B.C. city looks to cement status as speed skating powerhouse with new college program

Fort St. John is known for exporting power, grain and — in the right circles — speed skaters.

The northeast B.C. city of just over 21,000 people calls itself "The Energetic City," not only because of its resource base of oil and natural gas but also because it prides itself on its youth, boasting its residents are on average nine months younger than the average in B.C.

Those youth are catered to at the Pomeroy Sports Centre, a facility that hosts two NHL-sized ice rinks and, on its second floor, one of only three Olympic-sized indoor speed skating ovals in Canada, and just a handful in North America.

WATCH | A promotional video for the Pomeroy Sports Centre: 

And it's here that the city plans to host what is believed to be the first college speed skating program in the country, building on the community's long legacy of punching above its weight when it comes to the winter sport.

"We're absolutely excited," said Jessie Drew, vice-president of community relations at Northern Lights College (NLC), which is spearheading the program. "We are looking for students from across Canada and the world who want to come and study with us."

In partnership with the city, the program will allow students to take trades or university classes while also training as part of the NLC speed skating team.

They will receive access to coaches, physiotherapists and up to five ice sessions every week, in addition to their regular studies, with the goal of moving on to higher-level skate programs — offered in Quebec City and Calgary, which host the other two Olympic-sized indoor ice ovals in Canada.

The oval in Richmond, B.C., used in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, has been converted to other uses.

Denny Morrison, seen above at Olympic selection trials in 2018, is from Fort St. John. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)

The idea of producing top speed skaters is not a new one for Fort St. John: local Denny Morrison trained in the city for years before moving on to the program in Calgary and becoming an Olympic gold medalist. Another well-known name in the city is Linda Johnson-Blair, who competed for Canada at both the 1994 and 1998 Olympics, the first Olympian from the city.

The Fort St. John Speed Skating Club, formed in 1964, has long produced provincial and national champions and boasts that in 1987, the entire B.C. women's speed skating team was made up of athletes from the city.

"The city has always been amazingly supportive," said Shadi Salehi, president of the Fort St. John Speed Skating Club. Though she's not a skater herself, her 15-year-old daughter is, having fallen in love with the sport when she was just three, and the family was relatively new to the area.

"We were newcomers to Fort St. John and speed skating gave us a community," Salehi said.

"It's not just a sport, it's actually more of a family."

She said the new college-level program will help athletes interested in the sport who are transitioning from clubs like hers to higher-level training currently offered in Calgary and Quebec City.

It isn't the first time that Northern Lights College has spearheaded a unique sport in an effort to attract students.

Five years ago, it launched B.C.'s only college-level rodeo team based in Dawson Creek, just east of Fort St. John, which competes against teams in Saskatchewan, Alberta and the United States. The team has grown to about 30 members and is "very important" for bringing in domestic enrolment, Drew said.

The next step in the speed skating program, she explained, will be much the same as for the rodeo team: getting the word out, recruiting students and then finding other schools to compete against.

"We will be very busy preparing for September 2025," she said.