The 2020-2021 Coach Award goes to Nancy Lemaire from the Milton Skating Club!
It takes an extraordinary individual to be a successful coach. It takes an even more extraordinary individual to coach skaters and help out their club or skating school through a pandemic. Nancy is is a base coach and the Technical Director at the Milton SC and has helped her club out every step of the way.
She was able to quickly pivot upon hearing news about the lockdown and created motivational activities for all of the STARSkate, competitive and elite athletes athletes at the club. When COVID lockdown hit in March of 2020, Nancy quickly developed a thorough and complete plan for the for the skaters to continue training, stay healthy, motivated and most importantly, maintain their mental health. She also spent countless hours planning, scheduling and coordinating online sessions. “ It was through her efforts and her efforts alone that our skaters were able to not only maintain their physical conditions but even become stronger – both physically and mentally.”
Nancy coached Madeline Schizas this season to win Senior Women at the Skate Canada Challenge and travelled to the 2021 World Championships in Stockholm, Sweden where Maddie was 9th after the short program and ended up in 13th place overall. She also was involved in and lead the committee for the club to be a hub event for Sectionals and Challenge events and organized the volunteers, registration desk, announcers and prepared the necessary music equipment needed for those events.
Throughout the season, she constantly topped up her knowledge when it came to researching and trying different resources to offer her athletes. “Her work ethic, professionalism, and dedication demonstrated during these challenging for our sport times are exemplary. She is a person who is deeply committed to the promotion of great sportsmanship, motivating the skaters to develop their skills no matter what their training situation is; and she is working hard to help the athletes to develop independence and self-confidence while training during these challenging times – her work during the pandemic can attest to this.”
From all of us at Skate Ontario, congratulations to Nancy for winning the Coach Award as part of the 2020-2021 Skate Ontario Recognition Awards!
