by Marilyn Suke
Educational Opportunities to Access
Mostly free!
Our National (Nordiq Canada) and Provincial (Cross Country Ontario) Governing bodies are offering on line training for Officials and Coaches. Most of these courses are free and can be done at your own pace anytime.
Officials Training
The easiest way to access the site is to type Nordiq Canada Officials Training into your search engine.
This will take you to the site where you will pick Level 1 officials. This is an entirely self directed process and there is no fee. It takes a few hours to complete (depending on your base knowledge level) and gives you a good grounding in everything that goes on in the running of a ski race.
It is a great asset to the club to have a large number of members who have this certification. As well it makes volunteering at a race much more interesting as you have a greater knowledge of the entire operation.
Once level 1 is complete you can then access Level 2 training. This is offered by Webinar, again it is free and it has been very popular so you may need to wait for a spot to open up in the courses offered. In the mean time, the officials manual available on the Nordiq Canada website make great bedtime reading.
Coach Training
The process of becoming a coach (in any sport) is centralized through the Coaching Association (coach.ca).
Cross Country Ontario’s coaching coordinator is Katja Mathys. She has done an excellent job of summarizing the steps to becoming a coach on the CCO website.
Go to: xcskiontario.ca/coaches/coach-certification/
She speaks of workshops but initially you will be doing work online. If you are interested in completing the on snow portion of the CC course please email me and I will set up a course. Please do this in the next few weeks! mpsuke@gmail.com
The first steps in becoming a coach are:
1) To do your Coaching Initiation Module ($15) You need to be 14 years old to start this process
2) To do your Introduction to Community coaching. (ICC) This is entirely on line and the usual $100 fee will be waived. The ICC prepares you to lead the Bunny level of the Jackrabbit program.
3) You will then do a Community Coach (CC) module on line which is the theory of skiing and coaching.
If it is completed prior to January 15, 2021, the Fee ($125 ) will be reimbursed by Nordiq Canada.
The final portion of receiving you Community Coach will be done in person, outdoors, on snow. I am the Facilitator for this course and will post a workshop soon if there is a demand. It will likely be an evening webchat then two outdoor sessions.
Both skate and classic techniques will be covered but you only need to be able to teach these techniques – not perform them perfectly. The Community Coach workshop prepares you to be a leader in the first few levels of the Jackrabbit program. Nordiq Canada will be reimbursing the BSC for these courses and they will in turn reimburse you.