Border Blades speedster in nationals

Grady Myers-Christensen is currently visualizing victory fist pumps to go with his competitive speedskating ability.

The outstanding 11-year-old member of the Lloydminster Bor - der Blades is confident heading into the Canadian Youth Short Track ChampionshipsWest on March 25-26 in Saskatoon.

“I think I’ll do pretty well,” he said, before the club’s final minimeet of the season at the Servus Sports Cen - tre on Monday.

Grady will compete for medals at the CanWests in Youth 11 short track 400 metre, 800m and 1500m races as the oldest skater on the Border Blades.

He’ll be cheered on by family and friends including his aunt and coach, Krisy Myers who says Grady has come a long way in just three years.

“He’s definitely developed his skills. He’s a very technical kid, so he likes to analyze things and try to put them into practice in his races,” she said.

“He’s working on this next level of skating into the age groups where you’ve definitely got to be strategic, you’ve got to do passing and work on your power and all sorts of technical aspects.”

The youngster qualified for the CanWests with a second-place finish at the Edmonton Spring Fling youth trials on March 3-4.

Border Blades is also celebrating other youth medalists on a firstname basis including Gage (gold), Paislie (silver), Kenley ( gold) and Kendrick (bronze).

Myers says the club has sent 10 or 11 skaters to about nine competitions in Alberta and Saskatchewan this season from October into March.

“It was really nice to see a big group of them out cheering for each other,” she said.

The results are also a feather in the cap for Myers and fellow coaches Taylor Luchynski, Joel Turcotte and Sarah St. Marie who are all former speedskaters.

“Any experience you can pass on to the kids is nice and see them grow and have fun and do their best, “ she said.

“We’ve brought home some hardware from the competitions as well as lots of personal bests for the kids this year.”

Myers thinks it’s really great to see them where they start in October and where they finish in March.

“They improve so much,” she said.

Myers and her mom Cheryl founded the club in 1991 with Myers rising through the ranks to represent Canada in the 2006 Olympics in long track speedskating.

Even her eight-yearold daughter Gracie has caught the skating bug.

“I really like speedskating. It’s awesome,” she said.

Myers says she never planned to coach, but notes when your kids are in the sport you end up volunteering.

“I think sport has so many facets to help kids find themselves, stay out of trouble and be active.”

Border Blades has 32 skaters this season with the pandemic taking a toll on membership that peaked at more than 100 at one time.

“These last couple of years, we’re trying to build up from our learn to skate group and just trying of get that interest back in skating,” said Myers.

Gracie says she didn’t find it too difficult to learn the sport.

“I find it pretty easy, but fun too,” she said.

By his own admission, Grady says it wasn’t that easy at first.

“It was a little rough. I didn’t think I’d go this far, but I think I’ve done pretty well so far,” he said.

He also rattled off some technical skills he was working on prior to CanWest.

“Probably getting low, crossovers and stuff like that,” he said.

‘Yaks lead ‘Cats in first round

After three games, the Bonnyville Pontiacs lead the Lloydminster Bobcats 2-1 in the first round of AJHL action.

The ‘Cats came out of the gate hard and beat the ‘Yaks 6-2 in Game 1 last Friday night in

Bonnyville. The Pontiacs returned to the ice on Saturday hungry for redemption, and got it in the form of a 4-0 win over the ‘Cats.

The best-of-seven series returned to the Border City on Tues - day when the ‘Yaks beats the Bobcats 7-4 on home ice.

Game 4 was held last night at the Civic Centre, but due to press time, that games’ results will have to wait.

Go ‘Cats go!!

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