​The Madison Coaches wanted to recognize and announce our 2020 season awardees and celebrate our first time competitors!

Congrats to our First Time Competitors!

​After several deliberations, we are proud to announce the following; 

Most-Improved: Reid Grice
The Most-Improved award goes to an active athlete in our club that has shown tremendous improvement in the sport over the past season.

Reid has continued to grow in skill, character, attitude, and sportsmanship. At the beginning of the season Reid would beg to know when practice would end and now he wants our ice time to be longer. He also helps teach new athletes how to be comfortable on the ice, have fun, and build skill. Reid shows more and more confidence each time he is on the ice and even built up the courage to compete at a few competitions this year! All season he has been working on his cross-overs and the second week into summer session, he got it down and they look awesome! So Proud of you! ~Coach Mary 

Coaches’ Award: Dennis Hegge
The Coach’s Award goes to an active member of our club who is second to the coach. Someone who is always taking the initiative and stepping up to to help athletes, families, and prospective members on/off the ice and helping to make the coaches’ vision reality.  

Dennis is always helping the club out. Even though he was unable to skate much this year do other commitments or injury, is always the first to volunteer and show up. He is helped with the numerous moving of crash pads from rink to rink, Learn to Skate Program, Dryland, Master’s Membership Recruitment, and More. Dennis, you are often behind the scenes but have been essential to the success our our club. Thank you. ~Coach Sarge

Jim Carrow Award: Not Awarded

Semper Fidelis Award: Jack Schnor 
As the Team USA Volunteer Coach of the Year, Coach Sarge wanted to give back to MSSC, Inc. who was fundamental in his achievement by awarding a new award in honor of his experiences in the military that has helped shape him into who he is today. As a Marine Corps veteran, Dan lives by the motto “adapt and overcome” and is always faithful to his family, team and country.  His dedication and passion to the sport and the club is evident and he wants to acknowledge others that exemplify the characteristics of semper fidelis within the team. By awarding the “Semper Fidelis Award (meaning “always faithful”) at the Madison Speedskating Club. The award goes to an active member within the club that portrays strong dedication, loyalty, and perseverance while in the club and sport.

Jack Schnor displayed the characteristics of the award. To adapt and overcome is a characteristic that can not be taught, it is one that you just do. Jack, did just that this entire year. He chose to come to Madison and become part of our family, to help coach, and to get more ice time! He has endured an awful lot this year, from competing in his first year skating American Cups with the top skaters in the world, to family commitments. Many obstacles hit him and he just found a way to adapt and overcome these obstacles. He has always kept his spirits high, worked as hard as he could, and kept moving forward. He strives to get better and join a national team but also is loyal to the Madison team by earning his coaching certificate and helping on and off the ice, as well as acting as a role model to newer skaters.  It gives me great pleasure to award this to him! Congrats Jack on a well-deserved accomplishment! ~Coach Sarge and Coach Mary

Scholarship Fund Creation: Additionally, there will be new scholarship fund developed for athletes in financial need in recognition of the Semper Fi awardee to improve the opportunity for all athletes to develop in self, team, and country through the Marine Corps values and Olympian principles by incorporating the values of honor, courage, and commitment, with the passion for sport to build community. 

So proud of everyone! Congrats on your Achievements!

~Madison Coaches

Summer Cross-Training is essential to stay fit and be ready for next fall. Each week Madison coaches will send exercises through Team Snap. Also check out our new YouTube Channel Playlists for Dryland, Flexibility, and Core Exercises..

With some creativity, We are optimistically offering summer season cross-training- social distancing version. Coaching Staff will provide weekly workouts through team snap– Including Cardio, flexibility and mobility, and dryland. Keep an eye out each week’s training. So even if you can’t make it in person, you can keep active this summer.

We are going to try and offer social distance training this summer including, Please add your availability on teamsnap, follow social distancing measures, and wear a face-mask (running buffy or face gaitors are great!) Email madisonspeedskatingclub@gmail.com if you are interested in attending or joining TeamSnap.

-Outdoor Inline Rollerblading (bring your own equipment)

-Possibly virtual competition with team members

-Dryland (with google meet or zoom virtual option)

-Ice Practice (20 skater max) Practice Start: 8:00am–Drop In Fee: Club members : $10 per person. Non-Club members: $25 per person

MSSC helped Alumni and Olympian, Casey FitzRandolph demonstrate short track speedskating at the Frozen Asset Festival, this past weekend (Feb 8th, 2020). Conor Greene and Mathew Voegeli helped on the ice and many other MSSC team mates were watching from the side. We couldn’t have asked for better weather and the turnout to the event was great (check out that crowd)! Thanks Casey for letting us help you out!

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Reid Grice

Jack Schnor, one of our adopted skaters from Glen Elyn, IL broke his PB in the 1000m this am at the Am Cup in Salt Lake City, Utah. He skated a 1:36 and change, which set him for the next round and making him currently the 2nd fastest 2nd place.

“Jack, said it is pretty amazing skating with and against all of these skaters.”

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Very excited to be competing in his first Am Cup. Final results yet to come… We are proud of you Jack!

