🏠 Hometown: Fredericton, New Brunswick
⛷️ Years coaching: 20th season coaching. I spent 15 years before that as an instructor.
🎖️ Licenses/Certs: Performance Level Certified, with an Advanced coaching diploma, Level 3 Officials, learning facilitator, evaluator, and mentor.
👤 Currently coaching: I am doing more coach education, as opposed to coaching a particular group of athletes.
🔎Coaching experience: Nancy Greene Ski League through to a FIS race, Whistler Cup, and Canada Games with a Para-athlete. Coached ski school as well.
☃️ First stepped on snow: Age 16 or 17. I never raced. Friends were going skiing and I went, but did not take a lesson that first time.
✍🏽 Phrases of guidance:
Coaches, never give up on an athlete. We have no idea what we can do or how we as coaches are making a positive impact on them.
Athletes, if you want something, a goal or a skill, find the support you need and just go for it. You never know and there are no limits.
Michele’s favourites…
🌄 Mountain: Wow I don’t know. I love all the hills in NB. They all have their own special thing. I love Marble Mountain in NL but, to be more neutral, I love Sunshine Village.
🍳 Breakfast: Eggs, bacon, coffee, Danish, tator tots (iykyk). This is the breakfast we get when we work the Lake Louise World Cup races.
🎞️ Memory: There are so many incredible times. I went to Chile in 2008 with the Ski Québec teams. I love it when an athlete achieves something they have worked hard for. I was at Lake Louise when Erik Guay did his retirement run and Manny Osborne-Paradis. I loved helping host the Canada Games Alpine events at Crabbe Mountain and the SX events at Brookvale in PEI last year.
☃️ What are you doing within the ski community?
As of this past fall, Ski New Brunswick created a new position, Director of Coach and Officials Education, one I fulfill and love so far. I get to coach the coaches and provide training opportunities. I am working towards being a Master Coach Developer for Alpine. I teach the Level 1 and Level 2 Alpine Officials courses and, as of recently, I am a National Technical Delegate.
💡What ski racing taught you, one sentence?
I can do some cool and fun things, travel the world, and be part of creating amazing opportunities for those around me.
🤩 Fun Fact?
I am a Lake Louise Sled Dog. That is so much fun working on the World Cup track. I have some amazing friends from that experience. I look forward to that race being back on the schedule. The Sled Dogs are a special group. But I have discovered that any group of people that are involved in ski racing are a special group. I work with folks here in NB, PEI, and NL mainly as well as the ski community in NS. They are all amazing, special, and do great things.
