Lions’ Lowe grows into new speed skating identity

By Darren Steinke
Gordie Howe Sports Complex

Bon Lowe skates at the Clarence Downey Speed Skating Oval.

Bon Lowe has started to redefine his speed skating identity in his middle to late teenage years.

The 17-year-old Grade 12 student at Evan Hardy Collegiate has been part of speed skating since he was placed by his mom in a learn to skate program around age three.

Lowe used to play hockey too. He discovered in that sport he liked skating fast on the ice more than any other aspect of the game.

Feeling that need for speed, Lowe decided to focus on speed skating. The Saskatoon Lions Speed Skating Club member enjoyed a fair amount of success in the sport, but as he grew into his current body size of standing 6-foot-3 and weighing 172 pounds, Lowe is finding his new comfort zone with long track events.

“Right now, I like long track just because I am taller than most short track skaters are,” said Lowe. “I have been able to do a bit better at long track.

“It just feels nicer to skate.”

Lowe is a member of the Saskatchewan Speed Skating Association’s provincial short and long track teams, and he is entering his first season as a junior level skater. He sees himself specializing in the 5,000-metre and 10,000-metre distances.

Due to his taller height, Lowe believes the longer strides he can make are a big benefit when it comes to racing in longer distances. He is also intrigued by the strategy that goes into planning out a race that covers a longer distance.

“When you skate the longer distances, you have so much time to think,” said Lowe. “It is not a race that is won by the start.

“It is how you skate all throughout. You kind of have to be able to think about your race in the middle of it. You have to think about how you are doing it and what you are doing good and what you are doing bad.

“It gives you lots of time to work on the race, while you are doing the race. You are not necessarily stuck with the result you get right off the start.”

Veteran Lions coach Tim Comfort has coached Lowe for 10 years and has enjoyed watching the young skater evolve. Comfort said Lowe reached the top of the podium quite a bit in younger age groups before he hit his growth spurt.

Bon Lowe aims to make longer distances his skating specialty.

“When he was younger, he won three out of four years in a row Western Canadian Championships in short track,” said Comfort, who is also a Saskatchewan Speed Skating Association provincial coach and technical director. “He was the absolute dominant skater.

“Nobody could basically touch him. As they grow, you can be really good when you are young, and then all of a sudden, the day comes when people catch you, and then you have to decide how much you like it. I love the character building in that.

“When there is a little bit of adversity and you are not beating everyone easily anymore, then you really, really, are tested as to how much you love what you are doing. Anybody that ever plays a sport will have a taste of that. To see them face that and to figure it out is very, very, fun.”

Comfort said Lowe had to adjust his skating the taller he grew.

“Every year he has to get used to a new height, because he has grown so much, and he just doesn’t ever seem to stop,” said Comfort. “He may be at his adult height, and there are adjustments you have to make to your new height.

“Speed skating is a highly technical sport. He is needing to be adaptable and keep learning, because of his new height.”

Comfort has enjoyed watching Lowe evolve and gain an interest for competing in longer long track events. With that noted, Comfort added Lowe is still taking his first strides in a bigger world there.

“He has had some success, but he will have to keep working at it for a longer period of time, if he is going to be really good at long track,” said Comfort. “He is really good compared to others his age in Western Canada and Canada.

“Really good doesn’t mean he is in the top two or three, but he is still really good. The long legs could help him quite a bit in long track, if he keeps training.”

To this point in his career, Lowe has had limited opportunities to skate in a distance as long as 5,000-metres in competitions. Early last February at long track meet in Regina, Lowe won the 3,000-metre race in his age category in a time of four minutes and 55.76 seconds.

Now part of the junior level of competition, Lowe expects to go through some learning curves going up against more experienced skaters.

“Now, I am sort of mixed in a bigger pool again,” said Lowe. “I’m kind of the small fish in the pond.

Bon Lowe enjoys being a part of the speed skating community.

“I think there is lots of experience that I can gather being around all the older skaters. I’m looking forward to it, when I get to compete again. Right now, I’m really enjoying being able to gather all that knowledge.”

He looks forward to taking on that adventure as a member of the Lions, because he has had so many great experiences being part of that club.

“It has been really great,” said Lowe. “Some of my best friends that I’ve ever had I’ve met with skating.

“Being able to have this community that follows me and supports me and I can support them back too, not only is it just here in Saskatoon, but the sport is able to foster a good community all across the country. I know people all across Canada.

“I think wherever I go, I am able to be apart of this community of speed skating and of sport in general.”

Harrison aims to hit new heights, leave no doubts with track

By Darren Steinke
Gordie Howe Sports Complex

Michelle Harrison is at home at the Indoor Training Centre.

Michelle Harrison could have left track and field on a high, but she didn’t want to have any doubts of what might have been.

Last season, Harrison had a dream campaign finishing up her fifth and final year of U Sports eligibility with the University of Saskatchewan Huskies women’s track and field team.

At that Canada West Championships last February in Saskatoon, Harrison won gold in 60-metre hurdles, 60-metre dash and 4 X 200-metre relay. She ran her specialty in the 60-metre hurdles in a conference record time of 8.21 seconds.

