College of Piping band wins 1st place at world championships

Some of the planet's best pipers return home.

On Saturday, Aug. 12, The College of Piping and Celtic Performing Arts of Canada's grade-four category band won first place at the World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow.

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The band competed against almost 60 other bands in front of tens of thousands of viewers and managed to take home the gold.

"We have an incredibly small group of pipers in comparison to some of the bands we competed against, it made the experience so much better to such a tight-knit group of people," said band member Alyson MacLean.

Two 1st place wins

In addition to the World Pipe Band Championship win, the band also won the lead-up event at the Bridge of Allan Highland Games, on Aug. 6. ​

"When we won in Bridge of Allan it was absolutely incredible. It gave us an idea that we have a chance at the Worlds," MacLean said.

At the end of the week, on Saturday, Aug. 12, the band won first place at the World Pipe Band Championships.

"I don't think it hit us all right away, we were getting pretty antsy, they started naming off some competitions we were waiting for our competition and it was really unbelievable when they said our name first," MacLean said.

She hopes win encourages young pipers

The band arrived back on P.E.I. today to celebrate with the College of Piping.

MacLean hopes their international wins can spark a fire in future pipers.

"I really hope it does encourage some of the younger pipers we have at the college. We are only a group of seven pipers, it doesn't take a whole bunch of us to do an incredible job," she said.

"You don't have to be the special person in the crowd to win — if you do your best the results will follow."

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