Lions member skates at Canada
Games, ready for home meet
By Darren
Steinke
Gordie Howe Sports Complex
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| Melissa Scutchings enjoys skating fast on the oval track. |
At age
five, Scutchings followed her older brother Matthew into the sport joining the
Saskatoon Lions Speed Skating Club. At age 15, Scutchings was one of the
youngest skaters taking part in the Canada Winter Games that ran February 18 to
March 5, 2023 across Prince Edward Island. She took part in the long track
speed skating competition at the Halifax Oval in Halifax, N.S., during the
first week of the games.
“It was a little intimidating,” said Scutchings. “I remember
on the first day on the very first practice I fell.
“I remember being kind of embarrassed, because I fell in
front of these like national skaters, and they are all like these 20-year-old
really buffed guys. I was like, ‘Oh.’After I kind of got over that, it was
really fun.
“I had a lot of fun at the Canada Winter Games. There was a
lot of community stuff like a lot of team building. I thought that was really
fun.”
With being one of the youngest skaters at that multi-sport
event, Scutchings was there to soak in the experience. While she didn’t win any
medals, she skated lots taking part in the female 500-metre, 1,000-metre,
1,500-metre, 3,000-metre, mass start and team pursuit races.
In getting used to being at the Canada Winter Games,
Scutchings said it helped she was there with a large contingent from the Lions
including veteran skaters Luca Veeman and Serena Dallaire. Veeman won five
medals and Dallaire captured a pair of medals at the Canada Winter Games.
Scutchings said there is a good family feeling with the Lions club, which was a
big plus going into a multi-sport competition.
“I feel like it is easier to go to a new competition, if you
have someone you already know like someone you can warm up with and like skate
warmup with,” said Scutchings. “I feel like it is easier than going there, and
be like, ‘Oh. I don’t know anyone else. I am here by myself.’”
This season, Scutchings, who is now 16-years-old, finds herself as one of the older skaters at the majority of Lions practices as Veeman and Dallaire are both attending first year university in Calgary and training at the Olympic Oval. While Scutchings is a veteran skater with the club, she still focuses on having fun and enjoying the sport.
The Lions will be hosting their annual the John Sands Classic Long Track Meet on January 20 and 21 at the Clarence Downey Speed Skating Oval, and Scutchings has been a regular skating at that competition over the years. She has a pretty high comfort level when it comes to skating at events at home.
“It is just a lot of fun,” said Scutchings. “You are just competing against people you’ve know for like forever.
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| Melissa Scutchings skates at the Oval on February 28, 2023. |
When she was younger, Scutchings saw the older skaters as
being really fast and really cool and was always watching her brother. Now that
she is older skater, Scutchings enjoys watching the skaters in the Lions
younger age groups take to the track in events like the John Sands Classic Long
Track Meet.
“I think they are just really cute,” said Scutchings.“They
are really short, but they’ve got these big, long speed skates, and they are
skating.
“I think it is really funny and they are cute.”
Chris Veeman, who is the Lions head coach and president of
Speed Skating Saskatchewan, said it has been enjoyable to coach Scutchings over
the years. Back in January of 2021, Scutchings was presented the Robb Family Olympic Trophy, which is the Lions club award that goes to the most improved female skater as shown by improvements in skating times as compared to previous years and faithful and consistent attendance at practices.
“She is great to have in our group,” said Veeman. “She is
now one of the older women in the group.
“She has been with Group 4 for a number of years. She is a quiet personality, but I think you can tell that she really likes skating. I think at this point that I try to tell her that her focus should really be on enjoying the sport and getting to enjoy the movement.
“It can be an activity that you do your whole life. That is what I hope that she is getting out of it at this point.”
Veeman thought it was big for Scutchings to be able to take
part in the Canada Winter Games as one of the youngest skaters in the field.
“It is a great opportunity, because there is not a lot of pressure,” said Veeman. “If you are 15 or 16 skating against 19-year-olds, you’re not expected to win medals or anything like that.
“It is more about enjoying the event – the multisport aspect of it where you get to meet all kinds of different people. It is a really big production with all the uniforms and that sort of thing. I feel like she made the most of it.”
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| Melissa Scutchings enjoyed being at the Canada Winter Games. |
“I like watching her skate, because you can always tell
really clearly which one she is when she is skating like the team relays and
the team pursuits just because she is so tall,” said Scutchings, who stands
5-foot-7. “I really like the way she skates.
“She makes it look really easy.”
Scutchings
said the biggest influence in helping her in the sport was long time Lions head
coach Tim Comfort, who retired at the conclusion of the 2022-23 campaign. She
said Comfort cared about how she was doing as a person asking if things were
going OK and how she was doing.
“A lot of the way the practices went and a lot of the
repetitions and stuff like that it came from Tim (Comfort) mostly,” said
Scutchings. “I feel like we got pretty close, and it was fun traveling with him
to Canada Winter Games.
“He was pretty encouraging and supportive.”
Scutchings
said the current season, which is the Lions first campaign without Comfort as a
coach, has been going well. She said Veeman, Jason Warick and Olivier
Larocque have been doing well as a collective coaching unit.
Due to the
fact there is no Canada Winter Games to prepare for this season, Scutchings
said the competitive aspect has felt more relaxed and there has been more of a
focus on the craft of skating. She believes it benefits the skaters coming into
the Lions top competitive skating level in Group 4 to get their feet wet with
that higher tier of competition.
Away from
skating, Scutchings is completing her Grade 11 year at Walter Murray
Collegiate. She has been on the honor roll throughout her time in high school.
Scutchings is looking forward to continue skating with the Lions during her high school years, but isn’t sure what she will do with the sport once she graduates.
Her
family is still well connected with the sport as her father Roland Scutchings
in a member at large on the board of directors for Speed Skating Saskatchewan,
and her mother Carina Ong-Scutchings is the director of finance for the Lions.
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| Melissa Scutchings, left, enjoys skating with her Lions teammates. |
“I might not do it after high school just because of
university,” said Scutchings. “I might not go to Calgary.
“If I do, I think it will be a lot of fun. It might be a
little bit of a struggle finding somewhere to live close to the Oval, because
everyone wants to live near the university. I might just stay here with the
club and go to university here, so I guess we will see.”
For more information about the Saskatoon Lions Speed Skating Club, feel free to check out their website at www.slspeedskating.com.
