Terence Kowalchuk, a member of the Medicine Hat Skateboard Association, and Chris Nickel, the Association's president, are impressed with how the association has grown over 10 years.
“It was overpopulated,
it became a safety issue, and we needed an indoor park for
winter,” said Nickel.
In 2005, the Association began raising funds and were able to build an indoor park on Industrial Avenue.
By CHARLES LEFEBVRE
Chris Nickel knows all too well about every stereotype skateboarders face.
“The feeling I got was people’s views on skateboarders were they were intentionally vandalizing, they’re bad people, drug users, criminals, thieves, things like that,” the president of the Medicine Hat Skateboard Association said. “I know that wasn’t right. You’re always going to have the bad apple in every group, whether it be skateboarding, hockey players or tennis players. There’s always going to be that.”
In 2014, the Skateboard Association will be celebrating its 10th anniversary, and have progressed substantially during that time. The image of the group has changed considerably as well, from punk ne'er-do-wells to upstanding members of the community.
Members of the MHSA, which numbers between 100 and 150, are active in the community in a number of ways, from bottle drives and education trips, to Skate Skool in the summer, where the new generation of skateboarders are taught.
The association also hosts Beat the Heat, an annual skateboard competition on Canada Day. The park is painted, speakers are set up, and hundreds of skateboarders from across the prairie provinces tear up the skate park, competing for $10,000 in cash and prizes. The event always draws a crowd, ranging from skaters and their families and friends, to curious onlookers.
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Nickel has been a member of the group since the beginning and says the group was created as a result of the growing popularity of the sport.
“We created the group to bring awareness to skateboarding as not just as hobby or a pastime, but as a way of life, and bring to light that the people in the skateboarding community are helpful,” he said. “They can do more than just skateboard in your front yard and sidewalk.”
Terence Kowalchuk, a member of the organization and a volunteer, joined a year after the organization has started and joined to help improve the image of skateboarders and skateboarding in Medicine Hat.
“That was really part of the foundation of why I got involved and was helping out,” he said.
Over the years, the association has raised funds for a number of community groups and also have left a mark on the community by hosting Skate Skools, where older skaters teach young kids the basics of skating. They have also been on homebuilding trips to Africa and Mexico and have volunteered in Aboriginal communities in the province.
In the early days, the Association skated out of the Inland Skate Park in Kin Coulee Park which was built in 2000, but the growing number of members caused them to look for a larger space.
2014 REPORT ON SOUTHEAST ALBERTA
“There was real ownership taken by the young people,” said Kowalchuk. “This wasn’t a park a company gave them, they really felt it was our part. Alongside builders, they swung the hammer.”
“There were so many benefits coming out of that. Today, we’re seeing kids who started back then who are now welders, or in carpentry.”
The indoor park got a lot of use out of the members and visitors from out of town.
“We had skateboarders come from across the country to skate in it, it was one of the best indoor parks in Canada,” said Kowalchuk.
Use of the building ceased in January 2011, after snow from a blizzard collapsed the roof.
“That was a home to a lot of these kids. It was their home, their clubhouse, it was a safe place for them,” said Nickel.
The members met a week after the loss of the park, and decided to not dwell on it, and do a bottle drive for the women’s shelter. Community involvement is a key element of the Skate Association.
“Last May, we took a team to Winnipeg,
and stopped on the way in Regina to volunteer at a food bank,” said Kowalchuk. “We’re seeing what we’ve started here, actually other communities of skateboarders getting involved. A group from Edmonton and a group from Calgary partnered with us on the trip to Winnipeg.”
“These kids were just selflessly helping and it was just great to see,” said Nickel.
The community work likely helped the association receive funding to expand the Inland Skatepark. The city and the province each chipped in to make it a reality, along with organizations such as Cenovus and the Kinsmen Club of Medicine Hat, whose name adorns the park.
“We thought we’d reach out to the community we had helped out to see what would happen and the response was incredible,” said Nickel, who can remember having doors slammed in his face when they first started their bottle drives and fundraising. “It was awesome to see the community give back to these kids.”
“It was a perfect ending to what we had going on at that time because these kids had been doing so much and they hadn’t asked for anything,” said Kowalchuk. “When we finally did, they felt that what they had done had really made a difference and it was really encouraging to them.”
The park was constructed in spring of 2013 and was ready for use in time for Beat the Heat. Throughout the summer and fall, and even during the milder days of winter, the park was used by kids of all ages.
“Kids who had given up skateboarding had come back to skate in the park,” said Kowalchuk.
Nickel said he did not expect the Association to have grown the way it has over the past decade.
“I thought, ’let’s get this going so maybe the city will help us with a skate park,’ that was my short sightedness 10 years ago, that’s how I thought,” he said. “Now that it’s happened, it’s overwhelming and it’s cool.” ■
Skaters take passion from the board to community
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