Rodney Hobson Karate Academy posts impressive showing at provincials despite five months of flood repairs

Nearly five months after a flood, the repairs are finally finished at the Rodney Hobson Karate Academy in Rutland.

Extreme cold in late December caused a pipe to burst, sending water rushing into the gym and neighbouring businesses at 239 Rutland Road.

“We’re on the fortunate side, I would say, because the other two businesses are months away,” said Hobson. “We just really, really pushed for ours and the restoration company pushed for ours. But yeah, it’s a long, painful process.”

The academy had to do its best to keep coaching its athletes in the undamaged sections of the building while the restoration company worked in the other half.

“Long story short, we just kind of worked with them and mitigated all time delays and stuff. Fortunately, we’re back now, but it’s taken a while,” said Hobson.

Despite the setbacks, their athletes had a very good showing at the 2022 Provincial Karate Championships in Richmond earlier this month.

“We just got back from the provincials with several provincial champions. All the way from 10-years-old to adult divisions and we’re looking forward to qualifying a bunch of those athletes to attend national championships in Newfoundland.”

Hobson notes that the academy’s after school programs are an integral part of the community, and people rallied around to do everything they could to help. Someone even launched a Go Fund Me to cover some of the unexpected costs.

“We’re very very fortunate to have the membership base that we have. They fully supported us, they bought into it. Nobody complained, nobody had anything to say. They were just happy that we could continue providing our program.

“Space was a little bit tight for sure, but everybody is very, very supportive of what we do.”

He is thanking everyone for sticking with them.