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Sport Performance Weekly
September 25th , 2006 |
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This award recognizes and celebrates the outstanding contribution of a club/organization which has had a significant positive contribution to the betterment of sport in Calgary.
On September 20th, the CSCC was named the recipient of this award, which was presented by His Worship, Mayor Dave Bronconnier and the Calgary Sport Council, at the 2nd Annual Mayor’s Breakfast Honouring Sport in Calgary. This unique annual event not only celebrates Calgary athletes, it supports a common vision that sport is integral to quality of life, community well being and economic prosperity in Calgary. As well as the mayor, the honourable Norman Kwong was in attendance, as well as many past and present elite athletes, and aspiring grassroots athletes from Calgary.
The Calgary Booster Club received the inaugural award in 2005.
This is a new award created to recognize and celebrate a corporation that provides outstanding, innovative, consistent support to sport in Calgary. The intent is to recognize a corporation that pro-actively supports sport by providing funding and/or other support to sport in Calgary.
ARC Energy Trust’s mission is to be one of the top performing conventional royalty trusts in Canada as measured by quality of assets, management expertise and investor returns. Since inception the Trust has been consistent in combining excellent managerial and technical expertise to maximise value to ARC Unitholders.
In 2003, ARC created a partnership with the Canadian Sport Centre Calgary (CSCC), one of the top Olympic sport training environments in the world. The partnership embraces the relationship between Olympic athletes and ARC’s culture of passion, commitment, balanced lifestyle, team effort and innovation. The partnership was developed to offer ARC employees opportunities to learn from successes, attitudes and behaviors of Canadian Olympic athletes and their support teams. The fundamental goal of the ARC/CSCC partnership is to enrich the lives of ARC employees and their families while providing funding to the CSCC through involvement with Olympic athletes events and facilities. In 2006, ARC held a fundraising gala which raised $300,000 for the CSCC and Right To Play.
The following is a list of athletes that were involved in the inaugural Mayor’s Breakfast Honouring Sport in Calgary. |
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The Calgary Herald
The Canadian Snowboard Federation's plans to hold a World Cup half-pipe event in Calgary in March is just one of the competitions Canada Olympic Park hopes to attract after spending money to upgrade and expand its facilities.
Improvements worth $3 million are being done to the venue, in hopes of attracting World Cup freestyle (both moguls and aerials) and women's Alpine slalom events. The money is coming from the Calgary Olympic Development Association, Own the Podium and in-kind contributions.
Cathy Priestner Allinger, a member of the Vancouver Olympic Games Organizing Committee (VANOC), said more training and competition in Calgary will improve the chances for Canadian athletes to be on the podium in 2010. "World-class training facilities in other parts of the country, such as at COP, are critical to giving our athletes every opportunity for success in 2010," said Priestner Allinger, VANOC's executive vice-president for sports.
Jim Younker, COP's general manager, said the snowboard, freestyle and Alpine facilities are being built to replicate the venues which will be used at the 2010 Games. "For the Canadian teams, the beauty is the venues they train on here, when it comes to 2010, they will be very comfortable in those environments because they are very familiar to them," said Younker.
COP is putting together a proposal to host the freestyle skiing and snowboard Canadian championships this year. "If those events are successful, we hope to host World Cup events in those disciplines in subsequent years," Younker said.
The half-pipe being built at COP will be 150 metres long, have a 17.5-degree slope and walls more than two storeys high. It's expected to be completed by Dec. 1.
Martin Jensen, the snowboard federation's high-performance director, said having a permanent facility to train in is like a hockey team having its own practice rink. |
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The Vancouver Province
Steep and fast, a little scary and a big advantage for Canadian sliders. That's Eckville, Alta., skeleton athlete Mellisa Hollingsworth-Richards's first impression of the 2010 Olympic track after a tour Thursday of the Whistler facility. "It's going to be pretty interesting," Hollingsworth-Richards, a bronze medallist in the 2006 Olympics, said as she walked down the track.
