Sports

Promoting healthy lifestyles for our beloved community members is an important value at ICM. With the great support of funds from the community, ICM is now home to a multi-use gymnasium, offering the community an opportunity to engage in a wide variety of sports.

Karate

Karate Academy 

Welcome to the ICM Karate Academy, teaching the traditional karate style known as ‘Shotokan’, in association with Japan Karate Association (JKA).

The purpose of training is self-realization, and each student’s journey is individual. At the ICM Karate Academy we are committed to helping students become stronger, mentally, physically and emotionally, so they can cope successfully with life’s challenges. By strengthening their character to stick to commitments, they can pursue worthy endeavors, control their emotions, and develop focus and perseverance when the going gets tough.

Why Choose the ICM Karate Academy

  • Teaches the Traditional Shotokan style
  • Focus on self awareness, respect, mental health and sportsmanship
  • Gender-segregated classes
  • Affiliated with Japan Karate Association (JKA), a world class karate association
  • Exams are conducted according to the global standards set by Japan Karate Association

Our Karate Instructors:  

Sensei Ignacio Gamesawen  &    Sensei Sofia Mojica

Both instructors are 4th Degree Black Belts, and are members of the Canadian and International arm of the Japan Karate Federation. They are also former members of the Canadian National Team with provincial, national, and international tournament experience.

 

Program Details 

 

  • Ages 7-18
    • $75 per month
    • Annual CJKF Association Fee: $20
  • Ages 18+
    • $85 per month
    • Annual CJKF Association Fee: $20

For any inquiries please email or call [email protected]

BasketBall

Basketball, game played between two teams of five players each on a rectangular court, usually indoors. Each team tries to score by tossing the ball through the opponent’s goal, an elevated horizontal hoop and net called a basket.

Basketball, colloquially referred to as hoops, is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately 9.4 inches (24 cm) in diameter) through the defender’s hoop (a basket 18 inches (46 cm) in diameter mounted 10 feet (3.048 m) high to a backboard at each end of the court) while preventing the opposing team from shooting through their own hoop. A field goal is worth two points, unless made from behind the three-point line, when it is worth three. After a foul, timed play stops and the player fouled or designated to shoot a technical foul is given one or more one-point free throws. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but if regulation play expires with the score tied, an additional period of play (overtime) is mandated.

The five players on each side fall into five playing positions. The tallest player is usually the center, the second tallest and strongest is the power forward, a slightly shorter but more agile player is the small forward, and the shortest players or the best ball handlers are the shooting guard and the point guard, who implements the coach’s game plan by managing the execution of offensive and defensive plays (player positioning). Informally, players may play three-on-three, two-on-two, and one-on-one.

Required Equipment

  • Basketball

Aside from the court and the baskets, the basketball is the only piece of equipment necessary to play the game of basketball. A basketball is a spherical ball used in basketball games. Basketballs usually range in size. The standard for a basketball in the National Basketball Association (NBA) is 29.5 inches (75 cm) in circumference and for the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), a maximum circumference of 29 inches (74 cm).

High school and junior leagues normally use NCAA, NBA or WNBA sized balls. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) men’s ball would be a maximum of 30 inches (76 cm) and an NCAA women’s ball would be a maximum of 29 inches (74 cm) respectively.

  • Indoor Court Shoes

Indoor court shoes with a non-marking sole are mandatory for use of gym facilities. This is both to protect the floor and for your safety. Shore worn outdoors can pick up material that may cause you to slip and injure yourself, or others. If you have worn your court shoe outside, you should clean the soles before using them. Only clean non-marking gymnasium footwear to be worn; Hiking-style footwear is not permitted.

Most basketball players would definitely invest in a reliable pair of basketball shoes. After all, the game of basketball requires you to move vigorously. The movements such as jumping, running, shooting, blocking, and other side to side actions are obviously employed in the basketball game.

The basketball players are nonetheless wise enough to choose a good and decent pair of basketball shoes. These pairs of basketball shoes need to be enduring so that not only wear and tear will be overcome but it will contain more of the capacity of hindering any occurrence of injuries on the player’s lower body parts. The basketball shoes should likewise be comfortable to be worn by the player as he executes the routines of the game. This is significant especially that the player needs to move swiftly and the least he requires is any difficulty in transferring his body weight from one foot to another.

