July 26/10  Age Group Nationals Day 3 - 6 Recap

July 24/10  Age Group Nationals Day 1 & 2 Results

July 18/10  Nadine Williams makes Pan Pacific Games Team

   On Saturday, July 17th, Nadine Williams raced in the opening event at the Open Water World Championships in Roberval, QC. 
    Nadine swam the Female 10-km event to a best ever placing of 27th at the World Championships.     The conditions were rough, and as a result nearly 1/3 of the competitors failed to complete the circuit.
    Among those who failed to finish were several of the top ranked swimmers in the world, as well as Nadine’s Canadian teammate, Zsofia Balas.
    As the top-placing Canadian female, Nadine secured the first spot on the Pan Pacific Games Team that will competing in Irvine, California this August. Congratulations, Dini!

July 8/10  Provincials brought us 4 new club records

   STSC had a fantastic showing at Provincials. Among the highlights are 4 new club records.

Male 13-14 50 Breast 
Matthew WHITESIDE at 12th Annual Silver Cup Invitational 29/05/2010 STSC 35.07
Matthew WHITESIDE at 2010 SPEEDO Alberta AG&Sr Championships LC 02/07/2010 34.49 STSC ** 

Male 13-14 100 Breast 
OWEN LEPPS 03/05/1992 STSC 1:15.77 
Matthew WHITESIDE at 2010 SPEEDO Alberta AG&Sr Championships LC 02/07/2010 1:15.73 STSC ** 

Male 13-14 800 Free Relay 
SILVER TIDE SWIM CLUB B. ELFORD, K. LABONTE, M. WHITESIDE, R. Schamber 27/06/2009 STSC 9:49.29 
SILVER TIDE SWIM CLUB 02/07/2010 9:36.31 STSC ** M. WHITESIDE, K. LABONTE, R. Schamber, A. Vander Leek 

Male 13-14 400 Medley Relay 
SILVER TIDE SWIM CLUB K. LABONTE, A. Vander Leek, B. ELFORD, R. Schamber 27/06/2009 STSC 5:02.79 
SILVER TIDE SWIM CLUB 02/07/2010 4:51.74 STSC ** K. LABONTE, A. Vander Leek, M. WHITESIDE, C. Palmer

July 5/10  Nadine Williams was on the CTV News

   On July 2nd, CTV news did a story on Nadine Williams and open water swimming.

    We posted it on youtube and here is the link.  

        
Nadine Williams on CTV

July 01/10        Maciek's Age Group Trials Report

    It was a hot weekend in Lethbridge during Age Group Trials but, it wasn’t because of the weather (any more rain and the teams would have been swimming to the pool). The Tide brought down one of the biggest teams at the meet with 16 swimmers but, their swimming made the team look a lot bigger than that. 

    Friday Afternoon, the meet started great with some amazing swims right in the first events. STSC got many black and white caps into finals for the next day. 
    Silver Tide came to Saturday morning prelims with the same winning attitude with more Tides making Saturday's finals.  Saturday morning also brought our first Age Group provincials qualifier in Kier Vander leek with a great swim in the 100 breast followed shortly by Megan Wirachowsky in the 200 back. Megan absolutely crushed the A time with a six second best time. 

    Saturday night the great racing just kept coming. The 200IM started the night off with Kier Vander leek and Megan Wirachowsky swimming very strong swims with Megan coming a very close second to just narrowly miss out on gold. 
The very next heat Silver Tide came on strong again with Halle Elford and Josie Poliquin passing first place back and forth the whole race until a fantastic freestyle push earned Josie the gold and a place at Age Group Provincials. 
The 100 Breast brought more fantastic swimming with Kier again at the front just getting out touched for the gold medal by one hundredth of a second but swimming another best time from the morning. 
Josie Poliquin again fought for victory but sadly couldn’t fend off a final push from a Keyano swimmer to make it one gold and one silver for the night. The finals and the medals just kept coming all night with many more fantastic swims, a highlight being Clarke Palmer’s and Josef Legaspi’s battle for gold in the 200 Fly with Clarke opening up an early gap which was just too much for Joe to surmount earning him his place at Age Group Provincials.

June 23/10  Nadine Williams has a story in the Edmonton Journal

   In the June 22nd edition of the Edmonton Journal, there is an article about open water swimming and Silver Tide's Nadine Williams.

    Here is the pdf version of the article.  

