StettlerLocal.com October 26, 2021, contributed by Haley, Braydon, and Farrah of the Wm.E.Hay Stettler Nockbusters
Our season started on October 12th, where we began teaching our brand new archers safety and how to shoot our Genesis bows. The first practice is always a little bit chaotic because we have to assess all of our new archers for eye dominance, their draw weight, and of course, teach them the safety protocols to ensure that no one gets hurt.
After the first practice held for our first-year Nockbusters, the following practices brought our returning archers. We have two separate practices; a Junior and a Senior high practice. Currently, there are 22 Junior and 34 Senior high archers, but people can still sign up if they want to join the team! In each practice, we do a variety of different activities that help us to improve our shot. We have four coaches: Head Coach Tanja Bessette-Heatherington, Assistant Coach and Equipment Manager Jefferson McClung, Assistant Coach Jacquelin Sayles and Consulting Coach Jessa Heatherington.
All of our coaches and archers are very excited to get back into the gym. We are hoping that we can have a regular archery season this year. When Covid started, archery tournaments were shut down, and we could no longer compete in person. We attended three virtual tournaments last year. This year (as of now), we are hoping to have a somewhat regular season which usually includes five tournaments, Provincials and Nationals. Technically, we still hold the first place High School provincial title as there has not been a provincial since 2019. Even though we can go to tournaments and things are potentially back to normal, we still have to follow Covid protocols to keep everyone safe. One that was quite a struggle to get used to last year was mask-wearing. Another challenge was not having all of our team in the gym at one time; we could only have ten people in the gym, and everyone had to wear masks. It took some time to get used to, especially for our older archers that previously shot without them. We have overcome all of the obstacles that we have faced. We had many archers place in their grade levels at the tournaments we did attend. Ourselves, our coaches, and all of the archers look forward to the coming year and are very excited to share it with you as well!
