Our Coaches

Head Coach: Amy Canuel 

Hello Stingrays and welcome back for the 2010 summer swim season! 

I am very pleased and excited to be returning to Ladner for my 7^th season, 3^rd as Head Coach. Ladner has become my home away from home during the summer months and the Stingrays have become like a second family. I am very eager to get back onto the pool deck and get us started on the great season I know we have in store. Once again, we are coming off our club’s most successful season, with our highest total points at Regionals ever (3^rd overall again, but still gaining on White Rock quickly) and the highest points per swimmer total out of all 8 clubs at Regionals (second year in a row! Go Stingrays!). We also qualified 34 swimmers for Provincials (we had 70 swimmers compete at Regionals so almost half of our team made it to Provincials). I am looking forward to the challenges we have in front of us to make this season even more successful! 

I’ve been involved with swimming for as long as I can remember. My mom had me in water babies at only a couple of months and my love for the water and swimming grew from there. It hit me that I have now been involved with BCSSA for over 2/3rds of my life, starting out as a swimmer for the Surrey Sea Lions in 1994. I started to volunteer coach at the age of 12 and became a full time coach at the age of 16. That gives me over a decade of being involved with coaching swimming and I still love it as much today as I did that first summer! This will be my tenth summer as a full time coach and I look forward to sharing all my knowledge and experience with our newer coaches. 

This winter I left the Richmond Rapids and joined a new winter swimming family in the Winskill Dolphins. Many ex-Stingrays who I coached when they were younger now swim with this club and are continuing with the fundamentals that they learned in Summer Swimming to become great winter swimmers. It was my luck and privilege to get to work with Tom Rushton and Ben Keast this winter and pick some new brains clean of their swimming knowledge. The experience of coaching with them, getting to pester them with questions and watching them work has been unbelievable. Since coaching is something I do because I love and enjoy it, I am always ready, willing, and able to talk to any parents or swimmers who may have questions, comments, or concerns. It feels like I spend my life at the pool, so as long as I’m not in the middle of coaching I am there for anyone who wants to talk. 

As for the rest of my life: I am still slowly working towards my bachelor's degree in History, with a double minor of French & Archeology. Eventually I want to move on and get my Teaching degree (which is, in my mind, just a variation of what I get to do on the pool deck every day during the summer with my swimmers). I am already thinking about this upcoming season and getting excited to be back at my home away from home. I can't wait to get back on the deck and start working towards another great season. I'm sure it will be another great summer, because as far as I am concerned we at Ladner have the best swimmers, coaches and parents in the region. I look forward to seeing you all in May and remember, I am always open to talking with parents and swimmers, whether in person or by e-mail, and I look forward to working with everyone to make this summer the best Ladner's had!

C-ya around the pool!

~Amy 

Coach Nick

Hello and welcome back Stingrays! Are you ready for another awesome summer in the sun?

After last year´s excellent season, I´m tremendously excited to be coming back for my 6th summer coaching with the Ladner Stingrays, and my 16th year with the Club altogether. The Stingrays have been growing better every year, with amazing swims, great improvements, and excellent sportsmanship. I have been with the Ladner Stingrays for many years, first as a swimmer, then as a junior coach, and finally as a coach. This club has always been an excellent one, with a great atmosphere and environment both on the deck and off, and I think that’s why I’ve stayed with it for so long. A summer without swimming just wouldn’t be the same!

This year I took a year off from the University of Victoria, where I´ve completed my first two years of undergraduate studies. I stayed in Ladner this past fall, working at the Ladner Leisure Centre as a lifeguard and instructor. Since then, I have been travelling through Central America - Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and (as I sit writing this) Honduras. I´m also planning to venture through Nicaragua for a couple weeks before coming back to Canada in April.

The trip has been fantastic so far: great people, great beaches, and lots of in-water activities. Cliff-diving and swimming in Guatemala, bodysurfing in Mexico, and scuba diving here on Honduras. Before I return, I'm also planning to go river-rafting, surfing, and maybe even volcano-boarding.

But despite all that, I´m ready to get back to what´s really important - an awesome season coaching with the Stingrays!

Coach Madeleine

As I begin my fifteenth year as a Ladner Stingray, I am thrilled to continue with the coaching staff for a second summer season. Last summer I had a blast with the team and we enjoyed a hugely successful season. We consumed a record number of jelly beans, and saw great improvements in all the swimmers abilities.

