On Saturday November 24, 2007, canadianCUBING held its second speedcubing competition. The competition was held in the Toronto area, where the sport of speedcubing is growing at a rapid pace. The competition had nearly 60 competitors from all over the continent, with some from Quebec and even from the USA participating. The competition featured many of the country’s fastest speedcubers, most of which were there to prove just how much they had improved since the Canadian Open, a mere 6 months prior.

The competition started around 9 AM that morning, first beginning with the Magic, Master Magic events, which went by fairly quickly. The Magic event featured current National Record holder, and former World Record holder, Craig Bouchard. Craig won the event with an average time of 1.46 seconds, Rhodri Mativo finished in second with an average of 1.68 seconds, and in third place was Raiza Mativo, sister of Rhodri, with an average of 1.99 seconds.

The Master Magic event doesn’t appear to have a lot of interest and will probably be shelved after this competition for a while until the interest grows enough to warrant the time and energy spent on including it in the competition. Craig Bouchard won the event with an average of 3.49 seconds, in second was Rhodri Mativo with 4.59 seconds, and Kevin Westermann finished third with an average of 5.26 seconds.

The 2x2 event had a total of 20 competitors and featured former National Record holder, Craig Bouchard, going head to head with Scott Leslie who, only weeks before, took the National Records for both single solve and average from Craig at the Pleasantville Fall 2007 competition in New York, USA with times of 4.44 and 6.55 respectively. On this day, however, Craig was the better of the two, beating Scott by nearly a full second with an average time of 6.82. Craig managed to take back his NR for single solve with a time of 4.18 seconds. However, neither Scott nor Craig were any match for Derrick Eide who won the event with an average time of 5.68 seconds, setting a new National Record.

There were a lot more competitors in the 2x2 event than had participated in the last competition. At the current rate of growth, it would appear that there is a need for two rounds at the next competition, the first round to find the top 10 fastest solvers, and a final round to put them all head to head. It should be interested to see just how fast these cubers can get, as the single and average times have become quite fast already.

The megaminx event was next on the bill and the one that caused the most grief that day. The problem was that it is an uncommon puzzle, and there were only 6 competitors in total. But those 6 were also the only ones who could scramble the puzzle in a timely manner. This left the organizers with the task of trying to scramble these puzzles quick enough. Unfortunately, we were about 45 minutes behind schedule after the event.

But all problems aside, the event allowed Canada to showcase its talent, with all six competitors achieving an average time of less than 4 minutes. Two solvers achieved impressive averages of less than 2 and a half minutes. Derrick Eide set two more National Records with a single time of 1:48.11 and average time of 2:01.06, placing him in the top 10 in the world for the megaminx event. Jack Moseley came second with an average time of 2:17.42, and Kevin Westermann finished third with an average time of 3:04.38.

The first round of the 3x3 event took longer to get started than planned due to the megaminx event taking so long. Everyone was a little anxious to get it started, and the competitors certainly did not disappoint. All eyes, as always, were on Canada’s fastest 3x3 cuber, Harris Chan.

Harris was in the third heat, so there was some time before he finally went up to solve. When his name was called to indicate his heat was about to go, the energy in the room picked up. Finally, out of the side door walked Harris with his judge up to the table. Everyone was on their feet, trying to get a better angle. Every video camera in the room was focused on Harris. He sat down with a look of concentration on his face. The judge let him inspect the cube, and then recovered it. Finally, the cover was off, and Harris picked up his cube to begin his solve. The speed in which he moves the cube is unbelievable. It is difficult to even tell what he stage he is at, as the delay between his last CE pair and OLL, and then PLL is so slight that you can miss it if you are not quick enough. Harris slammed his hands down with an unbelievable time of 9.80 seconds, putting his solve as third fastest of all time, and the only non lucky sub 10 second solve ever to be recorded at the time. The room exploded into cheers as people tried to comprehend what they just saw. Everyone rushed to congratulate Harris, who must have felt like a super star being bombarded by the paparazzi.

The rest of the round went by quite quickly, with many people beating their old personal best times. There were a total of 58 competitors in this event, and the top 25 competitors moved on to the second round of the 3x3 event.

Since the competition was running late at this point, the organizers decided to switch the schedule up slightly after the first 3x3 round. Next up was supposed to be the one handed event, but with 25 people scheduled to compete, it was decided to switch places with the blindfold event. The goal was to get another event in before the lunch break. Each competitor in the blindfold event was approached and asked permission to switch the schedule. Kindly, all competitors agreed to the change.

