Part 1 of 1, by Karin Weekes and Jeff Vanelle
Back for their third year in the Edmonton Dragon Boat Festival, the medal-winning BioWare BioWarriors are proof that geeks don’t just game—they can paddle, too! The BioWarriors captured a gold medal and the Engineering Challenge category trophy in the festival’s Friday evening sprint races. After four seeding, semi-final, and final races on Saturday and Sunday, the BioWarriors grabbed a silver medal in the 12-boat “Edmonton A and B” racing category. 
Drummer Theresa Baxter also captured the “Craziest Drummer” award with her voluptuous pink mermaid costume, and the BioWarriors’ fantastic coach of three years, Dennis Lefevbre, not only coached and steered the team to its third and fourth medal wins, but also captured the “Best Dressed Steersperson” award, himself.
In addition to our team t-shirts (designed by Tyler Lee and printed by Celest Morris), paddler Sam Johnson suggested the team wear Dragon Age promotional “tattoo sleeves” on their paddling arms. (Many thanks to Jeanne-Marie Owens for providing these!) The sleeves sparked myriad questions from spectators and other teams alike, ranging from “So, you guys are video game designers – and you’re out here being… athletic?” to “What date is Dragon Age: Origins being released? I CAN’T WAIT!”
The team’s jade dragon trophy is now settled in the BioWare reception area awards display, a majestic companion to the white dragon from last year’s festival. The BioWarriors hope to bring home a third dragon in a new color from the 2010 festival next year!
Karin Weekes is a Technical Editor and Jeff Vanelle is a Principle Lead Artist. Both are currently hard at work on Mass Effect 2.
September 2, 2009 at 2:09 pm |
Fantastic work, Bioware team. The tattoo sleeves were particularly cool, given the tattoo convention going on across the road!! Much fun was had by all, and it was much appreciated. Good work!
September 2, 2009 at 2:48 pm |
Did the BioWarriors happen to take part in the Okanagan Dragon Boat festival last month? I might have had a reason to go watch it, then.
September 2, 2009 at 10:44 pm |
Sadly, the BioWarriors didn’t participate in the Okanagan festival, but I just checked it out online, and it looks gorgeous! Perhaps something to plan for next year!
September 3, 2009 at 2:58 am |
Congratulations to all of you.
You should put a Jade Empire game next to the Jade dragon, don’t you think?
Greg
September 3, 2009 at 5:38 am |
Congratulations guys on defending your title!
September 3, 2009 at 1:42 pm |
Great job! Congratulations!
Now that your Dragon Boat won, I’m totally convinced that Dragon Age will surely win loads of medals too.
September 9, 2009 at 1:25 am |
The BioWare Edmonton office should be very proud of this brilliant group of dragon boat paddlers of the BioWarriors!
It was a honour and privilege to again coach and steer for this team…I say look out in 2010 for this team to make a quantum leap into the top division tier, where they rightfully belong!
Here is a full size photo of the team (update to the team photo shown above in this blog):
http://i26.tinypic.com/32zurh3.jpg
September 9, 2009 at 2:55 pm |
Correction: further to my earlier post, here is a link to a corrected full size photo of the team:
http://i31.tinypic.com/2hyapts.jpg