Rock Island Dragons

Never let the Dragon sleep! 🐉 🐲 back on the pond, challenging ourselves to improve and celebrate what we accomplished on Saturday.
Fantastic evening, fantastic practice and those “round the worlds” - WOW 💪🏻💪🏻

Another shoutout to Team Hurricane Winds, who travelled from Ontario, for taking 2nd place with a time of 1:20.85 🥈

We really hope you all enjoyed the festival and your time here in the province!

Well done dragons 🐉

Shout out to the Avalon Dragons for their 1st place win in yesterday’s Paddle in Paradise festival with a time of 1:19.84🏆🩷🐉

Well done ladies 🙌

And that’s a wrap - Paddle in Paradise 2026 is complete and Rock Island Dragons too 3rd Place in the Division A Champions with a time of 1:21.26🥉

We had some fierce competition today and those winds were just as fierce at times!

Our team had such a great day from start to finish.

Thank you to our teammates, Coach Maria and Captain and Co-Captains Leona and Michelle for keeping us in check and going all day ❤️

Congratulations to all who participated and to the Avalon Dragons, the Town of Paradise, all the volunteers and sponsors for putting off a wonderful event.

Looking forward to 2027 PIP.

Tomorrow is race day! Hope all of the teams participating have a wonderful race day. If you’re looking for something to do tomorrow come on down to Octagon Pond and watch a few races and help support the Avalon Dragons 🐉

Rock Island Dragons race at 9am and 11am - Championship races begin at 1:15🐉💪🏻

Paddles up 🐉

Can’t make it pond side for the Paddle in Paradise festival this weekend? No worries, you can follow the races online!

A new addition this year by the Avalon Dragons - AWESOME 🐉💪🏻

https://www.avalondragons.com/race-results/paddle-in-paradise?fbclid=IwdGRleATDvG9wZG9mA2ZkaWQWUKljDg7zH-_u8u6vu8m1nHYdRX83QGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR5OcnO3DppcIgANI3FpbkpcSuZoPC-pbAdxRIENpFxmJUqY3Hxg9-nsMMpNvA_aem_yl5Gv3M7F7VwSwezkDAYsg

Paddle in Paradise | avalondragons

What a great practice this evening!

What an incredible three days! 🐉💙

Our paddle training weekend has come to an end, and what a weekend it was!

Over three days, we spent 8 hours on the water, paddled more than 21 km, challenged ourselves with onshore static training, reviewed video footage, and learned so much more along the way.

A huge thank you to Coach Nikola for sharing your knowledge, patience, and passion and to Harmony, Nikolai’s fiancé for a great job steering or boat.

The amount we learned this weekend was incredible. There was so much to take in!

If each of us can take just one thing we learned this weekend, apply it to our future practices, and continue to build on it, then we're moving forward together. That's progress.

We're leaving this weekend stronger, more knowledgeable, and even more excited for what's ahead.

Thank you to every teammate for your hard work, commitment, and positive attitude. Also, a big thank you to our safety boat crew who volunteered to keep us safe and to the executive/committee for putting this fantastic weekend together.

Here's to putting it all into practice—one stroke at a time! 🚣‍♀️🐲

Rock Island Dragons would like to extend a warm welcome to Coach Nikola Radovanovic, whom arrived from Ontario to the province for the first time earlier this week.

Our team are looking forward to the kick off of our training weekend with Nikola, which begins this evening.

Nikola was highly recommended by Coach, Kevin and our executive have worked all winter with him to put off our training weekend.

Nikola brings a wealth of experience and knowledge and we all are looking forward to a fantastic weekend of learning 🐉💪🏻

A little about Nikola:

Nikola is a World-champion paddler and steersperson, and a Canadian-champion coach — with a history of raising teams to record heights. He most recently steered Team Canada Premier to 7 medals at the 2025 IDBF World Nations Championship in Brandenburg, Germany — including the first 500m Mixed Gold in 16 years.

As a high-performance paddling coach for over a decade, Nikola loves teaching any skill from first principles — developing intuitive models and innovative drills to prime strong connections and compound learning. Each season he works with teams and athletes from a diversity of levels and backgrounds, always leading with positivity and a longevity-first mindset.

Paddles up 🐉