Vancouver region and Ken Clark in the Simon Fraser region.
The two regions were originally conceived as a way to offer competition play without having teams incur the high cost of traveling to eastern Canada to compete. Eventually, the regions were expanded to include Vancouver Island, the Fraser Valley and the Okanagan. At that time, the majority of athletes were in the U18 and “Junior” age categories with the Junior age category referring to athletes older than age 18 and two “Senior” clubs were in existence known as the Vancouver Reign and Simon Fraser.
In order for B.C. to compete at a National level and produce athletes worthy of the National team, the British Columbia Water Polo Association (BCWPA) decided to create a provincial program with the goal of establishing High Performance teams who would be competitively selected for teams to compete on the national stage. Thus, BCWPA established Pacific Storm as the provincial program for B.C. with Michel Roy as the Head Coach and over the years produced a significant number of outstanding competition results and athletes who have gone on to represent Canada at both National and International levels. BCWPA’s provincial Pacific Storm program produced a number of Olympians including Susan Gardiner, Rachel Riddell, Thomas Marks, Con Kudaba, Brandon Jung, and Kevin Mitchell.
With the creation of additional high performance clubs in B.C. during the last decade, BCWPA recognized that water polo had grown to the point where it was in the sport’s best interest for Pacific Storm to separate from the provincial body and establish itself as its own independent club. Therefore, on September 23, 2008 the Pacific Storm Water Polo Club (Storm) was established and incorporated under the Society Act of B.C as an independent club with a focus on high performance water polo.
Pacific Storm offers a variety of programming ranging from young developing athletes under the age of 14 all the way up to the senior level. The club’s Executive is committed to Storm’s continued success as its legacy with the goal to build the sport of water polo in BC and produce high calibre athletes who will continue to excel at all levels provincially, nationally and internationally.