Table Tennis

Table tennis or ping-pong is a game played on a flat table divided by a net. Two or four players hit a light ball using a round bat across the table. The ball should only bounce once on one side of the table before the players hit it back to the other side.

Table tennis players can put extreme spin on the ball to make it difficult to predict or return, or can try to maneuver their opponent around the table — hoping to open up a point winning opportunity. But the real joy of the game is in its simplicity, requiring very little in the way of equipment, meaning it is a very accessible sport.

Table tennis is certainly a sport for all and a sport for life — anyone can get involved at any time and continue play throughout. It is particularly good for developing alertness and co-ordination.

How playing table tennis is good for fitness?

Playing table tennis can have a number of positive health and fitness benefits including:

  • Improves aerobic fitness, with more oxygen circulated around the body to better muscular endurance.
  • Burns off calories with energy being supplied to the muscles and not forming fat.
  • Boosting flexibility reaction times, due to the fast-paced nature of table tennis, as well as tactical strategy formation.
  • Improves hand-eye co-ordination with concentration required for serving and returning shots.
  • Develops the strength and power of muscles, notably leg and arm muscles.
  • Furthers concentration, awareness and mental strength, with matches often lasting for some time, which helps aid overall brain functioning.
  • Improves nimbleness of players, on their feet.
  • Improves social skills as it often leads to friendships formed through the love of this growing niche.

Required Equipment

  • Indoor Court Shoes

Indoor court shoes with a non-marking sole are mandatory for use of gym facilities. If you are an occasional recreational player any indoor court shoe with a non-marking sole will do. This is both to protect the floor and for your safety. Shore worn outdoors can pick up material that may cause you to slip and injure yourself, or others. If you have worn your court shoe outside, you should clean the soles before using them. Only clean non-marking gymnasium footwear to be worn; Hiking-style footwear is not permitted.

For recreational players who play regularly, if your feet ache after playing, or your shoes feel like lead weights after a little while, you should consider upgrading to a table tennis shoe. Your feet will thank you, and we predict your play will improve.

Badminton

Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are “singles” (with one player per side) and “doubles” (with two players per side).

The aim in this racket sport is to score points by hitting a shuttlecock over a raised net and onto the floor of the opponent’s court. Badminton events include singles and doubles. All feature two stages of competition: Group Play and Knock-Out.

Required Equipment

There are certain items that you must have if you want to play badminton. It is by no means one of the most expensive sports to practice, but it is neither running or basketball, where the equipment needed is minimal.

  • Racket

A racket is one of the few mandatory items in order to play badminton. A racket must follow very strict guidelines to be considered a badminton racket in a professional setting. That doesn’t mean you need to spend a lot.

  • Shuttle (or birdie)

The second mandatory item is the shuttle. This is what distinguishes badminton from all the other racket sports and what makes it so unique. The shuttles used in competitions are called feathered shuttles and they are not cheap to buy, especially because they do not last that long. We do not recommend using this type of shuttle if you are just starting.

There is a different kind of shuttle, called a non-feathered shuttle, which is cheaper and much more durable. This one doesn’t have feathers but has a plastic body that resembles fairly well the flight of the feathered shuttles.

  • Indoor Court Shoes

Indoor court shoes with a non-marking sole are mandatory for use of gym facilities. This is both to protect the floor and for your safety. Shore worn outdoors can pick up material that may cause you to slip and injure yourself, or others. If you have worn your court shoe outside, you should clean the soles before using them. Only clean non-marking gymnasium footwear to be worn; Hiking-style footwear is not permitted.

Shoes are, in our opinion, the third most important equipment to buy after rackets and shuttles. This is because badminton can be a very demanding sport for your feet and having proper shoes will save you from a lot of discomforts and injuries.

As it is the case with all the other items, there are shoes that are designed for beginners so you do not need to spend a ton of money on them. Our recommendation is, if you can, to make sure they are shoes designed for badminton, as the movements are very specific and shoes designed for indoor courts, in general, will not work as well. These will be slightly more expensive but they are, in our opinion, worth the investment.

