User:TimMacFarlaneDB/sandbox

Dragon boating is one of the most accessible team water sports in the world. (add citation here). The Rusty Dragons Adventures "Rusty Dragons" Club was formed in 2005 to enable more people of any age or ability to enjoy the sport (citation here). Since then we have grown to a dozen teams and over two hundred members, and have a wide diversity of teams.

Research
Tim MacFarlane is an avid dragon boat paddler, coach, club founder who first paddled in 2002 with coach Stephen Kwok for the Government of Ontario.

Donald Chisholm ("Don") McKenzie is a Canadian sports medicine specialist at the University of British Columbia, professor in the School of Kinesiology and Director of the Allan McGavin Sports Medicine Centre. In a 1998 paper in the Canadian Medical Association Journal McKenzie described how in February 1996 he started a dragon boat team for women with a history of breast cancer, which the women chose to name Abreast in a Boat. He believed that this activity would benefit breast cancer survivors as it provided strenuous upper body activity in an aesthetically pleasing and socially supportive environment.

His paper concludes: "How important is the Abreast in a Boat project? It is an approach to promoting health and raising breast cancer awareness that is driven by women with the disease. It reaches out to other women and offers them a message of hope and support. It is helping to change attitudes toward "life after breast cancer," and it encourages women to lead full and active lives. It is making a difference."

In 2001, McKenzie was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal for his work with Abreast In A Boat. The citation ended with the words: "His remarkable achievements, enhanced by his guidance and caring, have given breast cancer survivors across Canada a sense of confidence and pride, and a lifeline to a better existence."

Later research published by Mitchell et al. concluded that: "The interview data support the emerging hypothesis that dragon boating is a vehicle for improving women's wellness and post-treatment quality of life."