Owner of Ultimate Cheer Fusion Jenna Nittel and her athlete Georgia Potter are excited to return to the gym following months of shutdowns (Tiffany Goodwien/CHATNewsToday)

By Tiffany Goodwein

Kids sports groups excited to reopen following province’s announcement

Feb 6, 2021 | 5:48 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB- It was an unexpected announcement that had cheerleader Georgia Potter flipping for joy. On Saturday morning, the province announced the return of school and minor sports training for children starting Feb. 8.

“I was very excited because I miss seeing all my coaches and all my friends,” Potter said.

The 12-year-old has been attending Ultimate Cheer Fusion since she was six-years-old. Pre-COVID-19 she would spend four to five days a week at the gym with her coach Jenna Nittel

“She’s like a second mother to me,” Potter said.

For Ultimate Cheer Fusion owner Jenna Nittel, the news to reopen was long-awaited. Under the province’s newest guidelines youth activities can resume with a maximum of 10 individuals, including all coaches, trainers, and participants. Previously provincial guidelines only allowed one-on-one training which meant parents had to spend nearly $50.00 an hour at gyms like Nittel’s just to get some training.

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“ For a studio like ours it is not really feasible to do one-on-one private lessons because even though we are allowed in the gym we have to still pay our coaches to do those privates so we still had to pay those fees so a lot of families couldn’t even use that because of this pandemic,” she said.

The announcement this morning was also well received by LimeLitez Dance Academy owner Jerredi Hauck

“I was very excited. I was kind of blown away, and then I started crying,” she said.

The pandemic has been hard on her students, who like so many had to adapt to virtual learning through Zoom.

“Zoom is getting more and more difficult every day we log on. It’s heartbreaking to watch kids crying. It’s heartbreaking to watch kids deflated. It’s heartbreaking to watch kids who have to turn their Zoom off in the middle of dance classes that they just can’t do anymore,” she said.

For both Hauck and Nittel, some class sizes will have to be split in order to meet the regulations, and that requires rearranging schedules to ensure there is space for all kids to be included in a team or group dance.

And while the province has given them the green light come Monday, sports like cheerleading are still limited in terms of the skills they allowed to practice.

“ We are still at this point not allowed to stunt or develop any kind of routine because we have to maintain that nine feet distancing, but it is a start,” Nittel said.

Training at the gym, in the meantime, will be limited to jumps, conditioning and flexibility training.

Still, for Nittel and Hauck, it’s a welcome step forward, and one they are looking forward to, following months of shutdowns, and being away from their students.