As the spring sunshine melts away the last vestiges of winter, we anxiously await our chance to get back onto the waters of Wascana & Killarney Lakes, the North and South Saskatchewan Rivers and more recently York Lake, home to our newest member, the Yorkton Rowing Club. With the promise of upcoming regattas igniting our competitive spirits and the prospect of welcoming fresh faces into our rowing community, there's an undeniable buzz in the air.

This summer, one of our goals is to increase the training and racing opportunities in the province. With the most recent addition of Beach Sprints Rowing into the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games, we see an incredible opportunity to bring rowing to more communities and the many lakes within our province. As such, we need your help to ensure we have the Official and Umpire capacity to offer more regattas. You can make a huge difference to our success by simply taking the Assistant Umpire Training that is available online through The Locker. It is a 60 minute online program and is the first step in becoming part of our Umpire Team. Whether you are currently training, racing, volunteering or parenting, this training will give you access to the best seats in the house at all of our regattas. For more information on our Umpire Program, Chief Umpire and Officials Program Director, Sheila Leach is a great resource. She can be reached via email here.

So let's embrace this season of renewal, and get ready to row, reconnect, and revel in the joy of being back on the water once more!

Keep up to date with all our latest events and other exciting news at saskrowing.ca under WHAT's NEW and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. 

SASKATCHEWAN INDOOR ROWING CHAMPIONSHIPS

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2024 Saskatchewan Indoor Rowing Championships on March 9, 2024. 48 participants ranging in ages from 12 to 67 years of age raced in 10 events. Congratulations to our amazing competitors and winners. Link to Results.

Thank you to SaskEnergy for their Silver Sponsorship and being the Champion of Volunteers and to SaskTel for their Bronze Sponsorship of this event. Thanks to our umpires Sheila Leach and Doug Zolinski who once again volunteered their time to ensure we have a great day of racing.

Finally thank you to the volunteers who helped to make this event a success. To our erg movers, Michelle McKechney, Willy Bingham, Dee Marshall and SRC coaches Elsa Lissel-DeCorby and Mayah Golden as well as the team of Juniors who helped to unload after a long day of racing. Thanks to Andrew Knorr for helping us secure James L Alexander school gym and for running the Concept2 Race software. Thank you to our registration lead Amanda Billesberger and all of the volunteers who helped take down the venue in record time.

Saskatchewan Rowing Annual Awards of Excellence

High Performance Update

On Saskatchewan singer/songwriter Connie Kaldor's album Wood River, there's a song called Spring on the Prairies. The chorus repeats "Spring on the prairies comes like a surprise. One minute there's snow on the ground, the next there's sun in your eyes." It's a short little song that touches on the speed at which the season unfolds (when it eventually comes) and the sense of excitement it brings. It's nice to be back to a place where the seasons change so dramatically and the buzz that brings to our community when the waterways start to open. As we look forward to the on water days ahead, here are a few things to note.

When the regatta calendar has been discussed, there has been a sense of wanting to revitalize what we can do within our prairie circuit. To that end, we're looking to have a strong recruiting effort for our junior LTR and novice programing and robust participation at the Regina Sprints and Alberta Open regattas...June 8th, 9th and June 29 respectively. Additionally, we have a beach sprints event on our calendar for June 22nd in Manitoba. This is an exciting one for two reasons. One...it is an opportunity for us to do what I mentioned in the first sentence of this paragraph. Two...it is an opportunity for us to learn more about a rowing discipline that we can explore to expand outreach and sport development in our own province. This is exciting stuff. Lastly (not getting into our fall schedule just yet) we have the NWIRA regatta in Kenora, Ontario. The NWIRA regatta has historically been a valuable and exciting close to the summer racing calendar. It will serve us well if this can become a vibrant event again.

Additionally, for our juniors, some dates to mark on your calendars. The window for registration for the Junior National Team trials opens on April 15th and closes on May 3rd. The erg submission window opens on April 20th and closes on April 28th. The trials themselves run from the 3rd to the 5th of June following the CSSRA regatta (May 31-June 2). 

In previous years the racing at trials has been strictly in singles and pairs with Rowing Canada putting crews together based on those small boat results. This year Rowing Canada has opened the trials up to other boat classes so programs can boat crews they feel can hit international performance targets. If these performance targets are achieved, these crews can be nominated to move forward toward the World Junior Championships. All of that noted, though we presently lack the provincial depth to put forward entries in bigger boat classes, the trials still present the opportunity to demonstrate speed and excellence in small boats and that will not be overlooked. Athletes demonstrating international speed can either be nominated for those smaller boat classes or be considered to strengthen other projects. We'll have the opportunity to talk about these things in person in the coming days and weeks.

For now, let's continue our preparation for the final 6k in our 2023/24 erg series and make sure we're well prepared for our first strokes on the water in 2024.

John Wetzstein

Head Coach/Technical Director