The Yorkton Skate Club's annual carnival pretty much ends the current season for many young skaters. It was great to see all the young skaters, and test skaters all come together with guest skaters to perform another great show for the year end says club head coach Susan Nagy.
Nagy describes the season as awesome. Yorkton has the pre-junvenile men's champion, Koen Kucher-Paulmark who claimed the provincial pre-juvenile men's title. As well the BMO Skate Canada Saskat-chewan juvenile ladies silver medalist, Nicki Nagy skates with the club. Many skaters attended competitions around the province as well as out of province, from Vancouver to Winnipeg and Minot where they achieved many personal bests.
Nagy took in many competitions across the country in preparation for the 2011 Canada Games in Halifax. She travelled to Vancouver, Hamilton, and Barrie, Ont-ario. She was in Saskatoon preparing Team Saskatchewan for the games. "It's just been a whirlwind season, however a great one. It's been such a positive year," she reflects.
The coaching staff has grown, Nagy notes, with herself as head coach, Maggie Hancock assists with the direct and CanSkate programs and Sarah McIvor working with the CanSkate and Star Skate skaters.
The club is growing, says Nagy. She anticipates more growth next season as people have been inquiring about the program for next year.
The Yorkton club could not survive without the many valuable volunteers, Nagy states. They include the club executive which oversees the operations of the YSC, the fundraising, the registration, all of the off ice activities that go into running the club. There are also about a dozen program assistants most of who are members of the club, and some who don't skate with the club but they help with coaching. "Without those we couldn't run our Can-Skate program," Nagy declares.
Running a successful club isn't just coaching, it's all of the operations that people in the community don't always see, but are the basic root of the club, says Nagy. She offers kudos to all the people who work hard behind the scenes to bring the skate club the success it currently enjoys. "We would not be in this position. My job would not be as successful without the help of all of those people," she continues.
With the completion of the winter season, Nagy has a week off before she starts working at the spring school which goes from April 4 to June 2. The spring school, is open to both local skaters and regional members, Nagy points out. Anyone interested in the spring skating school should contact Nagy at (306) 728-3395.
She also has two seminars for high performance athletes. Both Nicki Nagy and Koen Kucher-Paulmark will participate in the seminar.
The Mariposa Seminar in Regina will see guest skaters Garret Gosselin, Paige Lawrence and Rudi Swiegers taking part. Other notables at Mariposa will include Doug Lee former coach of Elvis Stoyko, Jeffrey Buttle, Jennifer Robin-son, and Brian Orser.
Following the Maripo-sa seminar the high performance June Kick-off camp at the University of Saskatchewan will include Swiegers, Lawrence, Gosselin, Nicki Nagy and Kucher-Paulmark. The camp will feature off-ice and on-ice training as well as sports psychology and team building activities for members of Team Saskatchewan.
A three week break from all the frantic activity will lead into the five week summer skating school Nagy runs in Melville. The summer school program offers activities and training for high performance skaters, recreational skating, a hockey school and a power skating. Anyone who would like more information about the summer skating school should contact Nagy at (306) 728-3395 or go to the web page www.supremeskatingschool.com.
Nagy is a member of the skater development board of Saskatchewan and also sits on the coaches' core committee of Saskatchewan. "Even though its the regular off season for most people in skating it is now our busy season because we're in our preparation for our phases of what we're doing for our skater development in Sask-atchewan and also what we're doing for coaches," Nagy outlines.
"So even though everybody now, for the most part, takes their skates off, we kind of get very busy now in preparation for when everybody comes back to skating in September," she reports.
Nagy says she's so proud of the way the Yorkton Skating club is evolving. When she returned to the province four years ago, it was a great little club, she recalls. "Now we are a big club," she declares. The club serves recreational skaters. It serves young boys entering hockey. It serves entry level skaters going into the Star Skate programs as well as those skating at the competitive level, Nagy lists. "I really feel we're so rounded as a club," she observes.
Nagy praises the organization for allowing her to introduce her vision for the club. "I have a vision and I've not fulfilled it yet," she closes.
