Kayaker Joel Brennan is paddling through all of this spring's competitions for the first time.

"All of the competitions I've gone to this year have been a first for me,” the 17-year-old said. "I love it. If I could go to a competition every weekend I would.”

He's been fortunate with competitions this spring.

The young Yukoner took second in the junior pro category at the Level Six Capital Cup in Ottawa last weekend.

But he's not content with simply getting experience – his paddling is fast becoming about more.

"I was hoping for first place, but I made a few mistakes in the final round,” said Brennan, who is attending Lakefield College School, a private school near Peterborough, Ont.

"I sort of messed up on my one run, and only got in half of the tricks I wanted to do.”

Unlike other competitions – and international standards – the final consisted of one run rather than judges taking the best of two final run scores.

With one shot, Brennan managed a decent first half of a run, getting onto the wave, surfing, spinning clean left, then right, and pulling off a roundhouse left.

It was the clean-blunt left that he messed up, he said.

"That was the first time I've been in a sudden-death final.”

Brennan was ranked first in the semi-finals, in which paddlers had three runs on the wave and judges took the best two runs.

He suspects the final was reduced to one run because of the volume of paddlers at the event.

Usually, he explained, there are 10 pro men. In Ottawa, 24 pro men competed.

The Capital Cup was just one of the events Brennan has competed in this spring en route to competing as a member of Team Canada at the Junior World Championships in Plattling, Germany, in June.

He will next compete in the Ottawa River Festival later this month before hopping the pond on June 3 to do three weeks of training before the Junior Worlds on June 21.

"I'll be able to get some good runs in, just figure out the wave,” Brennan said.

His recent experience includes second-place finishes at M.A.C.K. Fest, the Marmora Area Canoe and Kayak Festival, last month, and first-place finishes at the Alabama Mountain Games, as well as a stint down rivers across the southern States.

Brennan said he has to pick up experience whenever and wherever he can.

"In Canada, there are not really a lot of competitions to go to, as much as the U.S.

The U.S. has a lot more competitions and they have a circuit there, a point system, so there's a junior category and a women's pro and a men's pro.”

In each competition – like the Alabama Mountain Games – Brennan would have received points for finishing first, and then if he went to another competition, he could keep accumulating points, adding to his total through the season.

"We don't have that in Canada. We just have a few annual, small competitions, we don't have anything really big,” Brennan said.