Leanne Sirup, Head Coach of the Duncan Stingrays, captures national Indigenous coaching award

Nov 9, 2021

Full article from Windspeaker.com written by Sam Laskaris  Leanne Sirup has coached her share of swimmers to medal-winning performances over the past couple of decades. She was shocked, however, to receive news that she had been recognized with a prestigious honour. Sirup has been selected as the 2021 female recipient for the National Indigenous Coaching Awards. “It’s not something I expected in my inbox,” Sirup said. This actually marks the second time she has received the national coaching award. She first won it in 2007. The national accolades are presented annually by the Aboriginal Sport Circle, the national governing body for Indigenous sports in Canada. Patrick Leask, a member of Sapotaweyak Cree Nation in Manitoba, was chosen as the male recipient. Sirup, a 46-year-old Inuk, has spent the past 16 years serving as the head coach of the Duncan Swim Club in her hometown of Duncan, B.C. Sirup has been the head coach of the Duncan Stingrays and currently oversees the programming for more than 100 athletes that are members of the club. This includes a dozen swimmers from Pacheedaht First Nation from Port Renfrew. These 12 athletes frequently make the 90-minute drive (each way) from Port Renfrew to Duncan to participate in the club’s training sessions. Sirup was no stranger to the Stingrays’ program before taking over the head coaching duties. She swam for the club for 13 years. Sirup also represented another club, Victoria-based Island Swimming during her own competitive days. And she competed for national youth squads, setting various provincial and national records in the pool. Before joining the Duncan Swim Club, Sirup had some other coaching gigs. For starters, she was the head coach of the Cowichan Stseelhtun Swim Club, starting in September 2002 until July 2006. She also spent eight years, from 2001 through 2009, as the head coach of Cowichan Aquannis Masters Swimming. Sirup has been heavily involved with the North American Indigenous Games (NAIG). She has served as the head coach of the B.C. swim squad at the last four Games. She guided the B.C. entry to a silver-medal team finish in her NAIG in Denver in 2006. Sirup also led the club to second-place team finishes at both the 2008 Games in Cowichan, B.C. and the 2014 NAIG in Regina. Then, at the last NAIG that were staged in 2017 in Toronto, Sirup coached Team B.C. to a gold-medal finish. The squad consisted of 24 swimmers. They collectively captured 24 gold medals and more than 70 medals in total. “Our swimmers are insane,” Sirup said. “They do a tremendous amount of winning.” Sirup also enjoyed her own share of success at NAIG. As an athlete, she returned home with eight medals from the 1997 Games, which were held in Victoria, B.C. For starters, she captured five gold medals in individual races. And she was also on three silver-medal winning relay squads. Sirup had been selected to serve as the B.C. swim coach for the 2020 NAIG. But those Games, which were to be held in Halifax, have been postponed a couple of times because of the ongoing pandemic and are now scheduled to take place in 2023. Though she has yet to receive official word, Sirup is hoping she can remain as the B.C. coach who will take part at the Halifax NAIG. Sirup said there is a significant difference between coaching and competing. “It’s a different level of joy,” she said. “It’s a different level of satisfaction. As an athlete, I was controlling me and my performances. Now, as a coach, I get to guide them on how to control their performances.” Sirup also credits three organizations that she believes have led to her coaching successes. They are Swim BC, the Indigenous Sport, Physical Activity and Recreation Council (I-SPARC) and the Canadian Sport Institute. Sirup works for Swim BC, the governing body of swimming in the province, on a contract basis as a learning facilitator for its National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP). She also is the volunteer head swim coach for I-SPARC. Her duties include identifying and fostering athlete development for the province’s NAIG-bound swim competitors. Sirup continues to upgrade her own coaching credentials. She’s currently in the NCCP’s Advanced Coaching Diploma program, operating through the Canadian Sport Institute.

MASTERS SWIMMING FINA TOP 10 FOR 2020

May 14, 2021

FINA has released their rankings for the Top 10 Masters performances from 2020. More than 30 BC Masters Swimmers made the Top 10 Rankings for 2020. They will each receive a letter of congratulations from Swimming Canada and a crest from FINA. Big congratulations from Swim BC on this tremendous achievement and we can’t wait to see Masters back in the water soon. You can find the list of the athletes recognized below, and you can find the full FINA Top 10 rankings here (SCM | LCM).  
Katie McEvoy (VICM)
Kelly Geisheimer  (HYACK)
Alexandra Dimitrescu
Serena Brendaglia (HBSC)
Lauren Westmacott (VICM)
Cindy Mabee (VICM)
Sam Goski (VICM)
Sarah MacDonald (VICM)
Linda Wilson (WRW)
Pauline Lotbinière Joly (WIN)
Theo Manley (WRW)
Hella Versfeld (VERN)
Nancy Ryan (NEBB)
Yvonne Cattrall (VICM)
Anne Fabre (VICM)
Conny Stamhuis (OKAN)
Craig Brazier (HBSC)
Gabrio Mannucci (HBSC)
Vlad Shirokov (HBSC/DYNA)
Rob Charland (DOGW)
Scott Cosper (VICM)
Peter Van Dyke (HBSC)
Glenn Carlsen (PENT)
Rod Carmicheal (VICM)
Daniel Brimm (WIN)
Steve Rasmussen (WIN)
Alan Morris (NSM)
Arthur Ray (WRW)
Jack Kelso (DOGW)
Karl Donoghue (PENT)
Erika Korbely (HYDE)
Carl Waterer (LOCO)
Aldert Dykstra (HYDE)

