Leading up to the 2023 Canada Winter Games, we are featuring the dedicated coaches who spend countless hours giving back to sport. Let’s get to know alpine ski coach, Anna Blankstein! What sport are you coaching at the Canada Games? Alpine Skiing How long have you been coaching this sport? 4 years What is your favourite…
Leading up to the 2023 Canada Winter Games, we are featuring the dedicated coaches who spend countless hours giving back to sport. Let’s get to know women’s hockey coach, Cassandra Groen! How long have you been coaching this sport? 10 years What is your favourite coaching memory? One of my athletes was working so…
Next year will be Trevor Borland’s sixth Canada Games. While the Head Coach for squash is certainly familiar with the national, multi-sport event, he is excited to lead the upcoming female and men’s squash teams in PEI – in the same city of his first-ever Games experience. The four females and four females will…
Archery Head Coach Avril Hatherell has been to the Canada Games as an athlete, a manager, and will now experience the event as a coach in PEI. Involved in the sport for 25 years, one of the things she loves about archery is that it’s a personal sport with lots of room for growth…
Airton Nakamura’s judo career started in Brazil when he was just eight years old. Getting his black belt at the age of 16, he started coaching at the club level, too. In 2006, Airton came to Canada and got involved in coaching at the University of Winnipeg, and later gained experience as the…
Athletes can find all kinds of ways to tap into their motivation in preparing for the Canada Games. As Manitoba Fencing Association (MFA) Provincial Coach Ayach Bounachada looks ahead to 2023 in PEI, he remembers one athlete’s unique motivation behind making the podium. In 2007, Gillian Turnbull was determined to make it to the…
After the 2019 Canada Games in Red Deer, Head Coach Arvin Tronco wondered how he’d develop the next generation of table tennis athletes, specifically the girls he was working with, as many were eligible for the 2023 Games but had either moved to other provinces or had other commitments. So he embarked on a…
Leading up to the 2023 Canada Winter Games, we are featuring the dedicated coaches who spend countless hours giving back to sport. Let’s get to know freestyle ski coach, Blake Grist! How long have you been coaching this sport? Five years. What is your proudest accomplishment as a coach? I love to…
The athletes who will represent Manitoba in cross country skiing, including Para-Nordic, will enter what Karin McSherry, Executive Director of Cross Country Ski Association of Manitoba (CCSAM) describes as ‘a different universe’ in the energetic Canada Games environment. And regardless of your competitive goals, Karin believes watching these athletes on the journey to the…
A competition that combines cross country skiing and rifle shooting in an exhilarating race, biathlon will be featured during week one of the Canada Winter Games, where athletes will compete at the Mark Arendz Provincial Ski Park in central PEI. Ski and Shoot In biathlon, you begin with skiing the course and then…