There were a total of 8 competitors in the blindfold event, including National Record holder, Craig Bouchard. This event, too, would see its record broken on this day. Once again, Derrick Eide won the event with a new NR time of 2:26.65, beating the old record by just over 3 seconds. Eric Limeback came second with a best time of 2:45.09, and Jack Moseley came third with 3:22.88. Notably, only Erick Limeback and Emile Compion managed to solve all three attempts successfully.

The one-handed event started immediately after lunch. The event had 25 competitors, and featured National Record holder, Dave Campbell. Dave was one of the organizers, and as such, was put in the first heat in an attempt to free him up to continue helping with the competition. His first solve was the best of the day by any OH competitor, setting a new National Record for single solve with a time of 22.93 seconds. However, the competition was very stiff for the one handed event and saw Dave sit in 4th place after the first round, with a new National Record for average time being set by Jack Moseley with a time of 29.52 seconds. Harris Chan was in second place after the first round, joining the sub 30 club with an average of 29.93 seconds. A total of 9 competitors achieved an average time of 40 seconds or less, up from only 5 sub 40 competitors at the last competition.

The second round of the 3x3 event saw the top 25 competitors from the first round square off, with the top 10 moving on to the final round. Once again, all eyes were on Harris Chan. After his amazing 9.80 second solve, he was having difficulty impressing the masses. His frequent 12 and 13 second solves, which by any other standard would be considered amazing, garnered very little applause, almost feeling like he made a mistake. Of course, the real cubers knew just how amazing his times were, as he finished the round with an incredible average time of 13.09 seconds, only .15 seconds slower than his previous round’s National Record time of 12.94 seconds.

The 4x4 event saw a total of 14 competitors, including National Record holder, Matt Walter. Matt was heavily involved in the organization of this competition, and opted not to compete in the 3x3 event, and as such, had not yet competed until it was his time to go for the 4x4 event. Matt, once again, did not disappoint. He set a new National Record for single solve, coming up a hair short of sub 60, with a time of 1:00.46. Matt took first place with an average time of 1:10.32, Derrick Eide finished second with 1:16.10 and Jack Moseley came third, only .65 seconds slower with an average of 1:16.75.

The 5x5 event had a total of 10 competitors, including National Record holder, Matt Walter. Impressively, of the 10 competitors, half achieved sub 3 minute average times. Derrick Eide won the event with a time of 2:14.92, Matt Walter came second with 2:25.89, and Jack Moseley finished third with an average of 2:29.64.

The top 10 one handed cubers from the first round competed for top place in the event. The round went by quite quickly, and was very close with only half a second separating first place from third. Derrick Eide took the National Record from Jack Moseley with an average time of 29.09 seconds, Dave Campbell joined the sub 30 club, finishing in second place with a time of 29.65 seconds, and Jack Moseley finished in third with a time of 30.54 seconds. The level of competition in the one handed event is getting quite good, and will be interesting to see what happens at the next competition.

The top 10 speedcubers were placed into the final round. The organizers slowed the pace for the final round, allowing only 3 people to go at a time to let the spectators focus on the action better. The round was action packed, with 7 of the 10 competitors setting sub 16 second single solve times. However, as good as the competition was, no one was any match for Harris Chan, who easily took first place, setting a new National Record with an average of 12.73 seconds, putting him in the top 10 ten fastest averages in the world. Finishing in second place was Craig Bouchard with an average of 16.05 seconds, and Derrick Eide came third with a time of 16.25 seconds.

Jack Moseley had a fantastic competition placing in 5 of the 7 events in which he competed, and showed that he is going to be someone we hear a lot more from in the future. But not to be out done that day was Derrick Eide. Derrick was the big winner at the competition, placing in 7 of the 9 events, and took first place in 5 of them, setting 5 new National Records, including one North American record in the megaminx event. Derrick surprised many with his performance at the competition, and catapulted himself into the role of the best all-round cuber in Canada. CanadianCUBING will have more with the Derrick in the coming weeks.

Congratulations to everyone that came out to compete at the competition. Good times were had by all, and we definitely showed the world that Canada is serious about cubing, and we are getting better in every event. Keep practicing, keep getting better, and keep having fun. We will absolutely be having more of these competitions in the near future, so be prepared.