"Going into corner two there's a 20 per cent gradient drop which is pretty steep, so we're getting a lot of speed right at the start. "You never know, but it looks like it's going to be a driver's track. "You'll have to be in control of your sled because with the amount of speed, if you're not in control there's probably going to be a lot of crashes."
Some tracks favour drivers. Some are less difficult and favour strong pushers who can build speed at the top and then hold their lead.
The Whistler track -- which will host the 2010 bobsleigh, skeleton and luge events -- is exactly what the Canadians want. The Canadians will be able to train on it more than anyone else. And the more challenging the track the more important experience becomes.
The Americans opened the Park City, Utah, Olympic track in 1997, five years before the 2002 Olympics. They won eight medals. At Cesana Pariol near Turin, which opened only a year before the Olympics, the Americans only got a handful of runs and ended up with just one medal.
The Whistler facility will be up and running by October of 2007 at the earliest or March 2008 at the latest. "There are some profiles that are going to be pretty steep so it's not going to be a walk in the park," says Edmonton's Pierre Lueders, the 35-year-old veteran bobsleigh pilot who won a silver in the two-man in Cesana with Calgary's Lascelles Brown.
He placed fourth in the four-man and is planning on making 2010 his fifth Olympics. "It has a lot of vertical drop to it and good percentage drop in the corners," he said after his walking tour. "It looks quite interesting."
Lueders, a 1998 gold medallist in two-man at Nagano, said that just being in Whistler during the construction stages was an advantage. The plan is to get as many runs as he can. "I had maybe 60 or 70 runs over three visits to Cesana," he said. "We're hoping to have 500 to 600 runs here but it depends on when we can get on it."
Canada got four medals in Cesana. Besides Hollingsworth-Richards and Lueders, Calgarians Duff Gibson and Jeff Pain finished 1-2, winning gold and silver in skeleton.
Then there were near misses. Lueders finished fourth in the four-man as did Calgary's Helen Upperton and Heather Moyse of Summerside, PEI, in the women's two. Calgary's Paul Boehm missed making it a Canadian skeleton medal sweep by just 0.26 seconds.
Having the home hill advantage could turn the fourths into medals. "It's different than any track out there," says Bobsleigh/Skeleton Canada chief executive officer Chris Farstad of Vancouver. "It'll be the steepest track in the world. "We wanted something that's different and tough, a track that you need a lot of runs on to be good and that's what this one looks like."
It looks like they got what they wanted. |
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The next time accomplished international swimmer Mike Brown of Perth gives a television interview, he may be talking about the dark side of life.
On Sept. 9, Brown had his four most prized medals and an Olympic ring from Swimming Canada stolen from his Calgary condominium as well as his motorcycle and helmet, DVDs and electronic games. The medals included his 2006 Commonwealth Games gold medal and his 2005 world championship silver medal in the men's 200-metre breaststroke.
"I haven't heard anything. I'm thinking of going on TV. These are my medals, they're important and please return them. I may go to Crime Stoppers to see if they can get a lead, but I'm not holding my breath," Brown said.
Brown, 22, also lost his bronze medals in the 200-metre breaststroke from the 2002 Commonwealth Games and the men's 4x100-metre medley relay from the 2002 Pan Pacific championships. The 2002 Commonwealth Games was Brown's breakthrough international meet. He was the surprise bronze medallist in the 200-metre breaststroke, taking two seconds off his personal-best time.
"It was a heart-wrenching night," Brown said about the robbery. "All of the other stuff you can put a price on. But there's no price for any of these medals. These medals represent all that I've done."
Calgary police said yesterday there are no suspects and no new developments in the active case. Brown has checked a few pawnshops in the city, but without success. He's considering searching the eBay Internet site to see if his medals are up for sale.