 

Thank you Park Ridge Club and volunteers for Hosting such a great meet!  It is such a fun and friendly competition to learn and practice the basics of racing.

Madison showed up in force!

Our team had 6 skaters compete (We were the 3rd largest team at the meet) and Team MSSC brought home several awards and many PB’s…..

Results

Coach Mary (Masters) 1st place, skated an had 2 PB’s

Conor  (Pony’s) – the largest group (13) -1st place, fighting off some fierce competition in the finals.

Ried G (Pee Wee boys) – (6 Skaters) 2nd place, battling back after a fall to claim 2nd place!

Callie (Tiny Tots) – 3rd place, just joined team MSSC and skated so well coming over from Figure Skating

Will S (Pony Boys) skating in the largest group at the meet. Will also plays Hockey but was able to make it to his 1st (ST) “A” final

Daniel (Pony Boys) – Also skating in the largest group at the meet. Just miss making it to an A final… but came away with several PB’s!

Very Proud of how well all skated this weekend. This was a very well run meet and quick turn around for races well done to all. I have attached the times for all to review.

Suggestion from Coach Mary and Coach Sarge

Please write down times so you know when the hit a PB (Personal Best). Coach Mary has some extra not books to keep track of them. Several of our skaters use them now, but being that some are new we can show you how to do it:)

Since participating in competition is part of a skater’s development, I always encourage beginners to compete as part of their own personal growth as skaters.

As your skater progresses up the ladder they will want to know these. + it helps us to know when they get a PB

Team MSSC rocked! Well Done

USOPC Volunteer Coach of the Year DAN GREENE and USOPC Doc Counsilman Award winner  ANDREW STUART

Each year US Speedskating offers it’s members the opportunity to submit nominations in various categories of coaching. The USS Coaching Task Force selects the best candidate to put forth to a national pool of coaches the USOPC selects the national winners from. Past USOPC winners include: Cindi Hart, Carl Cepuran, Tom Miller and Diane Holum.

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The Volunteer Coach of the Year is presented to a coach who does not receive payment in any form for their involvement in coaching at any level. A volunteer coach at the Madison Speedskating Club, Greene has demonstrated commitment and passion for speedskating that has elevated both his athletes and club to the next level. After enduring a stroke in 2018, Greene became a certified US Speedskating coach in less than six months. He teaches athletes how to build tailored roadmaps for success and goes beyond to make speedskating accessible by donating equipment to help skaters achieve their goals. Last year, Greene’s club saw seven skaters compete in their first meet, 10 compete at regional competitions and eight qualify for the age-class short track national championships. He strives to provide resources to up-and-coming clubs to help build and sustain the sport in the Midwest and across the U.S.

https://www.teamusa.org/News/2019/December/10/US-Olympic-Paralympic-Committee-Honors-Supporting-Coaches-Of-The-Year-For-2019

Not a member of MSSC? Are you or a friend interested in learning to speedskate? We are offering a 2nd session of Learn to Speedskate through our local park and recreation departments. Check us out and Sign up with the link below. 

All ages welcome (7yrs -75yrs)

https://apm.activecommunities.com/fitchburg/Activity_Search/4076

 

Good Evening:

I just wanted to send out an update about the Long Track meet today! Wow, did not only Madison Show up but put up some very impressive results. I so proud of all of you who skated today.

Once again, we had more skaters at this meet than we have had in several years. Several skaters skated in there very first meet ever. There were alot of races and all or you skated so hard.

Here is the order of finish:  Madison had 4 skaters in one group! What a competitive group, way to go! These skaters battled every race. So proud of you 4 well done 3 of you had your first meet….

Penguins 

• Daniel – 1st place -He won all 6 races
• Reid -2nd place (His very first meet)
• Will – 4th place (his very first meet as well) he just missed 3rd
• Louisa – 5th place (her very 1st meet as well)

Narwhals:  Conor, skated to a 3rd place finish, skating in one of the largest groups I believe his group had 13+ skaters. We done, Coach Elise from IL commented on ” How Awesome Conor’s form was”

Polar Bears:  Matthew, Blazed to a first place finish. He had to kind of back off on the starts and then his technical skating took over. Well out distancing the field! He won all of his races from start to finish! This group also had 10+ skaters in it

Seals: Jack, once again, skated in the fastest group of skaters. His overall finish was 3rd. However the Highlight was his PB and 2nd place in the 500m, scorching the track at 42:990. That is playing with the big guns. Also 10+ Skaters!

Walruses: This featured coach Mary skating to a 4th place finish. She overcame some struggles with her equipment to pull our 2 exciting 3rd place results in the final 2 races.

One of the highlights for me this weekend was Diane one of our older skaters(68) entered the meet with a goal to skate lower and faster than she has in the past. She was skating with folks half her age. She was hanging in there. She hit her goal, the lowest and fastest I have seen her skate this year!

Congrats goes out to all. Next meet we get even more, I had several folks tell me it looked like we had Madison skaters all over the place and are excited with the growth of our team!

Congrats and have a great weekend, thanks to all of you who sent there congrats on the US Olympic Award, so many of you were instrumental in helping me achieve this amazing goal. Stay tuned press releases are coming soon. This award is great for our club!

Coach Sarge