P.A. youth hone wrestling skills with national coach

A Winnipeg coach who wrestled at Carlton Comprehensive High School several years ago, travelled from Winnipeg to Prince Albert to host a training camp over the weekend.

Teenagers from St. Mary and Carlton High School, alongside some Prince Albert Wrestling Clubs all came together to train in a three-day camp from Dec. 27-29.

“There [are] also athletes here from Meadow Lake; there [are] athletes from Wilkie, Saskatchewan that have travelled quite a distance so … that’s really nice to see … not only the local community benefitting but the sport within the province, that’s very promising,” said Adrian Bruce, the head coach of the University of Winnipeg Wesmen wrestling program, as well as a coach with Canada’s National wrestling team.

Bruce said he has a lot of good memories from wrestling when he attended Carlton, he also remembers the kindness of the people in Prince Albert.

 “I genuinely feel I have a debt of gratitude to that community, there were a lot of great people over the years that did a lot of great things to help me find my path to success in this sport and I feel that I need to pay that forward,” he said.

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With this debt in mind Bruce said it was important that he follow through with the offer to host this training camp, even though his schedule was packed and it was an expensive trip.

 “I called them [Carlton] back and I said we’re going to put it in our schedule and we’re not going to charge anything, you know we just come up, we normally charge quite a bit for these camps, but this is a way for us to give back to that community that gave to us,” he said.

This is the second year Bruce has made the trip to Prince Albert, but he didn’t make the trip alone. Brock Munro is in his third year at the University of Winnipeg where he wrestles on team Wesmen. Munro said when he had the opportunity to come back to Prince Albert for the second year, he had to take it.

“Being from Prince Albert … the opportunities like this weren’t around really when I was in high school,” he said. “I find that just coming back here is being able to give back to all the young high school kids and allow them to pursue their dreams, [it’s] a big deal.”

Although Munro has big goals of qualifying for the 2020 Olympic Games, he said it’s good to be back where he mastered a lot of his skills.

“I like giving back to the community and any chance I get to wrestle back in the old high school, it’s a chance that I don’t want to miss,” he said.

Last year’s camp trained around 20 participants and this year the club saw another good turnout. Bruce said his job during the camp is to teach the skills mandatory for the athletes to ultimately succeed in the sport.

“It’s such a gratifying feeling to come back and have these kids leave that camp at the end of it and you see how their season progresses and you see the success that they find you know and to think that you may have had a small part, it’s very rewarding,” he said.

kbruch@panow.com

On Twitter: @KaylaBruch1