Brown said his condominium was entered by the balcony, which is about two metres off the ground. "I'm not sure how he got in because the sliding door was locked," he said, adding there were no signs of a forced entry. "It's hard to put into words. Those medals represent all that I've done. "It's heartless. They (medals) aren't worth anything to him," he added.
If the police are unable to recover the medals, Swimming Canada is exploring the possibility of having them replaced through FINA, the international aquatic federation, and the Commonwealth Games Federation, which oversees the Commonwealth Games every four years.
Swimming Canada has told Brown it will replace his 2004 Olympic ring for qualifying for the Athens Summer Games, where he broke the Canadian 200-metre breaststroke record three times and was one of the Canada's top performers in the pool.
The robbery came almost three weeks after "a below-par performance" at the Pan Pacific championships in Victoria, where he finished fifth against the world's best in the 100- and 200-metre breaststrokes. He was almost four seconds behind American Brendan Hansen, who lowered his 200-metre breaststroke world record to two minutes 8.50 seconds. "I looked to go to that meet and be on the podium. I'm not sure what happened," Brown said.
As Brown approaches the 2007 world aquatic championships March 25 to April 1 in Melbourne, Australia, he plans to continue to train hard, but wants to enjoy the task more while making a few technical tweaks. "Last year was a difficult year in terms of the mental side. I got sidetracked. I made every workout, but I didn't enjoy it. I lost confidence," he said.
Although he would "love to break the Canadian record every time I swim," Brown hasn't dipped under 2:12 this season in the 200-metre breaststroke, his specialty. He took the national record under 2:12 at the Athens Summer Olympics and improved it to 2:11.22 at the 2005 world championships in Montreal.
Brown met with a nutritionist for the first time last week to monitor his diet and to "count the number of calories I take, the protein and the ratios." He also plans to travel to the University of Texas in late October to train with Hansen, who's also a good friend. "I want to see what he does," Brown said. "Maybe he'll give me some ideas on how the fastest man in the world does it." |
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The Calgary Herald
Last April, Shannon Kleibrink couldn't wait for the curling season to end. It was a wild seven-month ride that took Kleibrink and her Calgary team to emotional highs and lows they'd never experienced before in curling, and, quite frankly, it was a thoroughly drained team that left the ice after a semifinal loss to Cheryl Bernard in the BDO Women's Players' Championship at the Corral.
But a summer of physical and mental recovery has apparently done wonders for the Olympic bronze medallists, who will kickstart their 2006-07 campaign Thursday when they open play in the Weber Oslo Cup bonspiel in the Norwegian capital. "Finally," joked Kleibrink. "I was getting sick of the gym."
Kleibrink, third Amy Nixon and lead Christine Keshen are back from last season's squad, while Bronwen Saunders takes over for Glenys Bakker at the second position.
The Oslo 'spiel has attracted a world-class field, headed by reigning Olympic and world champion Anette Norberg of Sweden, and a solid contingent of Canadian entries funded by the national-team program.
"It's really exciting to go, knowing that some of the teams that we definitely have on our radar screen are going to be there, like Jennifer Jones (of Winnipeg), Stefanie Lawton (of Saskatoon) and Anette Norberg," said Nixon who, along with Keshen and Saunders, left Friday, and will be staying with a fan they met during the Turin Olympics until the 'spiel begins.
"Any time you get a chance to go to Europe and see some of those European teams, adjust to the time difference and have a fun adventure together as a team, all those things are valuable."
Not that Kleibrink's putting too much stock in the team's win-loss record in Oslo. "Not really; it's early in the year, everybody's just getting back on the ice," she said. "We really want to be ready for the Autumn Gold (over the Thanksgiving weekend at the Calgary Curling Club)."
The team got back on the ice together for the first time last weekend for a training session at the Calgary Winter Club, giving Saunders her first up-close-and-personal look at her new teammates, and vice-versa. "So far it's going really well," said Kleibrink. "She's fitting in great, and the nice thing is that she throws just about like Amy, so that makes it easier for me (to adjust)."
