Lethbridge Sport Council announces Achievement Awards

By Lethbridge Herald on March 8, 2024.

Herald photo by JUSTIN SEWARD The Lethbridge Sport Council Achievment Award recipients for 2023.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

Lethbridge Sport Council announced its list of 18 athletes that were  recipients of their  Achievement Awards for 2023 earlier this week.   

The recipients were awarded because of  their achievements and contributions to the local community.

Braeson Schacher was the recipient of the Athlete with a Disability Award.

Schacher is an athlete that found the podium in the  CrossFit Open, represented his country at the World Disabled Waterski Championships and was named the 2023 Male Adaptive Development of the Year for his sport by Watre Ski and Wakeboard Canada.

“First of all, I was honoured,” said Schacher.

“I was really excited and then honestly my strongest feeling was alright we’re where we’re supposed to be, (and) keep going because it was like the recognition that you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing.”

He volunteers and is a mentor.

Schacher wants to be a role model for those that may be in his shoes.

“I’ve got my own story, and we all have our own stories and we all can believe in ourselves,” he said.

“But if I can inspire others and instill a little belief and faith then that’s exactly what I hope that I can do.”

Schacher spoke about what training is like in both the sports.

“With both of them, as we all know, to get it to a high level of anything, it requires a lot of effort (and) a lot of time,” he said.

“So with waterskiing, since you only have a certain amount of time that you can actually use the lake and utilize that, it’s more of a thinking process … Obviously with the CrossFit, you have your  programming and your different training implementation, and how that comes about is going to either guarantee or not guarantee your success in the end.”

Gord Cox shared the Volunteer in Sport Award with Kurt Parks for their involvement ringette.

Cox has served Lethbridge Ringette board for six years and was the director of ice allocation and was a coach and official.

“It’s pretty humbling,” said Cox.

“(I have) been doing this for a lot of years and we work with a lot of great people (and) to be recognized out (of) all of them, it’s pretty cool.”

Cox got involved in the sport through his kids.

“It became seeing where I could help out,” he said.

“ There’s lots of very cool people involved with it, it was a very welcoming community, so just sort of wanted to be a part of that and to contribute where I could. And the more you get involved with it, the more you see what needs to be done and you step up and help them do it.”

Cox said it’s been a steady growth.

“We’ve been growing over the years,” said Cox.

“We’ve had the most teams in some of our younger divisions ever, we’re fielding more competitive teams at higher levels. So, yeah, it’s been a fantastic growth.”

Other awards include: Westwind gymnast Amalia Yavitu (Junior Female Athlete), Owen Parker (Junior Male Athlete), Jamie Brown (Senior Female Athlete), Cooper Williams (Senior Male Athlete), Michael Wagner (Master Athlete), Moriah Van’t Land (Special Olympics), U13AA Lethbridge Hurricanes (Amateur Team), Jennifer Cochrane (Coaching Excellence Community Coach), Caroline Reimer (Coaching Excellence High Performance), Francis Rankin (Officiating Excellence), Dr. Gary Bowie Sport Event Excellence – Lethbridge Curling Club and General Manager Kirk Mearns, Alan Hansen (Shaun Ward Sport Champion), Angela Mann (Sport Administrator), Zane Chief Moon (Servus Credit Union Outstanding Sport Citizen) and Kamryn Sandberg (Knud Petersen Spirit in Sport).

The awards ceremony is on April 16 at the Enmax Centre beginning at 7 p.m.

Tickets can be purchased at http://www.cognitoforms.com/LethbridgeSportCouncil1/LSCAATickets2024.