Dads form synchronized swim team to raise money for daughters' team

MANITOBA, Canada — Most parents will tell you that having a child in sports also means fundraising for equipment, meets and more. One Canadian father took the challenge for his daughter's team to the deep end, literally, and started a unique group that made a big splash.

Christian Gosselin organized Manitoba's all-male synchronized swimming team to find a way to help raise money for his daughter's synchro team.

"It started as a kind of a funny idea with friends and ... I was talking about it with my wife the next day," Gosselin told CBC. His wife encouraged him to do it, so Gosselin started recruiting the dads of other swimmers.

"I was surprised. I did send out an email to all the families of the club and within a couple of days I had four or five people," said Gosselin. Now there are 11 men on the team.

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The team practices once a week for 90 minutes. Their goal is to have a 1 1/2-minute routine.

Gosselin said he didn't realize how tough it was until he got in the pool. "You kind of see your daughters do this every day and you have that kind of perception of how hard it could be. But then when you actually get in the water and start trying to put the nose clips on, getting upside down, trying to stay above water -- as soon as you have a limb go out of the water, it's very difficult," said Gosselin.

The team is not only raising money for the club, but it's also brought attention to the sport.

Gosselin said the experience has been fun and has created a special bond. "For a lot of the moms to get together because they're the ones primarily bringing the kids to the sport. And the fact that we were getting to know each other as dads, it's fantastic," said Gosselin.

The team will debut its routine at a competition in late May.

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