The Kleibrink crew will be playing a loaded schedule this season -- the first in which qualifying points are available for the 2009 Olympic Trials, where Kleibrink and Co. hope to secure a return trip to the quadrennial spectacle. In addition to the Oslo Cup and the Trail Appliances Autumn Gold, the team is headed to a pair of events in Winnipeg, along with cashspiels in Medicine Hat, Abbotsford, B.C., and Ottawa (which also will be a Strauss Canada Cup qualifying event).
Also on the schedule is an eagerly anticipated appearance at the Continental Cup in December at Chilliwack, B.C., where it will be part of Team North America.
If there were any concerns that last season's roller-coaster ride would take a toll this season, they were eliminated during the Winter Club training session, said Nixon. "I was kind of worried back in July (when she coached at a curling camp in Saskatchewan) and in August at the Alberta Rocks camp in Leduc that the fire kind of wasn't there," admitted Nixon.
"It was a fairly long and emotional kind of season last year, and I was wondering whether the spark would be back. "But we got together, and we all kind of had that smile and smirk together, and we were really excited to be together on the ice." |
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One of the indelible images from the last 20 years of Canadian figure skating was Mike Slipchuk's triumph at the 1992 nationals.
Three-time world champion Kurt Browning was hurt and didn't go to Moncton, and a hotshot by the name of Elvis Stojko was expected to snatch the crown.
Slipchuk, skating in Browning's shadow all the while out of Edmonton's Royal Glenora Club, seemed to have little chance after a blood vessel burst in his nose. Yet, with blood dripping to the ice, Slipper hit every jump and managed to earn top marks to take the gold medal.
Browning was back the next year to reclaim the title.
Slipchuk has remained in the sport, coaching at the Glencoe Club in Calgary and earning worldclass judging credentials.
On Thursday, Skate Canada, the national governing body of the sport, announced that Slipchuk, 40, has been hired as high performance director. A better choice could not have been made. ``I'm very excited,'' he said from Calgary. ``It was an opportunity that came up in the last couple of months and, the more I thought about it, I decided it was something I wanted to pursue. ``I'm looking forward to the challenges ahead.''
His experience and technical knowledge will be invaluable, said acting CEO William Thompson. ``His main task will be to ensure that our high performance athletes have the necessary support systems in place to produce the best competitive results possible and to develop and implement improved athlete development and identification programs,'' Thompson said. ``We are delighted that he has accepted this position.
``Michael is universally respected in the Canadian skating community and will be a tremendous asset to the organization.''
Slipchuk, who sits as a technical expert on International Skating Union judging panels, will be in Taiwan for a Jr. Grand Prix meet and in Hartford, Conn., for the Sr. GP Skate America next month. He'll move to Ottawa in late winter and take up his duties in March. ``I'll be working with skaters and coaches and helping them in every way possible to continue the success we've had and to build on it,'' he said.
The late Barbara Graham performed a somewhat similar role during Slipchuk's competitive days, and he hopes to pattern his work after what she did. ``The vision she had and the respect she had really helped skating get to where it did and helped us in our careers,'' he explained. ``I owe a lot of my success to her because she and Skate Canada gave me the opportunities to compete, and when things weren't going well they remained behind me and supported me. ``I'd never be able to match what she did.''
But he'll try. Some of the best figure skating coaches in the world are in Canada, he said, and he intends to lean heavily on them in his new and important role. ``We need to work with them to hit the goals we want to reach.''
Canada is particularly strong in men's singles _ has been forever, it seems _ and in ice dancing. Identifying the future is always difficult. ``We've always had very strong novices and juniors. We have to help them become even stronger seniors.''
Slipchuk retired from competition after finishing ninth at the 1992 Olympics. He competed at five world meets, finishing seventh in 1991 and ninth in 1989. He was 1986 Canadian junior men's champion, and he won five medals at the senior national level. He's been the head skating professional at the Glencoe for the last 10 years.
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