Bell
| Bell High School | |
| Location: Ottawa, ON | |
|---|---|
| State Championships | 1994 Reach |
| National Championships | 1994 Reach |
| Program Status | Unknown |
| School Size | Unknown |
| NAQT Page | link |
Bell High School is a public high school in suburban Ottawa, Ontario. While the year of the establishment of a Reach for the Top team there is unknown, Richard Mageau assisted for one year, during which the 1994 Bell team won the Reach national championship. Mageau has since assisted at other Ottawa-area high schools, and has the Ottawa city SchoolReach trophy named after him. Since the championship, Bell has only reached provincials twice.
1995 Legal Controversy
In 1995, the Carleton Board of Education had a teacher work-to-rule strike, barring teachers from participating in any extra-curricular activities. However, Reach has traditionally allowed the previous national champion a bye to the provincial tournament in the following year. Bell, being the 1994 champion, was invited to the 1995 provincials.
Though the team was supervised by people other than teachers, the Ontario Secondary Schools Teachers Federation deemed the Bell team illegal. They demanded SchoolReach to cancel the 1995 tournament if Bell participated, and ordered the Ontario public school teams to boycott their schedules matches against Bell at provincials.
The students themselves had to go to court to get a special injunction to allow them to participate. Even so, some coaches threatened to boycott, some uncooperative game officials were ejected, and one Oakville coach "screamed at them".
Nevertheless, Bell managed to play each match against actual teams and fill-in officials. There were no incidents of the students themselves complaining about the presence of Bell. The defending national champions ultimately finished third in the province, one spot short of qualifying for nationals.
A full run-down of the incident can be found in newspaper archives, specifically: "Students lose title, win respect" by Keri Sweetman of the Ottawa Citizen, May 15, 1995, page B1.
Notably, there was another work-to-rule strike the year after Mageau coached another team to the championship: 2000 Merivale.