Club receives grant, kids registration coming up

After four months of in-pool training, the Jasper Kayak Club is preparing to hit the open water next month.

With 60 kids in the club last year and a government grant received to hire a second coach, the club is holding an information meeting May 3, where they will accept new registrants and kids and parents can check out what the programs will look like for the upcoming season.

The club is run by head coach Sean Allen and club coordinator Rebecka Riddell-McKay, and this year they will have the help of Canmorite Bryce Shaw throughout June, July and August.

Shaw joined the team last summer for a month to help coach, but now with the government grant the club can afford to have him longer, which will help get more kids on the water.

Shaw, who graduated from high school in 2008, has plenty of kayaking experience under his belt, including the Pan American/Canadian National Championships and in Europe.

“The kids can kind of see that, ‘Oh, Bryce started at my age and look at what he’s doing now,’” said Riddell-McKay. “We just got a grant from the government to help pay for his salary, so that’s how we’re hoping to get at least 60 kids.”

Two thirds of the clubs kayakers are between the ages of seven and 12 – the Wavemakers – while the other third are the older kids who spend more time on the rivers and many of whom have been paddling for longer – but that is not to say older kids can’t join.

The club’s focus is on river running, although the younger kids spend most of the time on flatwater lakes until they are ready for a slow moving river. Riddell-McKay said the club is not about competitions, although since this is an Alberta Summer Games year, they will be sending some of their kids to the Games this summer under the instruction of Allen.

Allen is the coach of Zone 5 (Jasper’s zone) for the Alberta Games, and is currently in the midst of doing pool sessions and team trials with some of the more advanced kayakers.

The trial is a standardized system throughout the province set up by the Alberta Whitewater Association – the fastest kids in the zone get to go to the Games.

“We went two years ago, and it was a real eye opener, because we don’t do slalom… and we don’t do kayak polo. Not officially, we just hack around and play those kinds of things, but we don’t train like that. So our kids had a blast, but it was not the kind of thing that we were going to sweep the podium,” Riddell-McKay said.

The club takes the kids on a variety of lakes and rivers depending on ability, from Class 1 to Class 4, running the Miette and Athabasca rivers as well as a trip to the Clearwater River with the older kayakers.

For more information on the Jasper Kayak Club email kayakjasper@gmail.com.