        
PDF version of Open water article

June 4/10         Nadine Williams makes World Championship Team

   At the US/Canada Open Water World Championships Trials in Long Beach today, Nadine Williams of the Silver Tide Swim Club (STSC) in Sherwood Park, AB swam to a best ever finish in the 10-km swim, finishing as the 2nd overall Canadian and securing a spot on the World Championships Team. This is Nadine’s 2nd Senior National Team in open water swimming, after swimming in Rome last summer. This is also Nadine’s first qualification in the Olympic distance event, the 10-km. World Championships will be held this July in Roberval, Quebec. 

    National Open Water Coach Ron Jacks offered praise to Nadine’s performance. “It’s a clear difference from last year’s races. You can see in the body language towards the finish that she has lots of fight in her and she’s ready to do more.”

    Nadine will join Sophie Balasz from Toronto as the women’s 10-km team at Worlds. On the men’s side, Richard Weinberger of Victoria and Simon Tobin of Laval qualified in first and second, respectively. 

    The 5-km race runs Sunday, June 6th, where 3 Albertans – Max Moore (UCSC), Julianne Brown (UCSC) and Nadine Williams (STSC) – will vie for the final 2 men’s and women’s spots on the National Team. 

Chris Nelson Head Coach - Silver Tide Swim Club 
780.455.7203 
Chris.Nelson@silvertide.ca

May 30/10         The June Calendars are here

 
Hi everyone,

    I hear Silver Cup is going extremely well back home in Alberta. Keep it up! Go Tide! 

    Attached are the Age Group and Senior Calendars for June. 

Please watch for the following dates: 

1. Sat Jun 5 is Team Picture Day. Bring your Silver Tide T-Shirts and be ready to take both an individual and group picture. Don’t worry about your hair or make-up, because we will be taking the individual pictures of the swimmers in their swim attire during practice. One of our Silver Tide parents, Ryan Reeves, has graciously agreed to provide his photography services. Mr Reeves has taken pictures of our swimmers throughout the season, and many of those pictures can be found on the STSC website. If you would like a full resolution copy of any picture, you can email him (email will be provided when confirmed). 

2. Sat Jun 19, Millennium Place is closed due to a summer club competition. We will be moving our groups to Kinsmen in Edmonton on this day. 

3. Fri Jun 25 is our Year-End Party. Please plan to attend, as there will be food, drinks and Team awards. It is a last chance to get together as a team before summer holidays. I hope to see everyone there! Full information about the party will be emailed out in June. 

4. Thu Jul 1, we will confirm pool time on Canada Day for the swimmers participating in Provincials. It will be important to train on the day prior to the start of the meet, so please be prepared for practice. 

As always, if you have any questions please contact me our your group coaches. 

Thank you! 

Chris Nelson Head Coach - Silver Tide Swim Club 
780.455.7203 
Chris.Nelson@silvertide.ca

PDF version of June Calendar Senior Group (revised)

PDF version of June Calendar (all other groups) (revised)

May 18/10          Swim A Thon Wrap up 

Well another swim-a-thon is in the bag along with a bunch of funds to help run our great club.
Thank-you for evryone who came out to help make for a wonderful event and to all the swimmers who worked very hard for that solid two hours.

Extra kudos to:

Coach Chris who came up with the wonderful venue and the great format and I know I can speak for most of us that I really appreciated seeing how dedicated the coaching staff is with our swimmers.

Ian (I have the equipment, I just can't light it) Williams, and Russ (wow look at that great weinie )Elford, for the use of their BBQs and their stellar weinie cooking skills.

Gale Fuller who stepped in to help with setting up the picnic and hauling all the water to the park. You were wonderful Gale.

Now down to business: I will be picking up any extra forms and funds from the Silvertide lock box at millenium place on Friday May 21st. Please leave only cheques in the lock box. Put all the items in an envelope clearly marked "Swim-A-Thon".
                                          
 Your accounts need to reconciled for the amounts so it is important that all funds be in no later than Friday.

Thank you again, 
See you in a few weeks at Silver Cup,

Patty

patty.gau@shaw.ca

April 24/10          Some Great Silver Tide news

   Hi everyone,

Please read 2 great stories of STSC swimmers in the world of swimming!

Chris Nelson
Head Coach - Silver Tide Swim Club
780.455.7203
Chris.Nelson@silvertide.ca

PDF version of Sumidero Canyon News

PDF version of Swim Alberta Selections

April 11/10          April Newsletter

    Here is our April Newsletter.

This newsletter is a "MUST READ BY ALL".

It is very informative for even the most experienced swimmers and parents.