Harrison captures conference honours as Female Track Athlete of the Year and the award for Female Outstanding Performance of the Meet.

At the U Sports championships held last March in Edmonton, Harrison won gold in the 60-metre hurdles in a record time for the meet in 8.15 seconds. She won two silver medals with the Huskies 4 X 200-metre and 4 X 400-metre relay teams.

The graduate of Saskatoon’s Evan Hardy Collegiate was named the U Sports Female Track Athlete of the Year and was the Female Athlete of the Meet at the U Sports championships.

On April 1, the Huskies announced Harrison as recipient of the Mary Ethel Cartwright Trophy as the athletic program’s overall female athlete of the year.

After completing her U Sports career, Harrison didn’t want to give up on track and field. She believes she has more potential to realize and didn’t want to wonder if she could have done more in the sport.

“It is hard, because the last indoor season was really good,” said Harrison. “I know right now I am a way better athlete than that.”

At age 27, Harrison is a mature athlete too, and she has had a lengthy and decorated career in track and field filled with ups and downs.

Way back in 2009, Harrison was a member of Team Canada at the World Youth Championships competing in the 400-metre hurdles.

Michelle Harrison in action. (Photo courtesy Louis Christ)

At the 2010 Saskatchewan High School Athletic Association track and field championships, Harrison won gold in the 100-metre, 200-metre, 400-metre and 80-metre hurdles races. She also captured gold medals as a member of Evan Hardy’s 4 X 100-metre and 4 X 400-metre relay teams.

After graduating high school, Harrison competed for three different universities and a high performance centre from 2010 to 2017. They included the Rice University Owls in Houston, Texas, in the NCAA ranks, the Huskies and the York University Lions along with the high-performance track and field hub in Toronto, Ont. She experienced a mix of highs and lows as she often battled injuries along the way.

One of the highs included winning gold in the 100-metre hurdles at the Canada Summer Games in 2013 in Sherbrooke, Quebec. The 100-metre hurdles is Harrison’s specialty on the international track circuit.

Other highs during that time included winning gold in the 60-metre hurdles at the Canada West and U Sports championships in 2014.

The toughest of the lows included training in the high-performance hub in Toronto from 2015-17, where Harrison said coaches were getting fired and athletes were leaving. On top of the turmoil there, Harrison was injured most of that time.

During that time, Harrison had a cup of coffee stay with the Lions program.

She returned home to Saskatoon, got married to her long time boyfriend, Graeme Harrison, and was fairly disillusioned with the sport of track and field. With all of that going on, Michelle came into contact with Jason Reindl, who took over as the head coach of the Huskies.

Reindl, who is a former Huskies men’s track team athlete, had happened to just return home to Saskatoon too after being the head coach of the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds cross-country running and track and field teams in Fredericton.

Michelle Harrison starred with the Huskies. (Photo Courtesy GetMyPhoto.ca)

Harrison rejoined the Huskies, and it was like the perfect storm happened to rejuvenate her track and field career.

“I think just my coach Jason (Reindl) was a big part of it,” said Harrison. “When I was back in Toronto, I had lost lots of interest in the sport.

“I was about to quit. I just really liked working with him (Reindl). I just like the atmosphere of the team too.

“It was a lot more positive than what I have been used to. My performance improving as well helped too. I think it was just like a combination of a bunch of different things.”

After spending a season to train and get back up to speed, Harrison won gold in the 60-metre hurdles at the Canada West and U Sports championships in 2019. She picked up silver medals at the U Sports championships with the Huskies 4 X 200-metre and 4 X 400-metre relay teams.

In June of 2019, Harrison ran the 100-metre hurdles in a personal best time of 13.13 seconds taking top spot at the Speed River Track and Field Festival in Guelph, Ont. She placed third in the 100-metre hurdles at the Canadian Track and Field Championships in July of 2019.

That set the stage for her final campaign with the Huskies. Now, she has renewed aspirations to qualify for the Olympics.

Following her final season with the Huskies, Harrison was slated to go to meets in Asia and California, but the worldwide grip of the COVID-19 pandemic nixed all of that.

In June, she began working out at the Indoor Training Centre here at the Gordie Howe Sports Complex. Harrison has done strength sessions at Ignite Athletes and run on the field turf with Reindl on hand to offer his coaching expertise.

Michelle Harrison is ready for new track and field challenges.

“Being able to lift here and get to full strength is huge,” said Harrison. “My strength is probably the best it ever has been, so I have been able to work on that a lot, which is good.

“Even just being able to run here, it is nice being able to train on a flat surface and not having to worry about stepping in a hole or whatever in the park. It has been a lot more consistent training.”

Harrison can’t wait to get back into live competition and is currently slated to attend the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing, China, in March of 2021.

“I’m hoping there is like a season,” said Harrison. “I’ve qualified for the world indoor championships, which are in China in March, so I am hoping that is a go.

“After that, it will be just chasing down the Olympic standard again in the summer.”