The new Columbus Ice Rink isn’t just for the Cottonmouths hockey team. The new center has hockey camps and skating clinics for adults and kids.
The Snakes not only use the facility as a practice rink for themselves, the hockey players also lead clinics and workshops for the public.
The rink was built to help youngsters like Brandon Weeks, 10, of Smiths Station. He’s only been skating for a couple of months, and he just completed the Learn to Skate Clinic. He hopes with practice to get good enough to play hockey.
His mother, Amanda, said Brandon was initially starstruck since Cottonmouths players were helping lead the clinic. But he found his footing and gained confidence in his skating by the end of the clinic.
“This is awesome,” she said. “I was very impressed with the cost. It’s just wonderful.”
Cottonmouths general manager and coach Jerome Bechard was at the Learn to Skate clinic last Saturday morning. He was helping camp director and Snakes goaltender Ian Vigier on the ice.
Bechard was pleased to hear Brandon’s story.
“One of our goals was to start a hockey school,” Bechard said. “Hockey is a semi-expensive sport and this will let parents see if their children like it before investing money.”
Once a child decides he or she likes skating and learn basic hockey skills in the Learn to Play clinic, the next step is to join the Youth Hockey League.
Right now, there are about 160 to 180 kids playing in the league.
“I’m hoping to have 300 to 400 in the next year,” Bechard said.
Summer Hockey Clinics began in early June, but people can still sign up at a prorated fee. The fees are $52-$95 (before proration).
Beginner Hockey Camps begin in July.
Cool spot
Bechard calls the Ice Rink “the best place to be in the summer. It’s always 65 degrees in here.”
He chose Vigier to run the clinics and camps for a couple of reasons.
“He stays in Columbus all year ’round because he married a Columbus girl,” Bechard said. “He’s been here five years. He’s done hockey camps and he is good with kids.”
Vigier, who has a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology (the study of human movement) from Canada’s University of Manitoba, has more than five years of teaching experience.
He’s hoping that classes can be taught all year.
“It’s a beautiful facility,” Vigier said. “It’s one of the nicest practice rinks I’ve been in. Keeping ice 12 months out of the year is a big asset. We’ll try to do as many Learn to Skate sessions” as possible.
Eventually, both men hope to develop a young skater who will go on to receive a hockey scholarship at a Division I school and maybe even go to the National Hockey League.
‘Anyone’ can skate
Bechard expects young skaters who enroll in July’s camps will learn a lot from Orrin Hergott, one of the fastest skaters in the Southern Professional Hockey League. Hergott will be one of the camps instructors. Joining him will be Jesse Cole and Sam Bowles.
Vigier said all first-time skaters, children and adults, must face one fear when they get on the ice.
“The biggest thing to get rid of is the fear of falling,” he said. “We have them first walking and once they get more comfortable, they can skate. We can teach anyone to skate. Anyone.”
Easy for him to say. Vigier grew up in Canada, on a farm in rural Manitoba, where children learn to walk and skate at the same time.
“We would be on the ice until it got too dark or they called us in for dinner,” he said. “We already have a handful of rink rats (kids who stay on the ice as long as possible).”
For rink rats, it’s not all about being on the ice. It’s watching others skate, practice and play games.
In the clinics, they have some skaters in their 50s as well as children around 4 years old.