PDF version of April Newsletter

March 8/10         Age Group Provincials Recap

    Silver Tide sent 20 swimmers to the Alberta Age group Provincial Championships in Edmonton. This was the largest team sent to the Provincials by Silver Tide since many of these swimmers were born. The Provincial Championships are the highest level of competition for swimmers 14 & under in the Province of Alberta. 

    Silver Tide finished the meet in 11th place overall, earning 4 medals in the process. Rebecca Schamber won 1 Gold in 200 Back, 1 Silver in 100 Back and 1 Bronze medal in 200 IM, while Brendan Elford won a Bronze medal in his 200 Fly. 

    We also saw 3 all-time STSC records broken at the Championships. Rebecca Schamber broke her own 10&under 100 Back record by 0.57-sec in a time of 1:19.27. She also smashed Thea Norton's 10 & under 200 Back record from 1996, improving on it by nearly 5 seconds in a time of 2:46.60. Finally, Matthew Whiteside earned his first ever STSC club record in breaking Blake McWilliam's 13-14 200 Breast with a time of 2:42.40. 

    Another major highlight of the weekend was watching 2 swimmers qualify for Canadian Age Group Nationals, which will be the biggest event of the season this July in Winnipeg. Brendan Elford in the 200 Fly and Allison Hender in the 200 Breast each qualified to swim in the big Canadian Championships. That brings STSC up to 7 swimmers qualified for Age Group Nationals. 

    It has been a great Short Course Championship season for Silver Tide. Congratulations to all of the swimmers who swam at Senior Champs, Western Nationals, Age Group Trials, and Age Group Provincials. A total of 45 STSC swimmers competed at least once over this period. 

    And please wish Nadine Williams good luck at her big meet at the end of March. Nadine and Coach Chris will be off to Montreal during Spring Break (March 31-April 5) for the Pan Pacific Games Trials. Good luck! 

Go Tide! 
Coach Chris Chris Nelson 
Head Coach - Silver Tide Swim Club 
780.455.7203 
Chris.Nelson@silvertide.ca

March 2/10         Age Group Trials Recap

     Age Group Trials was a success on every possible level for Silver Tide. The meet ran smoothly and efficiently, in huge thanks to our meet managers, technical officials and hundreds of volunteer shifts. In being such great hosts, we will certainly keep our club on the top of the list for hosting this meet again in the future. Great job, volunteers! 

    Of course, the reason all of the volunteers came out to the pool is for the swimmers, and the swimmers swam incredible. 15 STSC swimmers competed in Age Group Trials, which is the last chance for swimmers to qualify for Provincial Championships (held in Edmonton from Mar 5-7). To qualify, swimmers had to either swim faster than the Alberta A time standard or win an event outright at the Age Group Trials. After 3 days of competition, 7 out of 15 swimmers qualified for Provincials!

March 1/10         Western Nationals Recap

    Western Nationals were held in Saskatoon, SK from February 17-21, 2010. 

    Western Nationals are a championship meet for all swimmers from BC to Manitoba, and are one of the fastest meets in the Short Course season in all of Canada. Silver Tide sent 5 swimmers down to this meet: Nadine Williams, Karlyn Elford, Nathan Weatherby, Kyle Markowski and Greg Kozell. 

    The team swam incredibly well. 

The girls walked away with 9 Top 20 swims:

• Nadine finished with 2 medals, 2nd in 1500 Free and 3rd in 800 Free, as well as 6th in 400 Free and 7th in 200 Free.
• Karlyn finished 15th in 1500 Free, 15th in 100 Fly, 12th in 200 Fly, 16th in 200 IM and 18th in 400 IM. 

• Nathan had a 3-sec best time and finished 13th in 200 Free. 
• Kyle had a 2-sec best time and finished 19th in 200 Free. 
• Greg swam huge best times to finish 20th in 100 Fly and 15th in 200 Fly. 

    We were definitely noticed throughout the weekend, with swimmers winning heats in the preliminaries and making huge improvements to make it into the finals. I was very proud of our team at Westerns and I'm really looking forward to seeing what else we can accomplish this season. 

Great job, Senior National group! 

Chris Nelson
Head Coach - Silver Tide Swim Club      

 February 26/10         Age Group Trials Page Update 

Silvertide does it again, 

    Another great meet! 

    It was a weekend of Firsts and Families. 
The Firsts: 

    We had some new parents on deck working after just joining the competitive ranks. Most of the senior swimmers and some tag swimmers tried on their new stroke and turn judge hats with a resounding success and we had some parents try out their hand at marshaling for the first time and all have lived to tell the tale. 
Of course there was Ian Williams first time at starter for a provincial meet and first time as race announcer. This was also the first time Silvertide has done an awards ceremony for Age Group Trials, (the brain child of Joe Kozell and Sheldon Weatherby), and it was grand.