Currently, I am living in Montreal, and am in the process completing my first year at McGill in the Faculty of Sciences. The experiences I have had in this city so far have been incredible, and next year I plan to pursue a major in Neuroscience. No wonder one of my swimmers told me I was a geek. During this past year I also competed for the McGill Ski Team and swam with the McGill University Masters Swim team. The ski team placed first in the university circuit for the first time since 1991, and I attribute this entirely to all the dryland we did in the fall. So I am sure everyone is happy to know that I have further increased my repertoire of cross-training exercises.

This summer I will not be joining with the team until the end of May, as I will be travelling and volunteering with my family in Tibet. However, as I struggle through exams here in Montreal, and across mountain ranges in Nepal, I know I will look forward to the fantastic time we are going to have this summer!
 
Madeleine

Coach Chelsea

I guess I should introduce myself seeing as I am the “new” coach this summer! 

My name is Chelsea Robinson and this is how my swimming story began,

  Many years ago I was doing elementary school swimming lessons. I would love to say that this is where I discovered my love for swimming, but the truth is it is where I discovered how terrible of a swimmer I was! Unfortunately, I was not the only one who noticed; my schoolmates also realized my inability to get my arms over the water. I became a desirable person to race because anyone could beat me. Especially those who wore  swimming glasses and shower caps to the pool. I was in awe at their ability to school me in the pool. I vowed that the following December I would come first in every race, I would even beat those swim club divas and maybe…just maybe get a pair of my own swimming glasses and a fancy shower cap.  After begging my mother profusely I was enrolled in competitive swimming. I was eleven at the time, which as many of you know that’s a little late to start swimming. I was the big kid in the little guppies lane, but those little guys’ enthusiasm was contagious and they taught me to love the water as they did.  With the thought of Decembers swimming lessons coming up, I worked really hard and to my surprise after only a moth of being with the guppies I was presented with most exciting news all year, “I WAS GOING TO GET TO DO MORNING PRACTICES!!!!!!” I was given a most fabulous gift, my very own pair of “goggles and swim cap” (as I was informed) after a couple of months, my rough edges where polished off, and I felt more confident about my abilities. I was ready for those swimming lessons.

December came and the big yellow buses picked us up to take us to the ever-terrifying school swimming lessons. My schoolmates had not forgotten my swimming disability from the previous year. “Want to race Chelsea” they laughed and teased. I agreed, and really hoped I wasn’t about to make a fool of myself. We arrived and I put my swim cap on and tightened up my courage. Swimming lessons started and I was put in the bottom level with the younger grades. I went where I was told to go; about ten minutes in I skipped five levels to my confident classmates surprise. The end of class races began. With a ready set go I dove into that water and my swimming career began. I touched first in those school races, however swimming did not end for me there, I would go on to compete in bigger scarier pools. Often I would be the swimmer in lane 6 or 7 going into finals, “the no one cares about you racer”, given the foundation I began with, I never looked at lane 6 or 7 with that view (I was too excited I made finals), and now I have the medals form those finals as tokens of no fear and “no worries”. As I grew so did my swimming experiences, I would get to train with the national team during an altitude training camp in Mexico, and meet lots of international swimmers and coaches at Olympic trials. I have my unconventional foundation to thank for my successes, and the inspirational coaching staff who have been a supportive part of my life.

My approach:

I believe that it’s not about the destination but the journey, I think that if you give it your best, you’re a stand up team mate and enthusiastic in what you do then greatness is inevitable. However if you train terribly, have a negative attitude and have to fight your way to the top, then you only have a trophy and no achievement. It’s about substance! My approach in coaching is that we are one team, some body’s achievement simply contributes to the team’s greatness, and therefore nobody is better than anybody. We train together, race together, win together and CELEBRATE together. 

I have been a competitive swimmer for ten years, having achieved senior national times, a Canadian record in the 1500 freestyle and qualifying to swim at Canadian Olympic trials. I love everything about swimming, the dedication to a physical discipline that also encompasses cerebral focus on technique. Above all it is the joy of swimming the sheer feeling of moving fluidly through the water, the exuberance of a challenging yet exhilarating race that has brought about my love for this sport. It is this same love and excitement for swimming that I hope to convey to my swimmers through energy and dedication. So lets have some fun. 

Looking forward to meeting all of you!