2011 SSNB - AGM Report - Provincial Coach / Technical Director
SSNB Provincial Coach & Technical Director’s
2011 SSNB AGM Report
To the Board of Directors of SSNB
also to all club delegates, skaters and associate members of SSNB,
I never know what to write in these year end reports.
What does a coach like to talk about? Well - What else -Skaters and their development.
Currently, We have developed some excellent skaters that are already turning heads on the National Stage, proving that you can come from a smaller Province and still be successful. We had skaters that proved that in 2010 - 2011 at Junior Trials and Canada Games. These skaters understand that the successes you get from this sport comes from the effort & commitment that the individual puts into their sport, great life skills by any parental standards. These Skaters truly understand that it won’t be easy and it will require them to adjust their lives to have success at this level. Younger skaters who wish to have this type of success need to pay attention to their over all development at a younger age. These athletes did not “Get Good” in a year. - “ Excellence is the GRADUAL RESULT of always striving to do better”
As for our Younger skater there is a fine young group of skaters coming up through the ranks all over the Province. I see plenty of skaters with the ability to be very successful. As long as they are progressively learning about the work ethic and commitment that is needed to progress in our sport, they will do fine. As long as they work on continued refinement of efficient speed skating skills as well as understanding the need to balance their life style to suit their goals, they will do very well.
At Present, I am not worried about the opportunities for our high end competitive skaters, as long as we have access to the Quebec circuit and the new SSC Regional & National competitive skaters model unfolds as I think it will over the next couple of years.
So the basic structure we have now and the improvements made at the Club level with the introduction of the SSC LTAD over the past 3 or 4 years are giving us better equipped young skaters.
An area that worries me is the number of skaters within SSNB that fail to make the transition from Bantam & Midget through to the Juvenile, junior & Intermediate classes and remain in our sport, at least through high school. While SSNB looks at the total numbers, Up or down, within the Province, as our gauge to success. It is however, the culture and structure at the club level that will be the key to keeping all levels of skaters involved in our sport. Strong Clubs and the volunteer’s who run them are the cornerstone of any association.
I think Speed Skating Canada did a great job in developing it’s Long Term Athlete Development plan and I think that the growth and success of our sport in New Brunswick hinges on SSNB and the Clubs education of the parents of new skaters on this concept. While many skaters join with the intension of just learning to skate. The majority that stay through to the ages of 10 - 11 are all there because there is something they enjoy within the club structure.
Where, I think, we tend to lose skaters is in not being clear on what is required at various success levels. OR not having an alternative for these skaters. Skaters might move up a group but find the work requirement too hard and just drift away from the sport, because they no longer see a place for them in that group. SSNB’ has always looked at success on Personnel Bests / the Provincial ranking list / At SSC National’s / Canada Winter Games, based on head to head results with the other Provinces. Don’t get me
wrong, at the competitive level, that should not change. In fact, I think we need to pick up the slack, as the truly competitive skaters in other associations seem to be inching away from us.
Maybe at the “In Province” level of skater, we need to be more innovative in developing ways to interest them in staying with the sport. As an over all sport for your whole life - Skating is a truly healthy low impact sport. We need skaters just to stay in the sport because it is fun and healthy. It is okay to not
want to be Provincial Champion. But you need to have a clear idea of why you are in the sport and what you will get from it. But! these are administrative and club culture traits that need to be looked at if we want too grow. This is something that keeps eating away at me. We all know what a wonderful and demanding sport this is. People love it when they get to watch it on television and in person at the rink. But I keep asking myself the question - why doesn’t this sport grow? What can we do, as SSNB, to better grow the sport in new Brunswick? We have to do a better job of retaining more of the skaters that walk through the door. The demanding nature of our sport is definitely a drawback at the older ages.
Another concern is the overall numbers at almost all SSNB competitions were down considerably this past year. It is an area that I think needs to be looked at honestly and see if we can do more to keep skaters involved in our sport. I am aware that it was a Canada Games year and the top skaters get more selective with their competitions as well as a lot of Long Track people are competing at other venues - which might account for the numbers this year. But we are on a downward trend. . For me, the SSNB competition premise of having our youngest skaters competing at the larger competitions and only racing ever 2 hours between races is not as good an entry level experience as it could be. I think we can do much better.