Then there were the Families.

    We had many Families sharing the officials duties over the weekend. Some families putting in more than 15 sessions over the course of the weekend. Many father/ son teams, mother/ daughter teams and combinations of parents and siblings. 
    The great hospitality crew lead by Nicole Vankuppeveld and assisted by Shirley Froese enlisted the help of husbands and children to put on a great spread that kept volunteers coming back for more. 
    The Families of our crack electronics team of Jim Schamber, Tim Janzen, Marv Toma and Dale Kurta were a great support because they either stay at the pool or never see each other as electronics guys never seem to leave during a meet. 

    We had a delightful crew of young helpers who waited patiently and enthusiastically for many hours for someone to give them a job and then they jumped in with both feet and performed tasks like water delivery, results posting, awards assembly, hospitality assisting and many more. This crew included: Francesca and Isabella Blake, Halle Elford, Emma Funk , Billy Kuhn , Kevin Labonte , Josef Legaspi , Nicole Murray, Rebecca and Ryan Schamber ( who worked every session over Saturday and Sunday). These youngsters did us all proud please give them a high five when you see them on deck. 

    And last but not least, our fearless leaders: Joe ( I love a good awards ceremony) Kozell and Sheldon ( I smile therefore I am) Weatherby who not only put in countless hours of time to pull this off but whose skill and attention to detail created a memorable weekend for many young swimmers to shine. Sometimes we don't realize how hard they work because so much of their job happens behind the scenes. We just see the great final product. 

I am at a loss for proper words to thank you all for a job so well done but a great quote from one of the lifeguards yesterday as she crowded past me along the pool side comes to mind, " You guys must be great parents to do all this for your kids." 

And that's what it's all about. I look forward to working with you again,

Patty Gau 
Officials coordinator

•      Real Time Results are now up on our Age Group Trials page
•      Real Time Medals photos page are now active  [ Saturday Photos ,   Sunday Photos ]
  

Use the Age Group Trials icon above to link to our AGT page or the link below.

AGE GROUP TRIALS PAGE

January 31/10          January Swim  Meet Recap

     Silver Tide participated in 5 meets in January: 

Blue Bears Invitational – Jan 15-17 
Green & Gold Invitational – Jan 16-17 
OSC 10 & Under #3 – Jan 24
Alberta Senior Provincials – Jan 29-31
Penguin Novice #2 – Jan 30 

    We had 1 big Club Record within these meets, and it was set by Rebecca Schamber at the Blue Bears meet. 
In the 100 Freestyle, Rebecca broke Thea Norton’s 13-year-old STSC record by 0.15 seconds with a final time of 1:10.20. 
Way to go, Rebecca! 

    Blue Bears was our biggest meet of the month, with 31 swimmers participating from JAG to Senior. The senior swimmers participated in only the Friday evening distance events so that they could compete in the Green & Gold meet on Saturday and Sunday. The meet was a huge success, with many new qualifiers coming out of the meet. We had Halle Elford add the 100 and 200 Backstroke to her 100 Fly A time. We had Emma Funk add 100 Fly to her 100 and 200 Breast A times. We had Jasmin Hillman make her first 14-y-o A time in 1500 Free. Brooklyn Janzen made her 8th A time in 50 Free. Caleb Vander Leek swam amazing throughout the weekend and made both of his MQT’s in 200 IM and 400 Free. And, Haley Wirachowsky made her 5th A time in 50 Back. Not bad for a start to the year!
It is definitely nice to see swimmers getting A times in a second stroke. 
I look forward to seeing more of these results throughout the season

    Green & Gold was a condensed racing opportunity for the Senior Group. Each swimmer swam between 3-5 races in 1.5-2.5 hours each on Saturday and Sunday. It was intense, and STSC swam very well in these conditions. 
We had 2 event winners against the senior squads of the U of A, Saskatoon, and Olympian Swim Club. Nadine Williams won the 200 IM and Greg Kozell won the 50 Breaststroke.
In keeping with a long-standing tradition at this meet, each swimmer was awarded a nice carton of chocolate milk for their results! 

    10 & Under Series #3 had 19 STSC swimmers in attendance. We continue to get excellent turnout to these meets, and that is thanks to the parents for signing up their swimmers for these introduction to racing opportunities. Results are not the major focus, but the experience of racing and the environment of a swim meet are very important to a young swimmer. I hope we can see even more swimmers out at the next meet in March. 

