Hub Staff
Exciting times this week for the Saugeen Shores Lifesaving Club as Andrew Crook, the coach of the Canadian National team, met with the Saugeen Shores club to share his knowledge and experience in hopes of assisting them in becoming stronger at various events. The Lifesaving Club recently traveled to the 2015 Sanyo Bussan International Lifesaving Cup in Japan.

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Crook, who is from South Africa and coached the National South African team for 12 years, has been with the Canadian National Team for the past two years.

Crook spoke about Canada's recent competition in Japan in which two of the ten-person team that were chosen to represent Canada were from SSLC; Chris Stoner and Mackenzie Salmon. “I think it's important that Canada goes to those events because if you want to improve it's the only way you can,” he said.

Crook arrived in Saugeen Shores on Sunday after spending time with clubs in Ottawa and Guelph and started training with the club on Monday morning. He said he was impressed with SSLC. “Now that I know what they can do I can help with programs,” he said.

“It's awesome, just to have him for even a short time,” said Saugeen Shores Aquatics Programmer, Michael Hundt. “It's all the little pieces that you can start applying. He's covering everything. We've had the masters with him, we've had our senior athletes with him, we had our juniors, even our 5 and 6 year old sea monsters.”

Hundt said that Crook had been amazing with the athletes and spoke about the benefits of his knowledge and experience. “It applies to the whole aspect of sport, not just on the waterfront but as well as the things we can do to keep them going for cross training and for our down season because our season is so much shorter than most on the water, so great ideas to keep them going for the whole year.”

SSLC who continues to have great success in competitions had just returned from Newmarket this past weekend where they competed at the 2015 Ontario Lifeguard Championships. The team, which consisted of Chris Stoner, Laura O’Drisoll, Shelley Makepeace and Michael Hundt, placed first in Water Rescue, Priority Assessment and First Aid and third in Line Throw Relay.