A start was made last year with a new FUNdamentals meet. The entry requirement was that you had to be SLOWER than 1.10 in your 500M. I was very pleased at the enthusiasm of the Saint John Club to host the 1 day FUNdamentals meet, held last November. It seemed to be very successful and fun from the skaters point of view. All Skaters raced or relayed 7 times over a 6 hour time frame. These skaters races on 4M, 6M & 8M tracks, depending on their speed, as well as raced both ways and a variety of game based relays. Most of the Officiating was either inexperienced adults or Group 1 & 2 skaters. Good learning tool for developing officials.
I think experiments like the SJ competition should be expanded and developed to give the youngest skaters in our Association the best development structure possible and to create better FUNdamental competition structures as we go.
Also with the SSNB development structure the use of the SSC’s new100m track could easily be the next division in SSNB skater development. Last year I had many parents complain about the 100M rack and they didn’t like it because their child could not skate on it. I pointed out that the 100M track had 2 good advantages for their skater. Number 1 it made the straightaways over a metre wider so gave more room for passing and slide time if a fall did occur. This is much more noticeable in a smaller sized ice surface, which the majority of our skaters participate on. This also is very helpful when trying to incorporate more relays into these types of competitions. I also pointed out that requiring their skater to skate full speed on the 7 metre arc of the 100m track required much more technical capability than to skate the same speed on the 8 meter arc of 111 meter track. In fact the 100M track was requiring their skater to gather better technical skills at a younger age, which will be very helpful later on when they are faster and on the 111 M track.
Just as a note, that is why we ask the much younger groups of skater to participate & practice on even smaller arc tracks.
As SSNB’s Provincial Coach, I take pride in the successes of our skaters on the National stage and in a Canada Games Year it just magnifies my ( and their Club coaches) expectations of our skaters. When you expect to compete at an event like the Canada Games you have to already have learned to match your work ethic with your expectations.
I am extremely pleased with the SSNB Provincial development structure. Success, for our skaters, does not happen without coaching excellence at the club level. These coaches are running quality structured development programs and their skaters are having fun learning and developing. I get too see what other coaches and associations offer across Canada and SSNB and their clubs should be very aware of the quality of speed skating coaching in New Brunswick. The reality is, I can only get to clubs to add my input on a limited basis. It is the consistent dedication of the clubs head coaches and the commitment of their coaching staff that truly makes the recurring impact on their groups through a progressive development structure. When you look at the skaters who competed at Halifax Canada Games, we had 4 clubs with skaters who represented this Province. That is a good sign of competitiveness within all our clubs and reaffirming the good direction these club coaches are taking their groups, only proving that anyone can be successful. THEY just need to know that THEY want to be there and how to properly work toward a goal that is so rewarding.
Canada Games is likely the highest level sporting event that the majority of our skaters will ever achieve and it is a very good tool for SSNB to use in a quadrennial cycle of building and assessment. At these young ages our youth need to be constantly reminded and urged to set targets to shoot for. By SSNB making all clubs aware of the opportunities that are built through a long term progressive development structure that gauges progressive improvements through, competition with their peers, the SSC Regional competitions and the SSC Nationals structure can and will be the stepping stones for the SSNB Skaters going to the 2015 Canada Winter Games in Prince George BC. We need all clubs to begin creating a positive environment for their skaters to see that they have an opportunity, just like everyone else, of achieving at Canada Games and maybe even beyond. These are some of the steps that make up the GRADUAL RESULT of always striving to do better. It will not happen with just one good year.
For the skaters the next 3 years is all about learning to be better GRADUALLY, learning to maximize their training to suit their physical stage of development and taking the time to learn something about themselves at every sporting opportunity.
For SSNB hopefully it will be about growth in numbers; it will be about the quality of our programming and as well as it will be about the types of competitions we host, to give our skaters the best advantage possible in our sport.
“ The will to win means nothing … without the will to prepare”
Cliché yes - Non the less it is the barebones truth!
Respectfully submitted by
Peter Steele
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