SAINT JOHN – About 120 speed skaters from across the country are lacing up their skates at a camp called ‘Skate into Summer’ held this week in Saint John.
Some of the country’s top young skaters are learning how to compete like champions, with an edge.
“I like to be in the front, you know take control of the race,” said Sarah Gilbert.
Gilbert has one goal in mind, to make it to the Canada Winter Games this February.
“New Brunswick is known for their relays at the Canada games and stuff like that cause we are such a smaller province we practice more with everybody,” she said.
This week, she’s getting to practice with skaters from all across the country. It’s a national camp where skaters are coached on how to develop the technical skills that could one day make them national champs.
Peter Steele coaches skater from New Brunswick.
“For us this year to have Manitoba come here I mean it’s just a really nice opportunity for our kids to mesh with some kids they are going to see at the Canada Games,” Steele said.
Kids like Christian Liebzeit from Winnipeg. He too is training in the hopes of representing Manitoba at the Canada Games.
He says he’s noticed something special about the New Brunswick skaters.
“They are definitely a lot more polite than other provinces. But Manitoba is the same way.”
The New Brunswick skaters won’t know whether or not they’ve made the cut for the Canada Games until later this fall and into the new year after the trials.
Plenty of time to toughen up their games.
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