Sport, Recreation & Leisure

It’ll be a day of fun for the whole family.
   For the 21st year consecutive year, the Helen Schuler Nature Centre stages an afternoon of family activities at its Family Day Track Trek Feb. 20 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Once again, those attending will get a close-up look at a number of demonstrations.
“We’ll have a variety of family-oriented activities for people to do. We have some special guests joining us,” said Jessica Deacon-Rogers, nature interpretation technician. “The Canadian Search Dogs Association will have different tracking demonstrations they’ll do with their dogs. It’s always fun to watch. It’s amazing to see how good the dogs are at tracking. There will be three handlers and three dogs.”
The Canadian Search Dogs Association will do two different demonstrations throughout the afternoon, she said.
Also on hand for the Family Day event will be Irena Woss and the Lethbridge Astronomy Society.
“They’ll be outside for a couple of different demonstrations,” said Deacon-Rogers. “They’re going to bring solar telescopes so people can track the sun. We’re hoping it’ll be a sunny day. If it’s cloudy they’ll have some different activities that have to do with astronomy and tracking the stars. It should be a lot of fun.”
There will be plenty of indoor activities as well, said Deacon-Rogers.
“We have Waterton Provincial Park that will be inside the building doing a variety of tracking activities and games for different kinds of animals. We’ll have some different crafts that are related to tracking and activities you can play indoors, painting and those sort of things.”
The annual event typically brings in 400 to 800 people, she added.
“It’s our biggest special event that we host in the year. So it’s a lot of people.”
What’s better is there is no cost to attend.
“It’s nice for people to know they can come down and have a nice time with their family and go for a walk,” said Deacon-Rogers.
More than two decades later, the annual event continues going strong.
“It’s gone through an evolution of different forms and amounts of people we can handle,” said Deacon-Rogers. “People are always looking at Family Day to do something unique in their own community. Not everyone goes away on holidays. It’s nice to have something here where people can be outside and somewhere fun with their family and still discover something about their community they might not have known before. Last year, we had the Canada Border Services Agency come and do a demonstration with one of their search dogs. We have different types of groups that come. It’s really fun.”

Swapping since 1964.
   Like a rite of passage every winter, the Southern Alberta Antique and Classic Auto Club Early Bird Swap Meet descends upon Lethbridge to cater to everyone from car enthusiasts to collectors of antiques and collectibles.
And the event slated to run Feb. 11 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Lethbridge Exhibition Park brings in more than just residents of the Lethbridge and the greater southern Alberta area.
“People from all over Western Canada come to it,” said treasurer Gord Dewhirst. “As far as the car stuff, there’s some different stuff for all the venues, classical and antique. It’s a good source for people who are restoring their cars.”
But the Southern Alberta Antique and Classic Auto Club Early Bird Swap caters to more than just the gear heads, featuring furniture, toys and collectables.
“It’s a lot more than just cars,” said Dewhirst. “There are a lot of antique dealers in general there.”
Though it’s a one-day event, it’s a big one with a high volume of traffic requiring lots of space.
“We take up the entire exhibition pavilion,” said Dewhirst. “It’s bigger than most shows, we get about 4,000 people.”
Now, nearly 50 years later the annual swap meet is still going strong as a must-attend event for car and antique enthusiasts alike.
“1964 was when it started,” said Dewhirst. “I think there was maybe one year that was missed, but it started out as a tailgate (event) and it’s just grown. We get about 3,000 vendors. There are people from B.C. to Manitoba, people who are looking for stuff. They come up from Montana as well.”
In nearly 50 years of operation, the Southern Alberta Antique and Classic Auto Club Early Bird Swap Meet’s reputation has grow as out-of-town — and out-of-province — collectors flock to Lethbridge for the one-day event.
“We have been told we have one of the best ones out there,” said Dewhirst. “There are crowds of people that attend a lot of swap meets and we’ve become known as one of the better ones.”
The timing of the annual swap meet has also helped.
“It’s earlier in the year and we’ve always lucked out with the weather,” said Dewhirst. “Just because it’s at the end of the (winter) season. There’s a bit of a dry spell in the spring. But it’s a good chance for everybody if they’re working on a vehicle. They can have their stuff by car season. It’s a nice break in the season.
“It’s always a good selection and a lot of vendors. It covers a lot of stuff.”
Swap stalls and car stalls are $50 apiece.
Gate admission is $2 per person. Children ages 10 and under get in at no charge. For information and registration, contact Mike Yakubowski at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Consider the bullseye hit.
   Roughly 50 shooters took aim as the LA HotShots Club-hosted 2012 Alberta Air Gun Provincials — including air pistol and air rifles — took the line Jan. 21 at the Exhibition Park West Pavilion.
Now, after rejuvenating the LA HotShots Club, coach Susan Eymann is hopeful interest in the sport will be off like a shot.
“It (provincials) hasn’t been here for 16 years,” said Eyman as competitors — male and female aged 11 to 65 — took the line at the event which ran from Jan. 20-22. “We’ve rejuvenated the club and this is more than we could have imagined one year into it.”