    Alberta Senior Provincials is the provincial championships for 15 & over swimmers in Alberta. STSC sent 8 swimmers and came away with a 10th Place Finish. Our Men finished in 8th place with 119 pts, and our Women finished in 9th place with 86 pts. With one of the smaller 15 & over squads at the meet, Silver Tide’s results are very promising for our up and coming swimmers. We also had a new A time qualifier in Shayla Kurta, who made her first Senior A time in 50 Fly with a time of 31.67. 
Great job, Tide! 

    Penguin Novice Series #2 was the final meet of the month, and was full of more best times from STSC swimmers. 11 swimmers from JAG and YD took part in the meet. Jennifer Reeves was able to race 5 out of 5 best times at the meet, and Mark Toma was able to race 4 out of 5 best times. Every swimmer had at least 1 best time. 
Way to go, Tides! 

    There are lots of meets throughout the season, and plenty of championship meets coming up in February and March. 
Of note, we have the Western Canadian Championships in Saskatoon and the Alberta Age Group Trials in February, and the Alberta Age Group Championships in March. We also have at least 1 swimmer participating in the Canadian Pan Pacific Games Trials in Montreal in early April. A busy time ahead means that now is the time for smart training! 
Listen to your coach’s advice and do your best, and you will be ready when your next big meet comes up. 
Good luck and have fun! 

Chris Nelson Head Coach - Silver Tide Swim Club 
780.455.7203 
Chris.Nelson@silvertide.ca

December 20/09          On-line Officials Clinics

    Swim Alberta's Officials clinics are  now on-line. Below is a link to access the clinics.

PDF version of Access Officials Database

December 18/09          Coaches meet recap

    It's such a busy time of year for swim competitions, with 5 competitions in the last 3 weeks... wow! 

    Here's just a recap of where Silver Tide has been in the last 5 weeks:

Nov 26-29 - Canada Cup at Toronto (2 STSC swimmers) 
Nov 29 - 10 & Under Series #2 at Fountain Park/St Albert (21 STSC swimmers) 
Dec 3-6 - JP Fiset Invitational at Kinsmen/Edmonton (45 STSC swimmers)
Dec 10-13 - PCS Christmas Cracker at Victoria (17 STSC swimmers) 
Dec 11 - Keyano Vorgee #2 at Bonnie Doon/Edmonton (20 STSC swimmers) 

    All Silver Tide swimmers have had a chance to race recently, and some have raced in 2-3 of these competitions. Overall we had great performances to lead us into our Winter Break. I would like to thank our amazing parent volunteers for giving up their weekends to make these meets possible. Our reputation is very good in the Edmonton community, and we should be proud of the support we have provided. The next step in being great contributors to our sport will be to find volunteers willing to fill some of the advanced officiating and electronics positions. These require a small amount of training and understanding of the sport, and the necessary officials training can be provided by our very own members. Please contact our Officials Chair, Patty Gau, if you can help at one of the upcoming competitions in 2010. 

    Now to the results!

 In the above 5 meets, swimmers broke 4 all-time Club Records: 

1. At Canada Cup, Mike Clark (20) broke his own Senior 400 IM club record with a time of 4:40.26. 

2. At JP Fiset, Rebecca Schamber (10) broke Thea Norton's 100 Back club record set in 1997 with a time of 1:19.84. 

3. At PCS, Nadine 'Hoo-dini' Williams (16) broke Kim Kabesh's 200 Free club record set in 2005 with a time of 2:04.27. 

4. At PCS, the Senior Boys 4x50 Free Relay team of Kyle Markowski, Greg Kozell, Brayden McCaul, and Nathan Weatherby broke the club record set in 1997 with a total time of 1:40.67. 

    We also had a number of new Meet Qualifiers coming out of these meets. Here are the highlights: 

    At 10 & Under Series #2: 
Official results are yet to be posted, but our coaches came away very happy with the Tide performances. Great job everyone, and keep up the great work!

