By Keiran Gorsky
Competing at the 2026 World Junior Ultimate Championships (WJUC) in Logroño, Spain, Chase Alexander, Becky Mooder and seven other Ottawa players were greeted with a scorching spell in what was already the country’s hottest month on record.
Temperatures tiptoed towards 40°C during the weeklong tournament from July 11-18. Stadium grass trapped the relentless sunlight in the soil – more than once, players had to vacate the premises as surface temperatures exceeded 80°C.
“We didn’t realize how much the heat would hit us,” Mooder admitted.
The Canadian delegation took special precautions to keep players on their feet. Teams hauled around buckets of ice while players wrapped themselves in cooling towels. Team physiotherapists were tasked with refilling water bottles and checking in on players periodically. Tournament organizers imposed competition-wide cooling breaks and even reduced point limits from 15 to 13 in the early stages.
The conditions hardly seemed suited to a Canadian player pool. Baking in the sun, the Canadians left Spain as the top-performing country at the tournament nonetheless.
Alexander and the open team went a perfect 10-0 en route to Canada’s first WJUC gold medal in a decade. Mooder and the women’s team snagged silver, as did the mixed team.
“We knew that we could, and we knew that we should. It felt good to get it done,” said Alexander, who went on to captain the Ignite junior open team to their first-ever gold medal at the Canadian junior championships.
Ignite earned the Ottawa Carleton Ultimate Association’s sixth podium performance in 13 editions of the junior nationals with their perfect seven-win run at the Aug. 9-12 event in Surrey, B.C., as Alexander led the way with 14 goals and 16 assists.
It was a sweet finish to a spectacular summer for Alexander, who celebrated Canada’s first junior world title in over a decade with a championship game triumph over USA. The Canadian junior women also topped their perennial American rivals in a close contest en route to their appearance in the tournament final. It was the first time in 24 years that Canada finished the tournament with the most medals outright.
Mooder and Alexander attributed Canada’s success to a rigorous preparation period. Tryouts were held all the way back in the autumn of 2025. Neither was totally certain they would make the team – both allowed themselves small fits of excitement when they received their congratulatory emails.
“I ran down to my mom and I started screaming, ‘Guess what, I made the team!’” laughed Mooder, who plays for the OCUA’s Stella Ultimate and the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees.
Ultimate Canada held multi-day training camps in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver in the lead-up to the main event. As Mooder remembers, players gradually broke out of regional cliques and began to mesh together as a cohesive unit. As the seasons turned, each team was made to play through inclement weather. Players fought through extreme heat, but also heavy rain and sharp winds.
“It definitely got us prepared,” noted Alexander.
“We were all chatting, laughing and building routines together,” Mooder highlighted. “We were a family and we were all working together towards our same, common goal.”
Both also benefited from coaching staffs that carried a good grasp of their personnel. Alexander enjoyed working with coaches from across the country, but was thankful to have his club coach Habib Atallah present as an assistant. He was tremendously active on offence with 10 goals and eight assists, including one of his team’s two Callahans (catching an opponent’s pass inside their own end zone for a score).
Women’s head coach Emma Seaborn commanded the offensive line, deploying Mooder in acres of space. Among her standout moments was a sprawling layout goal against Japan in the group stage – one of her seven goals in the competition.
“I remember reaching my arm out… and I just fell. And then I had it in my hands,” she recalled. “And I’m like ‘Damn, I caught this!’”
Both the open and women’s teams stunned their American counterparts early in the tournament. Though they trailed the U.S. for much of their power pool clash, the prospect of beating the defending champions seemed more and more plausible to Alexander as they traded points back and forth.
“I started to realize as the game went on that these guys can do pretty much everything that our guys can,” he highlighted. “It’s just a name, they’re not immortal.”
Alexander scored a crucial goal to get his team back within one late in the affair. Callahan McCullagh scored on a break to give Canada their first lead of the game and the 13-12 victory.
The women’s team followed up a 12-10 group stage win over the U.S. with a brilliant showing against a top-seeded Italian team in the semi-final. The Canadians adjusted their systems on the fly in an all-out push to the gold medal game. Mooder scored the sixth goal in a nailbiting 11-10 win decided on universe point.
When they had time, players braved the heat in abbreviated expeditions around town. They enjoyed local tapas bars but successfully preserved their energy for game days.
The open team met the U.S. again in the final. It was the Americans who wound up chasing the game this time around. Alexander tallied a goal and two assists as Canada prevailed by a score of 15-12.
“[We] were just overjoyed and honestly a bit relieved,” the Glebe Collegiate Institute student indicated.
The women’s team came just short in a 14-10 loss to defending champions France in the gold medal game, though Mooder said the group was content with their performance overall at the event.
“We knew that we’d done our job,” underlined Mooder, who is now set to play for Stella at the senior nationals from Aug. 13-16 in Surrey.
Both Alexander and Mooder hope to get the chance to wear the maple leaf again in the future at the U24 level.
Alexander earned world junior gold alongside fellow Ottawa open players Charlie Lumley and Jeremy Fletcher, while Mooder was joined by Ottawa’s Ryan Moffatt and Vivian Harvey in winning junior women’s silver.