Floor Hockey aka Ball Hockey

Floor Hockey aka Ball Hockey is a team sport and a variation of the sport of ice hockey and a specific variation of the game of street hockey. Ball Hockey is the same sport as Floor Hockey.

Ball hockey is patterned after and closely related to ice hockey, except the game is played on foot on a non-ice surface, player equipment is different, and an orange ball is used instead of a hockey puck. The objective of the game is to score more goals than the opposing team by shooting the ball into the opposing team’s net.

Play is started when the referee places or drops a ball for a face-off, at the center of the playing area. One player from each team lines up at the center for the face-off. Sticks are placed in a straight line not less than one foot from the ball.

Required Equipment

  • Soft Ball

Soft balls are generally lightweight plastic. This hockey ball is easy for players of all ages to pass, shoot, and deke as they run across the floor. As well, bright colors offers exceptional visibility, making it easy for players to keep track of the ball during the game. A soft, hexagon shape is designed to slow the ball down and keep bounces low for safer play.

  • Floor Hockey Stick

Ice hockey sticks are strictly prohibited in our gym. A floor hockey stick is shorter than an ice hockey stick and has a ventilated concave plastic blade that is flexible to permit a player to stickhandle really well. These sticks are significantly lighter and come in various grades of stiffness. As a rule of thumb, the stick should be around the belly button of a player, but no more than a few inches over. This is a fantastic training tool to develop all of your hockey-related skills…and as we say in hockey “Great Hands.”

  • Shoes

Indoor court shoes with a non-marking sole are mandatory for use of gym facilities. This is both to protect the floor and for your safety. Shore worn outdoors can pick up material that may cause you to slip and injure yourself, or others. If you have worn your court shoe outside, you should clean the soles before using them. Only clean non-marking gymnasium footwear to be worn; Hiking-style footwear is not permitted.

Cricket

Cricket has been an established team sport for hundreds of years and is one of the most popular sports in the world. It originated in England and is now very popular in countries such as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia, the West Indies and South Africa.

Competitive cricket is essentially a bat and ball sport. It is played by two teams on an oval and involves batting, fielding and bowling. There are 11 players a side and a game can last anywhere from several hours to several days.

Cricket can be played both socially and competitively, by males and females of all ages. While competitive cricket is mostly played on a field, cricket just for fun can be played in backyards, parks, streets or on the beach. You only need a couple of friends, a bat, a ball and something that represents wickets.

Health Benefits:

Although there is some standing around, to play cricket you need to be fit and strong, and have good hand-eye coordination and ball-handling skills. Cricket involves sprinting between wickets and running to stop balls, as well as bowling and throwing.

Health benefits include:

  • Endurance and stamina
  • Balance and coordination
  • Physical fitness
  • Improving hand-eye coordination.

Other Benefits:

As well as physical health benefits, cricket can also bring other benefits and opportunities such as:

  • Team skills
  • Social skills such as cooperation, communication and learning how to cope with winning and losing
  • Social interaction – it’s a great way to meet new people and make new friends.

Required Equipment

There are certain items that you must have if you want to play badminton. It is by no means one of the most expensive sports to practice, but it is neither running or basketball, where the equipment needed is minimal.

  • Tape Ball

Cock balls are strictly prohibited during play at our facility. A tape ball is required for play. It is essentially a tennis ball that is wrapped in an electrical tape. A seam is also presented on it by same or different colored tape. After some smashing, ball requires to be re-taped. There is a taping master in every team who is asked to tape the ball.

The bat used in this form of cricket is usually very light and consists of a longer handle than hard willows.

  • Wickets

There are many types of wickets in tape ball cricket. These include normal wooden stumps but without bails, flat stones set-up vertically, iron grill wicket, Pepsi bottle containers and the one made of bricks. Usually, 12 bricks are needed to set up a wicket good enough.

We allow the use of wooden, plastic or metal stumps only that are of standard size. 