    At JP Fiset: 
Madison Carr made her A time in 100 Breast 
Welton Graham made his MQT in 400 Free 
Allison Hender made A times in 100/200 Breast
Brooklyn Janzen made A times in 100 Free and 100 Back 
Greg Kozell made his Western time in 50 Free 
Clarke Palmer made his MQT in 400 Free 
Aaron VanderLeek made MQT's in 400 Free and 200 IM 
Hayley Wirachowsky made A times in 100/200 Free, 100/200 Back 
Megan Wirachowsky made her MQT in 400 Free 

    At PCS Christmas Cracker:
Brendan Elford made AG Nationals in 200 Fly 
Karlyn Elford made Westerns in 100 Back 
Emma Funk made her A time in 100 Breast 
Robyn Murray made her A time in 1500 Free 
Nathan Weatherby made AG Nationals in 200 Back 
Nathan Weatherby made Westerns in 100 Free and 100 Back 

    At Vorgee #2: 
Although we had no new qualifiers, we weren't without a lot of big best times.
Roxanne Hughes of YD had 5 best times in 2 hours of racing 
Katelyn Whiteside of JAG had 4 best times in the same span. 

Swimmers with a best time of over 5 seconds were: 
Nicole Murray took 5 seconds off of her previous best 50 Back
Lauren Tong took over 7 seconds off of her best 50 Breast
Francesca Blake had a 7-second best time in 100 Free
Isabella Blake had a 5-sec best time in 50 Breast
Montana Boyd had a 6-second best time in 100 Free
Alexa Janzen had a 5-sec best time in 50 Breast
Tianna Jimioff had a 12-sec best time in 50 Back
Billy Kuhn had a 9-sec best time in 50 Breast

    Way to go, Tide!! 

    Now we have time to take a break for Christmas and enjoy a relaxing holiday.

Remember that the older you are and the higher your goals are in swimming, the more you need to take care of yourself over the holidays and stay active. Staying active and eating healthy will help you come back in good shape to move forward in your training in January. 

Merry Christmas to everyone and have a happy holidays!! 

Coach Chris

December 16/09          PCS Christmas Cracker

    We had a couple of new club records broken at the PCS Christmas Cracker in Victoria. 

Nadine Williams broke the 15-17 200 Free & Senior 200 Free  with her time of 1:04.27 . 

The Senior boys 4x50 Free relay record was broken by Kyle Markowski, Greg Kozell, Brayden McCaul and Nathan Weatherby. The boys went 1:40.67. 

Excellent swimming Silver Tide!!!

December 8/09          Christmas Training Camp

    Hello everyone, Attached is our Winter Training schedule. Please read it through and let your coach know if you will not be able to attend. I look forward to seeing everyone there! 

Happy holidays! 

Chris Nelson

PDF version of Winter Training 2009

December 1/09          Coaches Blogs

    Hi everyone,

    All swim groups now have blogs!!!

See the Coaches page for your swim group's blog site.

November 30/09          Update from the Head Coach

    Hi everyone,

    I just wanted to let everyone know that Nadine Williams and I returned from the Toronto Canada Cup this morning. Nadine had a very positive meet, posting her best-ever Senior National placing with 6th place in the 1500 Freestyle. I will send out a full report on that meet in the coming days. 

The other important update is that while in Toronto I was unable to send emails, however I did receive all emails, including all of the emails from parents confirming their swimmer’s attendance at the Vorgee meet. I will reply back to each of you when I get a chance, but in the meantime I wanted to make sure everyone knows that these swimmers will now all be entered in the meet. Sorry for the technical difficulty from Toronto. 

If you have not sent your confirmation for the Vorgee meet on Fri Dec 11th, please do so as soon as possible. I need to know today (Monday PM) so that I can enter all of our swimmers before the meet entry deadline. So far we have 24 signed up, 5 declines, and 13 remaining question marks. 
Please clear those question marks up for me either way if you can.

Thank you and take care,

Chris Nelson 
Head Coach - Silver Tide Swim Club  

November 21/09          STSC Poppy Meet Recap

    Hello to everyone and Congratulations on a great and successful Poppy Invitational last weekend. 

    It was a great atmosphere on deck, and much like our team Halloween practice nearly our whole club was in attendance. 69 swimmers attended this year’s Poppy, and they cheered, raced and supported each other very well all weekend. We unveiled our new team cheer, which I think was the loudest of all the teams on only our first try. Be proud to yell and race for Silver Tide, and soon all of Alberta will hear that the Tide is coming for them! 

    We had 2 new meet qualifiers this weekend: Welton Graham was able to cover his 13-year-old MQT in 200 IM, and Madison Carr was able to get her MQT in 10&under 200 IM. Great job and congratulations! Other new A times included Welton Graham’s first SC 12-year-old A time in 50 Breast, and Allison Hender’s first SC 13-year-old A time in 50 Breast. 

