MONTREAL, Canada — Water Polo Canada introduced its incoming Athletes’ Council for 2022-2023 with former Indiana University standout Shae (Fournier) La Roche to serve as Chair in 2022-23.
The Athletes’ Council is the collective voice of Water Polo Canada’s high-performance athletes. Its role is to represent and promote the views of Youth, Junior and Senior National Team athletes in order to advance the goals of Water Polo Canada, its Board of Directors, staff, officials and coaches towards achieving best-ever performances, while ensuring the safety, well-being and welfare of all National Team Programs members. The contribution of this committee is undeniable in the pursuit of Water Polo Canada’s goals of excellence.
“The Water Polo Canada Athletes’ Council is an essential standing committee of the Board, supporting our goal of taking an athlete-centered approach to decision making. It is my sincere pleasure to work with these outstanding leaders. The Water Polo Canada Board and I are very grateful for the contributions of our outgoing members and we extend a warm welcome to the new members of the Council”, said Erin Lukie, WPC Board of Directors Liaison to the Athletes’ Council.
The new Athletes’ Council for 2022-2023 will be composed of:
- Shae La Roche, Chair, 2022-2023
- Bor Tanasijevic, 2022-2023
- Matthew Halajian, 2022-2023
- Kindred Paul, 2021-2022
Tokyo 2020 Olympian and outgoing Vice-Chair La Roche assumes Robin Randall’s position as Chair of the Athletes’ Council.
A 2014 graduate of Indiana, La Roche (2011-2014) is one of the most decorated players in Hoosiers’ water polo history. She holds the top two school records for single-season goals (95 in 2014, 83 in 2013) and career goals (305), and is second in IU history in career steals (311). She was the 2014 Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Player of the Year, and earned second team Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC) All-America and College Sport Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) First-Team Academic All-America honors. La Roche is one of five players in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) history to score 300 or more goals in her career.
The Most Valuable Player of the 2014 CWPA Championship hosted by Bucknell University for leading the Hoosiers to an 11-10 victory over Princeton University, La Roche is among a select group of Indiana women’s water polo players who won a pair of league titles during their tenure. In 2011 as a freshman, La Roche helped her squad down the University of Michigan, 5-3, at home in Bloomington for the program’s first title since taking home the 2003 crown.
She had an impressive junior international career, winning gold medals at the 2008 and 2010 Pan American Junior Championships to go with a sixth place finish at the 2009 FINA World Junior Championships. At the senior level, she competed in two FINA World Championships (2015, 2017) and captured a silver medal at the 2017 FINA World League Super Final. She also helped Canada win silver at the 2015 Pan American Games. She has made two appearances at the Summer Universiade, just missing the podium with fourth place finishes in both 2009 and 2013. She made her senior international debut in 2014, competing in the FINA Water Polo World League.
This past summer, she helped lead Canada – which qualified for its inaugural women’s water polo Olympic appearance since 2004 via a silver medal at the Lima 2019 Pan American Games – to a Seventh Place finish at the Tokyo Tatsumi International Swimming Center.
