By Sam Cortes, Communications Coordinator
Head Coach Ben Galagan learned to snowboard with his dad at the Canada Olympic Park and has been passionate about the sport ever since.
“When I went to the hill, I would always go to the park where I would try all the big features, imagining what it would be like to do tricks on them. Keep in mind, I didn’t know how to carve or do anything other than stand up and ride down the hill until I fell.”
Now, Ben has been a coach for Backside Nines since 2015 and in February, he will lead Team Toba’s five snowboarders at the Canada Games in PEI.
Finding the Right Hills
A lot goes into training to get ready for a national, multi-sport event of this size. The athletes need to commit to some travel in order to practice their tricks in boarder cross and slopestyle, the two competition styles they’ll be doing during week two at the Mark Arendz Provincial Ski Park at Brookvale.
“Something that people might not know about snowboarders from Manitoba is that we have to go out of the province to do our training,” said Ben. “Even though we [have] a few snowboarding hills in Manitoba, we have to go to mountains like Sunshine and Lake Louise for the athletes to get experience and train on the size of features that will be in Canada Games.”
Fine Tuning a Performance
To build confidence before a run, Ben said athletes will visualize themselves doing that trick and landing it perfectly.
He also wants to help them see the entire trick with the lead up, and not just the landing.
“When the athletes are training, we will record footage of them riding, so we can review it with them afterwards. This helps the athletes understand how they look when they’re performing tricks,” said Ben.
“From my experience, you can land a trick and think it looks amazing, just to realize you were flailing your arms around. Seeing video footage of you performing helps fine tune the athlete’s performance.”
They also do trampoline training in the pre-season to get accustomed to aerial rotations, and compete in the Manitoba Snowboarding provincial events to provide more experience in competing in tournaments.
Follow the Herd
Ben said seeing his athletes grow and become great snowboarders inspires him to keep coaching.
“My absolute favourite thing about coaching is when an athlete you’ve coached before learns a trick that you can’t do, and then teaches you how to do the trick.”
You can follow Team Toba snowboarders’ performance in PEI by following The Herd on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
To learn more about snowboarding in Manitoba, including events, clubs, and memberships, check out http://manitobasnowboard.com/ and follow them on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