While those marksmen on hand at the Exhibition Park West Pavilion for the three-day event were competing at the provincial level, the sport of air gun has moved to the international level with the air-pistol event being named as the first precision target medal sport at the 2012 Olympics in London.
But the Jan. 20-22 provincial event was all about rebuilding interest in the sport in southern Alberta.
Working with the Coaldale And District Fish And Game Club where the LA HotShots Club has a range, Eymann and her husband, Jeff MacDonald, looked to rebuild interest in the sport six years ago.
“It took us five phone calls, so we were persistent to finally get to someone who could help us,” said Eymann, adding the club also shoots at the German Canadian Club in Lethbridge as well. “We started training and we starting thinking that there were other people interested in this and to start promoting it more and getting more people involved so that it only takes one phone call to reach us. We just opened it up because it’s a fantastic sport.”
Athleticism isn’t a necessity for the beginner air gun participant, but it is if the shooter wants to move up in the sport.
“If you want to excel, you do need to be athletic and you can see the development in the juniors when they do that,” said Eymann.
But it’s what’s going on in the head of the shooter that’s equally as important as a steady hand and true aim.
“Patience, discipline,” said Eymann. “When you’re in position and aiming, it’s not saying ‘It’s good enough.’ When you can feel some tension somewhere you really have to be able to get to know your body and notice every little tension and recognize what it’s doing before you pull the trigger.”
Among the young guns competing Jan. 21 was 16-year-old Jonathan Reid.
“I’ve been doing this about two or three years,” said Reid. “My dad (David) was working for Jeff and he told me ‘You should come and shoot with us.’ I came and tried it out and really enjoyed it.”
The mental aspect of the sport appealed to Reid.
“Your mind can really get in there and mess you up whenever you don’t expect it. You have concentrate, but you can’t concentrate too much. It’s a hard sport.”
But like any sport, practice makes perfect.
“The more you shoot, the better you’ll be,” said Reid. “There’s nothing else you can really do, because if you don’t shoot you’ll never be good at it.”
At the opposite end of the age spectrum, 65-year-old Murray Grigg was among the other competitors at the provincial event.
A range director at the Coaldale Fish and Game Club, Grigg was also a key part of the resurgence of the LA HotShots Club.
“We found him and together we were able to set up this range. But without him, it would have never have happened,” said Eymann.
Competing in his first event, Grigg met his goal of breaking 400 points, shooting 422.
And Grigg met that goal with a new outlook. Literally.
“Up until June I was wearing glasses and wore them for 62 years,” said Grigg, who then had cataract surgery and put in toric lenses which fix astigmatism and near-sightedness.
He now has 20-20 vision in one eye and nearly 20-20 vision in his other eye.
“So I really started getting into it then. This is more or less a first go-around. I got my first rifle set up so Susan told me to come out and try it,” said Grigg. “My goal was to break 400 and I had 422. I had a personal best, so I’m happy about that. It’s quite a sport. It’s really about precision and how you hold the gun. You’re competing against yourself, which is really good for a lot of kids. It’s not a team sport. So maybe if you’re not a team sport (person), this is a good fit. We’ve got young guys in the LA HotShots that are competing at this level and the national level. Who knows? If we can put a kid in the NHL, we can put a kid on the Olympic line. This is a great winter sport and it’s great to come out and shoot and compete.”
While not competing at the 2012 provincials, provincial air pistol coach Arno Baron had eight athletes competing at the event.
Coaching mostly in Red Deer and Calgary as well as such other cities as far north as Grande Prairie and as far east as St. Paul, Baron said the goal now is to make southern Alberta an air pistol hotbed.
“Hopefully we can build up some interest here and expand the shooting fraternity. In Red Deer I draw people from Blackfalds and Lacombe and Innisfail. We are sort of the hub for the central part of the province.”
Electronic scoreboards offering a shot-by-shot analysis of each shooter’s performance made the 2012 provincial event a more spectator-friendly affair, said Baron.
“All the shots are recorded and it’s really beneficial for a coach because I can see if, after a few shots, the grouping of the shots is moving to one side higher or lower. I can then pull my shooter off the line and say ‘Make corrections on your sides.’ This is something we didn’t have in previous years because we shot on paper targets and I didn’t see the overall effect until the last shot came off the line. For monitoring my shooters, I love this. I had to correct a couple of my shooters. So for coaching purposes, I love it.”
As the LA HotShots continues to grow, getting more female athletes is key, said Eymann.
“Girls actually have so much patience and discipline. Girls make excellent precision target shooters. We want this sport to be back into the Alberta Winter Games. It hasn’t been there for the past couple of games and in order to do that we need girls.”
Those interested in the LA HotShots can phone 403-315-3185.
Anyone looking for more information can visit www.albertasmallborerifle.ca.

Attention prominent sports figures in Lethbridge — teams, athletes and builders — the Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame is looking for you.
And whether those athletic accomplishments have taken place in the past, Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame treasurer Knud Petersen said there’s no time like the present to get those nominations in for the 27th Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame induction slated for May 5.
