(Adrian St.Onge/CHAT News)

By Adrian St.Onge

Speed skaters hit the rink at Big Marble for Western Canada U13 tournament

Mar 25, 2024 | 5:22 PM

Youth speed skaters from across Western Canada converged on to Big Marble Go Center for the 2024 Canadian Youth Short Track Championships this weekend.

While the Medicine Hat Speed Skating Club did not have a skater eligible for the tournament, Coach Rachel Collins said that the tournament should breathe new life into the sport.

While the draw to Medicine Hat was competition, Collins said that speed skating is a community unlike many other.

“It’s really a tight nit community, lots of skaters have seen friends from different provinces,” Collins said.

“I think that’s why meets like this are so amazing. It’s because we pull kids from every province and this might be the only time you see them in a season,” she said.

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“You’re going to remember them, you’re going to remember the fun races you had, the fun laughs you had, the attaboys as the end of races. It goes a long way.”

“You’ll never forget the kids you skate with, even if they live 24 hours away from you.”

Over the weekend, 121 of western Canada’s best speed skaters took the ice.

Paulina Davydova, a U13 skater from British Columbia said that tournaments like this are what brings the speed skating community together.

“I saw and I reunited with my good friends Molly and Felicia from Alberta,” Davydova said.

“I saw a girl that was super duper fast last year. Her name is Mia from Manitoba and she’s really good.”

Manitoba’s Justin Chang echoes the sentiment.

“It feels great to represent your province and just skating with all your friends and meeting new people out of the province has just been amazing,” he said.

Medicine Hat once had a healthy speed skating community that experienced a lull in popularity during COVID.

Tyler Derraugh from Speed Skating Canada said that Medicine Hat has a very rich history in the sport.

“Quebec in particular is very dominant, but Medicine Hat has a very rich history,” Derraugh said.

“Kirsty Lay, a fantastic speed skater, moved over to track cycling and won an Olympic bronze,” he said.

“Liam McFarlane was a short track speed skater for the Medicine Hat club here. At one point, he held the unofficial world record. He was a phenomenal skater and now he’s a coach up in Edmonton.”

“There’s some rich history here and hopefully we can fuel the club from this event to get more skaters out.”

Derraugh said that the record setting number of athletes participating shows that the sport is not only alive and well, but starting to experience a boom.

Jill Lynch, also from Speed Skating Canada, said she really embraces the comaraderie the sport has to offer.

“Yes, they’re racing each other, but they’re congratulating each other a the line, giving each other fist bumps at the end of the when they saw that each other did a great race,” Lynch said.

“Watching those friendships build and them [skaters] coming back and sort of running towards the friends from a province that they haven’t seen in a year, watching those friendships be built has been so much fun to watch.”