Cochrane’s swim programs are ready to drown out their current waiting lists and create the robust aquatic community they have dreamed about when the new pool opens this summer.
“It’s going to be huge – not only for the swim clubs, but for the community,” said Breanna Hendriks, head coach of the Cochrane Piranhas and Cochrane Masters swim clubs. “It’s been a long time coming and I know everybody’s really excited about it – it means that we can really run a program that we’ve wanted to run for quite a while now.”
A new $45-million, 3,720-square-metre aquatic building at Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre is expected to open in July and will include a wave pool, warm water therapy pool, waterslides and an eight-lane regulation size main pool.
The current Big Hill Leisure Pool – which was built in the early 1990s – has four non-regulation lanes in the lap pool, a hot tub and a young children’s shallow dipper.
“Cochrane seemed to outgrow it a long time ago,” said John Napier, the town’s aquatics facility manager, adding the Piranhas and the Masters clubs, along with the Cochrane Comets and the Water Ninjas lifesaving sports team, all currently share space at the Big Hill pool. Add to that the regular slate of Canadian Red Cross swimming lessons and public swims – and it’s simply not enough.
“We’re all wait-listed,” Napier said.
The Piranhas summertime club runs from May to August and has 56 members – with another 36 or so on the waiting list. The Cochrane Comets, a sister club which runs from September to July, has about 50 youth, with another 100 on its waiting list as of October 2016.
“We’re bursting at the seams right now,” said Comets head coach Danielle Genung.
Genung said the Comets’ competitive growth has been hampered by not only the size of the Big Hill facility as a whole, but also the width of the lanes within it.
“Our pool isn’t regulation size. We can’t time trial our own kids,” she said. “It changes how I train our kids.”
“You can only do so many things from a coaching perspective,” echoed Hendriks. “It’s tough to do butterfly because the kids are hitting each other.”
Napier pointed out the new pool – which includes eight regulation size lanes –will allow for more physical space so more instructors can be guiding swimmers at the same time.
“(At Big Hill) we can only run a maximum of four instructors at one time, and that would fill our pool,” he said. “With this new pool, we’re going to be able to expand our programming … potentially up to 10 instructors as we build forward.”
Hendriks said that extra depth will not only create more opportunity to grow the Piranhas – it will also allow for more and better time slots for her Masters program, for swimmers 18 years and older.
“I’ve had a lot of people, triathlon people, who would love to join but say, ‘I just can’t do the 9 p.m.,’” she said. “It’s going to be a huge difference for them.”
It’s good news as well for the Comets: Genung said the organization has historically been known as a “feeder club” – meaning kids can start off their water sports careers in Cochrane but need to move to a larger club in a different community when their skills and abilities outgrow the capacity here.
The new pool will eliminate that stigma and help stretch the Comets’ competitive age cap past the 14- or 15-year-old limit they can currently manage.
“That won’t happen anymore now,” she said. “We’ll be able to develop swimmers (and) offer long-term competitive abilities. Our guys will swim all the way up through high school. We’re really, really opening up some great opportunities for our own kids and for the swimming community.”
Hendriks said the Piranhas waiting list won’t likely be wiped out in 2017, since the new facility isn’t open until part-way through their season. However, she expects the 2018 summer to be where her club begins to really reach its potential.
The Comets will hold an open house in April to spread the word about how the club plans to eliminate the current waiting list and expand once the new facility opens.
Genung said she’s already lining up dates for the Comets to host a swim meet – something else they weren’t able to do in the Big Hill pool – during the inaugural season at sports centre.
“The first year, we will grow as much as we can manage,” she said. “The sky’s really the limit.”
While Genung is thrilled with the potential of the club’s future growth, she said she wants to ensure it is all done smartly, and not just swiftly.
“This is potentially legacy-building stuff for this club … it’s a very calculated, very deliberate expansion. We want to embark on this adventure well-prepared,” she said.
“It’s about a lot more than just teaching these kids swim strokes. You are an influence in their lives, so it’s something to be taken seriously.
We want to create a space for our swimmers we can be proud of.”