A wicket consists of three stumps, or stakes, each 28 inches (71.1 cm) high and of equal thickness (about 1.25 inches in diameter), stuck into the ground and so spaced that the ball cannot pass between them. Two pieces of wood called bails, each 4.37 inches (11.1 cm) long, lie in grooves on the tops of the stumps. The bails do not extend beyond the stumps and do not project more than half an inch above them. The whole wicket is 9 inches (22.86 cm) in width. There are two of these wickets, which a batsman defends and a bowler attacks, and they are approximately in the centre of the ground, facing one another at each end of the pitch.

  • Cricket Bat

Although any cricket bat can be used but we recommend the use of cricket bats that are designed for tape ball cricket. These bats are much lighter than their standard counterparts and will make your play more enjoyable with the tape ball.

VolleyBall

Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team’s court under organized rules. The complete set of rules are extensive, but play essentially proceeds as follows: a player on one of the teams begins a ‘rally’ by serving the ball (tossing or releasing it and then hitting it with a hand or arm), from behind the back boundary line of the court, over the net, and into the receiving team’s court. The receiving team must not let the ball be grounded within their court. The team may touch the ball up to 3 times, but individual players may not touch the ball twice consecutively. Typically, the first two touches are used to set up for an attack, an attempt to direct the ball back over the net in such a way that the serving team is unable to prevent it from being grounded in their court.

The rally continues, with each team allowed as many as three consecutive touches, until either (1): a team makes a kill, grounding the ball on the opponent’s court and winning the rally; or (2): a team commits a fault and loses the rally. The team that wins the rally is awarded a point and serves the ball to start the next rally. A few of the most common faults include:

  • causing the ball to touch the ground or floor outside the opponents’ court or without first passing over the net;
  • catching and throwing the ball;
  • double hit: two consecutive contacts with the ball made by the same player;
  • four consecutive contacts with the ball made by the same team;
  • net foul: touching the net during play;
  • foot fault: the foot crosses over the boundary line when serving.

The ball is usually played with the hands or arms, but players can legally strike or push (short contact) the ball with any part of the body. A number of consistent techniques have evolved in volleyball, including spiking and blocking (because these plays are made above the top of the net, the vertical jump is an athletic skill emphasized in the sport) as well as passingsetting, and specialized player positions and offensive and defensive structures.

Required Equipment

  • The Ball

volleyball is a ball used to play indoor volleyball, beach volleyball, or other less common variations of the sport. Volleyballs are round and traditionally consist of eighteen nearly rectangular panels of synthetic or genuine leather, arranged in six identical sections of three panels each, wrapped around a bladder. A valve permits the internal air pressure to be adjusted. In a break from the traditional construction, in 2008, the FIVB adopted as its official indoor ball a new Mikasa with dimples and only eight panels for a softer touch and truer flight.

These balls are a combination of two or three different colors, or they can be completely white. There are two different styles: youth and adult.

  • The youth volleyball ball for indoor use is 63 to 65-centimeters or 25 to 26-inches in circumference. They weigh 9.2 to 9.9 ounces, or 260-280-grams. Internal pressure of these balls are set at 4.3 psi or 0.30-kgf-per-centimeter-squared.
  • The adult indoor volleyball ball is 65 to 67-centimeters or 25.5 to 26.5-inches in circumference. They weigh 9.2 to 9.9-ounces or 260 to 280-grams. They have a psi of 4.3 to 4.6, or 0.3 to 0.325-kgf-per-centimeter-squared.

There is not a lot of difference between the two when looking at the numbers, but for different play styles of the adult versus the youth, they are notable. Remember that youths have to be able to palm the ball and force it over the net. Having a slightly smaller size, with a lower psi can considerably aid them in doing this. You’ll notice that both balls are very streamlined and light-weight in characteristic. Again, this is for ease of movement of the balls during a high-energy game where timing is critical.

  • Shoes

Indoor court shoes with a non-marking sole are mandatory for use of gym facilities. This is both to protect the floor and for your safety. Shore worn outdoors can pick up material that may cause you to slip and injure yourself, or others. If you have worn your court shoe outside, you should clean the soles before using them. Only clean non-marking gymnasium footwear to be worn; Hiking-style footwear is not permitted.