“We have some worthy nominations left over from last year,” said Petersen, adding that the deadline for nominations is Jan. 31. “But we’re certainly looking for more. As always, we’re having to rattle the chains to get things done, but we’re hoping we’ll get some more good nominations in before the deadline. We certainly need a few more to do a proper process.”
While many athletes, teams and groups adorn the 27-year-old wall, Petersen believes there are still local athletes that haven’t gotten their due.
“I think there are probably people that should be in the Hall of Fame that have never been nominated,” he said. “It’s basically up to individuals and sports organizations to think about who might be worthy of a nomination. I think the Sports Hall of Fame committee in the past few years have been a little bit proactive in urging people to nominate certain people that we think should be in there. Ideally, it should come from individuals in sports organizations. It shouldn’t be up to us to urge people on to do it.”
The Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame took shape back in 1985 as the city looked back on 100 years of history celebrating the centennial of the community that was once known as Coalbanks.
Since the launch of the Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame, it has inducted more than 220 individuals — athletes, builders and others — along with more than 30 teams and organizations.
In that centennial year, a foundation was laid on which to build the Hall of Fame. A dozen notable athletes and 20 renowned sports builders, along with six teams, formed the inaugural class of inductees.
The founding group included athletes Glen Anderson (multi-sport), Robert Armitt (soccer, track and field), Harry Blacker (basketball), Jim Furlong (football), Earl Ingarfield (hockey), Enid (Dowdie) Pepper (multi-sport), Marie Popson (archery), Tom Sindlinger (basketball), Vic Stasiuk (hockey), Logan Tait (basketball, racquetball), Katie Wilson (multi-sport) and Kai Yip (boxing).
In the builders category were Tony Bogusky (boxing), Ed Bruchet (multi-sport), Stan Carmichael (multi-sport), Peggy Currie (figure skating), A.G. Donaldson (soccer, hockey), Jack Emery (boxing, track and field), George Gemer (track and field), Dick Gray (hockey), Syd Hall (hockey), Harold Harris (multi-sport), Yvonne (Currie) Jacobson (figure skating), George McKillop (multi-sport), Frank Miles (boxing), Hector Negrello (baseball, hockey), Steve Pedersen (multi-sport), William Rea (curling), Yoshio Senda (judo), Stan Siwik (swimming), Carl Trentini (hockey) and Henry Viney (multi-sport).
The teams included the Cliff Forry and Myrna McQuarrie rinks in curling, the 1958-59 Lethbridge Broders Chinooks (basketball), the 1936 and 1937 Lethbridge Galt Miners Senior Men (baseball), the 1950-1951 Lethbridge Maple Leafs (hockey), and the 1932 Supina’s soccer team.
Since 1996, the Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame banquet has also served to highlight the annual Kinsmen Sports Persons of the Year, paying further tribute to outstanding performers in the city’s sports community.
The Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame isn‘t actually a hall, but a portable display board that was revamped recently and carries the city’s sports history out into the community.
The display is currently set up at city hall and will be moved to the seniors centre during the last two weeks of January leading up to the nomination deadline.
“We’ll have some nomination forms there, but they can also log onto the Lethbridge Sports Hall Of Fame website, www.lethbridgesportshalloffame.ca. They can download the nomination forms off the website. At city hall they’ll have nomination forms there,” said Petersen, adding people with nominations can also reach him at 403-380-4751.
Nominations for the 2012 Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame don’t necessarily have to be individuals with accomplishments from recent years, said Petersen.
“It doesn’t have to be from the immediate past. Certainly some people from the last 30 or 40 years should be nominated who are not in there. People from the past who people are not necessarily aware of, those are the people we would really like to get into the Hall Of Fame.”
The official induction will take place May 5 at the Lethbridge Coast Hotel.
This year’s theme is “50 Years of Canadian Interuniversity Sports” with University of Lethbridge president Mike Mahon as this year’s guest speaker.
“Mike has played football at the University of Manitoba in his early university days and he went on to become a dean at the University of Alberta in the physical education department,” said Petersen. “Now he’s the president of the University of Lethbridge. So that’s quite a success in terms of the CIS. We’re pretty excited about having him. I’m sure he’ll be great.”
The Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame inducted 11 people on its 25th anniversary in 2010, but typically six new names make the wall each year.
“That’s kind of the average over the years. Sometime they’ve done less, but since I’ve been involved in the last six years we’ve averaged about six people per year,” said Petersen. “We like to induct one team out of those six and maybe two athletes and two builders or one or two special awards people.”
Petersen knows first hand about the honour of being selected to the Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame, having been inducted in 1997 as part of the Lethbridge College Kodiaks women’s soccer team that won nationals in 1994.
“It’s definitely a big honour to be in there,” said Petersen. “Having been on the board for six years, I’ve seen a lot of inductees and it means more to them than they initially think it does.”
A prime example is one of last year’s inductions, basketball player Phil Tollestrup from Raymond, who has played both locally and nationally.
“(He’s) long overdue to be in there,” said Petersen. “Initially he didn’t seem too excited about it, but as we got closer he was pretty happy to be up there. It was really neat. He’s had higher-profile honours bestowed upon him over the years, but to still see him appreciate getting into the Lethbridge Sports Hall of Fame (is great).”