    There were a lot of first time swims and a lot of huge best times. Some of the biggest best times were: Madison Carr 57-sec best time in 100 Breast, Kailyn Foss 17-sec in 100 Back, Emma Funk 40-sec in 400 Free, Welton Graham 29-sec in 200 IM, Jaci Grotkowski 27-sec in 100 Back, Allison Hender 19-sec in 400 Free, Alexa Janzen 29-sec in 100 Free, Leighten Janzen 34-sec in 100 Back, Nicole Murray 21-sec in 200 IM, Aaron Vander Leek 16-sec in 200 Free, Kier Vander Leek 28-sec in 200 IM, Matt Whiteside 21-sec in 400 IM, Haley Wirachowsky 16-sec in 400 Free and Megan Wirachowsky 15-sec in 200 IM.

    I was happy to see all of our groups interacting so well together. We are all on the same team, and our mission is to support everyone to be as good as they can be. A good sign that we are doing that is almost every swimmer that hit the water received a cheer either before or after their race.

See your group's coaches blog for information about your group.

Keep up the great work everyone and I’ll see you all at the pool!

Go Tide!!

Coach Chris Nelson
Head Coach - Silver Tide Swim Club

Photos will be posted soon on the  Photo Gallery page for Poppy meet. 

See Swim meet page for meet result links. 

PDF version of Poppy Newsletter

November 16/09          Poppy Meet

     Silver Tide Swim Club would like to thank all of the many volunteers which made this 21st Annual Poppy meet a huge success. 

Thanks also go out to our Meet Managers, Joe Kozell and Sheldon Weatherby. They guided an excellent swim meet which was nearly flawless.

All of the Aggregate winners, Official results, Realtime results and other documents are now on our Poppy Meet page (click on icon at the top of the page).

For the Silver Tide swimmers, the Coaches Meet Report will be coming soon as well as many meet pictures. I seen lots of smiley faces and great performances by our swimmers.

October 31/09         Halloween special workout

October 26/09          Saskatoon Goldfins Inv Meet Recap

    Silver Tide sent 14 swimmers to Saskatoon for the Saskatoon Goldfins Invitational from Oct 22-25, 2009. The meet took place in Saskatoon's brand new facility, which has a full 10-lane 50m pool with a bulkhead, and a separate 25m warm-up pool, and a separate leisure swimming pool. The pool is well designed and will be the host pool for this winter's Western Canadian Championships held in February 2010. 

    A fast pool is only good for one thing, and Silver Tide knew exactly how to use it. A huge number of best times this early in the season is a joy to see, and the team had more fun each day as we built momentum from each great swim to the next. Our most senior swimmers completely obliterated their performances from this same meet last year, and left the pool deck more motivated than ever to get back home and train hard to get ready for our next racing opportunities. 

Just a taste of the results: 
* Brendan Elford took a total of 1 min 5 sec off of his 7 individual events 
* Karlyn Elford was within seconds of many best times, and swam miles ahead of pace from this same meet last season 
* Marielle Froese swam 5/7 best times, including breaking 3:00 for the first time in 200 Back and 200 IM 
* Jasmin Hillman battled the flu, but still managed great swimming including a first-ever 200 fly going 2:59.95
* Brad Kozell had best times in 5/7 events and is already in top form in his top events 
* Greg Kozell took a total of 43sec off of his 7 individual events 
* Shayla Kurta was close to best-ever form with swims all many of her best events
* Amanda Madsen looked great with some new technique, including a 4-sec best time in 200 IM 
* Brayden McCaul took 14sec off his 200 Fly, and went 26sec for the first time ever in 50 Free
* Robyn Murray had several best times, including 7-sec improvements in 200 Breast and 200 Fly 
* Nicole Schamber swam fast with a foot injury, including a 21-sec best time in 200 Breast 
* Rebecca Schamber swam 7/8 best times, missing only the 50 Breast (her 4th event in just 1.5 hours on the final morning) 
* Ryan Schamber battled through the flu to swim near best times, including 35 sec in 50 Back on the last morning 
* Nadine Williams swam very close to best times and executed excellent race skills and strategies 

I would also like to thank Melissa Elford for volunteering her weekend to chaperone this meet for our swimmers. She did an exceptional job watching after the swimmers at the hotel and providing breakfast, lunch and snack foods for the swimmers throughout the weekend. Thank you! 

Go Tide! 
Coach Chris

PDF version of Saskatoon Goldfins Inv Meet Coaches recap

See Photo Gallery page for Saskatoon meet photos. 

October 19/09           OSC 10 & Under Meet Recap

    12 Silver Tide swimmers went to the 10 & Under Series #1 on Sunday, October 18th, 2009. The meet is hosted by the Olympian Swim Club at Fountain Park Pool in St Albert, and is the first in a series of five meets throughout the 2009-10 season. 

