By Autumn Williams, Student Reporter
Danika Sorel, a former Canada Games speed skater has come back to St. Croix Blades, s speed skating club, to coach for the very club she began her career with.
Sorel started her speed skating journey in 2001.
“I started speed skating because I didn’t want to wear dresses anymore” she said in an interview with The Courier.
Sorel and her best friend decided to give speed skating a try after both leaving figure skating in kindergarten. She skated for 10 years before going on to compete in the 2011 Canada Games. She competed in the long track race representing New Brunswick in Halifax that year.
Sorel talked about how her childhood coach came up to watch her compete long after the two had gone their separate ways.
“I was fifteen when I started training but I decided I wanted to go much before that,” Sorel said when asked about the process in getting to the Canada Games
Speed skating is done on a regular hockey rink ice with an oval track put in. Skaters will race other skaters with similar times to them. With track sizes different for the amount of laps and the different speeds of the skaters.
The 2011 Canada Games got to use the Emera Oval in Halifax which is one of three Olympic size speed skating rinks we have in Canada. There are around 150 speed skating clubs in Canada with only five operating in New Brunswick.
Sorel is coaching for the only speed skating club here in Charlotte County: St. Croix Blades. The club has practice once a week at the W.C O’Nell arena on Thursday nights from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. She coaches the speed skaters but the club offers learning opportunities in skating for children five and older.
The whole program is run by volunteers just like Sorel, who give their personal time to teach the next generation the art of skating.
“I’ve always loved coaching and being around children, as well as helping out my community,” she said.
The St. Croix Blades speed skating club was at risk of not running this year because it didn’t have enough coaches. Sorel was the saving grace that this small club needed in order to run another year.
The St. Croix Blades speed skating club is thrilled to have a new coach and another year of memory’s to be made on the ice.
“There is no family like speed skating,” Sorel said.
Autumn Williams is a co-op student who spends one day a week with the team at CHCO-TV and The Courier for a course on media studies and journalism. She is in grade 10.