TUJA DREYER (KELOWNA) AWARDED A 2020 PREMIER’S AWARD FOR INDIGENOUS YOUTH EXCELLENCE IN SPORT

Apr 30, 2021

The Indigenous Sport, Physical Activity and Recreation Council (I·SPARC) announced the athletes who were named as the Interior regional recipients of the 2020 Premier’s Awards for Indigenous Youth Excellence in Sport. Tuja Dreyer (Kelowna) swims with the Nanaimo Riptides, was one of the recipients. Big congratulations from us at Swim BC. We are proud to have you as an outstanding representative of our sport.

Jakob Brager (Nanaimo) Awarded a 2020 Premier’s Awards for Indigenous Youth Excellence in Sport

Apr 27, 2021

The Indigenous Sport, Physical Activity and Recreation Council (I·SPARC) announced the athletes who were named as the Vancouver Island regional recipients of the 2020 Premier’s Awards for Indigenous Youth Excellence in Sport. Jakob Brager swims with the Nanaimo Riptides, was one of the recipients. Big congratulations from us at Swim BC. We are proud to have you as an outstanding representative of our sport.

Interview with Tina Hoeben: Virtual Team Meetings

Apr 14, 2021

Swim BC Interviews is a series where we reach out to Swim BC members and the sporting community to provide a place to share their innovations and ideas with the swimming community. The first person we reached out to for this series was Tina Hoeben, the Head Coach of the KISU Swim Club, to share their experience with Virtual Team Meetings. Over the past year, Swim BC clubs have had to be innovative to keep their members connected. At the beginning of the pandemic, clubs obviously were not able to have their members come together to connect with one another. Even currently, most clubs have been training in small groups without any interaction between different training groups causing a disconnect and lack of team unity. During the pandemic, Tina adapted her already successful team meetings to a virtual platform. KISU, like most other swim clubs, were stuck at home trying to adapt to the pandemic. Trying to find a way to connect their club members, Tina turned to Zoom. KISU already had been having regular team meetings before the pandemic, when their pool time was drastically reduced due to a renovation in 2010-2011. Over the roughly 10 years that they had been doing team meetings, Tina learned how beneficial it was for her swimmers to learn outside of the pool. She said, “You don’t necessarily need water to learn everything about swimming”. Team meetings started as a great way to go over upcoming events, drills and stroke breakdowns, so that they didn’t waste any time they had in the water. In 2020, when they moved online, they got more creative with the format adding in more elements to engage their swimmers. The biggest addition to these meetings during the pandemic was inviting guest speakers, especially KISU alumni to help inspire the athletes. “I wanted them to be able to see what other members of KISU have accomplished, and that it could be possible for them too” said Tina. They also introduced House Teams along with the Virtual Meetings. The swimmers were split up into a designated house team with a house leader, who was usually an older swimmer on the team. They could earn points for their houses by participating in the virtual meeting activities and asking questions to the guest speakers. “They’re similar to Hogwarts houses” said Tina and the House Teams have really helped to engage the athletes with the content knowing that participation would help earn them points for their team. Now that they have transitioned back into the pool, the house teams have remained and are often used as a teaching tool during drill work. As already mentioned, they chose Zoom to host these meetings. It was chosen because it is a safe option for hosting meetings and has a good range of additional features. They use breakout rooms for House Teams and so that the members can socialize in smaller groups. They were also able to invite other clubs like Terrace Bluebacks, Swim Faster Club and Summerland Orcas to join and Zoom helped to facilitate that. Now that they are back in the pool, Tina is seeing real improvement from the athletes that engaged in the Virtual Meetings. The athletes who are keen and engaged were able to get a lot out of the Virtual Meetings and it shows in their performance. It also helped the athletes to develop goals to work towards once they were able to get back in the pool. Once the pandemic is over, Tina plans to resume in person team meetings but will keep some things she learned during the last year. Tina mentioned that during virtual meetings you can feel a disconnect between the presenter and audience and, as a team, they prefer in person meetings. They are be open to continuing virtual meetings if they want to have guest speaker that can’t make it in person. Guest speakers and having KISU alumni come talk to the team was one of the key elements that helped make their virtual team meeting successful and they’re something they want to keep in their meetings moving forward. Thanks so much to Tina for talking to us about their Virtual Team meetings. If you are interested in starting up your own Virtual Team Meetings or in person team meetings when able, Tina is open to helping out other clubs wanting to get started. Just reach out to Swim BC and we’ll put you in touch with her. If you have an innovative idea you would like to share with the swimming community, please reach out to Swim BC.

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