    The meet itself is designed to be an appropriate introduction to racing for 10-year-old and younger swimmers. 

Montana Boyd, Meghan Doig and Lauren Tong were our youngest competitors, swimming in the 8-year-olds category. 

Kailyn Foss, Alexa Janzen, Nicole Murray and Kier Vander Leek swam in the 9-year-olds category, and Leighton Janzen, Tianna Jimioff, Billy Kuhn, Katelyn Whiteside and Megan Wirachowsky swam in the 10-year-olds category.

These swimmers completed all of their swims, and will now use the times from this competition to see if they can improve when we go to the next meet in the series in December. 

There is already lots of interest building from more families to join us at the next meet, so if you have any questions about the 10 & Under Series please talk to your group coach or ask Coach Chris for more information. 

Way to go, swimmers! 

Go Tide! 
Coach Chris

PDF version of OSC 10 & Under Meet Coaches recap

See Photo Gallery page for 10 & Under meet photos. 

October 19/09          Oktoberfest Meet Recap

    On Saturday, October 17th, Silver Tide sent over 40 swimmers to the EKSC Oktoberfest swim meet at the Kinsmen Sport Centre in Edmonton. It was the first meet of the year for everyone there, and we made a big impression to start off the 2009-10 season. 

    The most impressive part of the meet was watching our swimmers try out so many of the new skills and techniques that we've been learning in workout. Not only did we swim a lot of best times, but we did it by swimming better strokes than ever before. Stroke and skill improvements are the key to long term improvement in swimming, and we got off to a great start at Oktoberfest. 

    It was also exciting to watch so many Silver Tide swimmers winning their heats at the meet. The TAG group actually went nearly the entire session winning every heat in which we had a TAG swimmer. The JAG group had nearly 100% best times, and the Senior group is showing that they are ready to become one of the best senior programs in the province. Great swimming and great racing! Let's keep listening closely to our coaches' advice and keep the improvements coming! 

    I would also like the thank all of the parents who volunteered to help set-up, take down, and officiate at the Oktoberfest. We have an exceptional parent group in Silver Tide, and I appreciate everyone giving up a little of their time to support our swimmers and represent our team so well to the Edmonton-area community. I'm proud to be a part of such a great team. 

Keep up the great swimming and teamwork, 

Coach Chris

PDF version of Oktoberfest Coaches Recap

See Swim meet page for meet result links.

October 10/09  

   Nadine Williams wins Swim Alberta award

Congratulations Dini, for winning the "Open Water Swimmer of the year" at Swim Alberta's annual awards banquet. 
All of Silver Tide is proud of you.

October 3/09          Equipment and last years pictures

      To all Silver Tide families, 
I will be at Millennium Place from 9:00 until 11:00 each Saturday with equipment order forms, sizing charts and sample sizes to try on. 

In addition, I will have the team/individual photos from last year, available for pick up.

I will make myself available in the cafeteria area. If there is anyone who wants to keep me company, you're more than welcome. Most of our children are swimming on Saturday mornings, I thought it would be a good time to get together and socialize while covering off some Swim Club business. 

See you Saturday,

Gavin van Kuppeveld
gnvankupp@shaw.ca

October 3/09               Junior Development Swimmers

      Welcome to all Junior Development swimmers and parents!                                                          
We are excited to have everyone back at the pool, and are happy to welcome all new swimmers to the club. 
This season, we have added some dryland training hours for the Junior Development group. 
During these times, both Junior Development 1 & 2 will interact together as they learn some important stretches and coordination skills for swimming. 
Much of this time is intended to be fun and engaging, and we hope that the swimmers all enjoy this new addition to our program. 

The schedule can be found on our website under About the Club > Pool Schedule

The dryland room is Activity Room #1, which can be found by following the signs posted just to the right of the pool viewing area entrance.
The kids will take a short hallway from the cafeteria area, and turn right at the end of the hallway to get to the activity rooms. 
Many of the swimmers have been there already, so if you have difficulty finding it you can either ask one of your groupmates or pop out on deck and ask one of the coaches who will be more than happy to help you. 
The room opens at 5:15pm on Monday evening dryland, and it will be available at 10:00am for Saturday morning dryland. 

If you have any questions, please contact me at Chris.Nelson@silvertide.ca

Have fun! 
Chris Nelson Head Coach - Silver Tide Swim Club
780.455.7203 
Chris.Nelson@silvertide.ca

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