Canadian University Chess Championship (Previous Years)

CUCC 2026

CUCC 2026 took place at Hart House, hosted by the University of Toronto. Our former president, Veronica Hitchlock, and alumna Amy Huynh volunteered as arbiters. Our club sent 5 teams of 5 and won several awards:

Best Board 3 in Crown Section - Youcef Lattafi (5/5, 2820 performance rating)

Top Woman - Svitlana Demchenko (2304 performance rating)

Second Place in Reserve Section - uOttawa Team B

Second Highest Alternate in Reserve Section - Gregory Marcelin (3/3)

Pictured: (back row) Will Smith, Aiden Cole, Youcef Lattafi, Neerav Muller, Josh Lawrence, Oliver Byl, Adam Sirota, John Boby Mesadieu, Josh Barnabas, Gregory Marcelin.

(middle row) Victor Boddy, Lucas Pitre, Tyler Lagrace, Shaqib Mohammed, Aaron Sider.

(front row) Maxim Rousskikh, Brian Batchelar, Svitlana Demchenko, Veronica Hitchlock, Ankita Jain, Anastasia Auger, Arjun Hande, Amy Huynh.

uOttawa Team B winning second place in the Reserve Section!

Pictured: Neerav Muller, Brian Batchelar, Ankita Jain, Tyler Lagrace, Gregory Marcelin.

uOttawa Team A

Pictured: Svitlana Demchenko, Maxim Rousskikh, Youcef Lattafi, Oliver Byl.

Not pictured: Lucas Pitre

uOttawa Team C

Pictured: Anastasia Auger, Aaron Sider, Aiden Cole, Victor Boddy.

Not pictured: Will Smith

CUCC 2025

Our club sent 18 players to CUCC 2025 in Montreal, hosted by the University of Montreal. Our former president, FM Zachary Dukic, came along to coach.

Pictured: (back row) Adam Sirota, Aiden Cole, Will Smith, Noah Boisvert.

(middle row) Brian Batchelar, Gregory Marcelin, Aaron Sider, Anastasia Auger, Veronica Hitchlock.

(front row) Neerav Muller, Maxim Rousskikh, Mustafa Muhammad Shah, Zachary Dukic, Matteus McCulloch, Svitlana Demchenko, Oliver Byl, Lucas Pitre, Sam Sharifi.

The playing hall.

CUCC 2024

Our club sent five teams of four to CUCC 2024, which took place in Kingston, and was hosted by Queen's University.

Pictured: (back row) Caleb Millette, Gregory Marcelin, Mustafa Shah, Maxim Rousskikh, Adam Sirota, Will Smith, Alex Stopic, Aiden Cole, Aaron Sider, Matteus McCulloch, Brian Batchelar, Noah Boisvert.

(front row) Oliver Byl, Lucas Pitre.

Bughouse tournament. Bughouse is a fast-paced 4-player team variant of chess, played on two side-by-side boards where captured pieces are passed to a partner. This optional tournament was held on opening night, before the official 5-round classical tournament started the next morning.

CUCC 2023

CUCC 2023 was held in Ottawa and hosted by our university! It was the first in-person CUCC since the Covid-19 pandemic, and it was organized by our club president at the time, Veronica Hitchlock. 34 teams from 16 post-secondary institutions came from across Canada to participate, totalling to 139 participants.

Our players won the following awards:

Second Best Board 1 in the Championship Section - Svitlana Demchenko

Best Individual Score for a Female Player - Svitlana Demchenko (4/5)

Third Place in the Reserve Section - uOttawa Team B

Best Board 4 in the Reserve Section - Lucas Pitre (5/5)

The playing hall. 4th floor Demarais, "Camille Villeneuve".

uOttawa A's decisive victory against Carleton A.

uOttawa Team A: Svitlana Demchenko, Sebastien Azar, Henry Hughes, Oliver Byl.

Queens B vs. uOttawa B

uOttawa Team B: Neerav Muller, Mustafa Shah, James Rhydderch, Lucas Pitre.

Calgary vs. uOttawa C

uOttawa Team C: Mehar Bala, Thomas Vandeven, Noah Boisvert, Samer Azar, Will Smith.

CUCC 2021-2022

Due to Covid-19 restrictions taking effect in March 2020, CUCC 2021 and 2022 were held online.

CUCC 2022, hosted by Western University. Some of our players gathered in Roger Guindon Hall, room 2021 to play their matches.

CUCC 2020

Our club fielded 4 teams in January 2020, and the tournament was hosted by Wilfrid Laurier in Waterloo.

uOttawa Team B wins second place in the Reserve Section!

Pictured: Troy Dana, Lucas Pitre, Loick Lussier, Michael Gao.

CUCC 2019

Our club sent 3 teams of 4 to CUCC 2019, which was held in Hamilton and hosted by McMaster University. Our Team A won third place in the Championship Section!

Waterloo A's defeat against uOttawa A

uOttawa Team A: Zachary Dukic, Misha Voloaca, Francesco Dunne, Zhang Jikai.

uOttawa Team B

Pictured: Paul Beckwith, Patrick Huang, Eric Lessard, Troy Dana.

CUCC 2018

CUCC 2018 was held in Ottawa, hosted by our university! It was organized by our vice president at the time, FM Zachary Dukic. 114 players from 11 universities across Canada came to compete.

uOttawa A vs. Toronto A

Pictured from uOttawa: Misha Voloaca, Zachary Dukic, Francesco Dunne.

Not pictured: Zhang Jikai.

The playing hall. Demarais 4101.

CUCC 2017

CUCC 2017 was held in London (Ontario), hosted by the Western Chess & Go Club. Our university merged its teams with Carleton that year, and sent 3 teams altogether.