If you watched all the medal ceremonies held this week at Lakewood Dental Arena, you would have seen a record set.
Team Quebec won every medal for which they were eligible. Nicknamed the Blue Wave, they have always been the province that dominates the short track side of speed skating.
"To our knowledge, this is a Canada Games first," said Jim Allison, president of Speed Skating Canada. "In past Games, somebody from another province gets through somehow, in one or two of the events. This was a Quebec sweep."
The mood was not grudge or despair among the other provinces and the national speed skating body. It was acknowledgment that the challenge is clear: don't knock the Quebec system, study it and replicate it elsewhere.
Who better for the job than one of Canada's Olympic short-track heroes? Eric Bedard was one of the winter sports stars spotlighted in the 2015 Canada Winter Games opening ceremony, and he was also at Lakewood Dental Arena with his notebook in hand.
The four-time Olympic medalist (he medalled at Nagano, Salt Lake and Turin) and seven-time world champion comes from Sainte-Thcle, Que. In 2008 he was hired to be a senior coach for Team Germany, then Team Italy since 2010, and now he has been hired to head up the short track program at the Calgary Olympic Ice Oval. It would call upon his years of coaching abroad, his upbringing steeped in Quebec's best practices, and advance the fortunes of the other provinces and territories.
"Some provinces surprised me, like New Brunswick and Northwest Territories," Bedard said. "Ontario is always good, Alberta, we know that, and we saw flashes from other places - B.C., Manitoba, P.E.I. - so we need to build around those kids, advise and support those coaches. The more we all work together as the other provinces, and look to Quebec - Quebec is more than happy to share their formula - then the stronger we will be as Canada on the international platform."
There is no secret to Quebec's success, said Bedard. The provincial organization cut the province into four regions, and they cut the sport into different levels. Those people who excel in competition are channeled into a focused stream. Those who just want to skate for fun and race for thrills and personal-best times have their opportunities as well.
One official from Speed Skating Canada said the Quebec domination of the sport had perhaps discouraged some communities and some athletes from committing to short track, and Western Canada had plenty of success on the long track side of the sport to show this might be true, but short track is the category most available to Canadians far and wide.
"All you need for short track is a hockey rink. Most communities everywhere in Canada have that. You don't need the big oval," the official said. "So really, if you want to expand your community's recreation opportunities past hockey and maybe figure skating, short track speed skating is standing there practically waving its arms at you."
Allison said Quebec is a densely-populated northern jurisdiction, and communities are older there than the towns and cities of Western Canada. Attention in most provinces was focused so intently on hockey in decades gone by that it's no wonder there was a lacking culture of speed skating.
"In Quebec, they have about 5,500 registered speed skaters. In B.C. we are talking about 780 skaters, long track and short track combined," he said. "That plays a role for sure, but there is a momentum there. Look at the huge audiences here in Prince George for short track, you can sense the excitement about it. We just have to harness it."
"Don't be fooled by the numbers," said Bedard. "There is much more to success than that. Of course Quebec has that big base, but in Italy we had about 300 skaters in the country and we were a threat at the Olympics. Why? Because we took the best and we focused on them. I know in small towns in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, it might be hard to get as much ice time or access to the best coaches, but what about dry-land training? What about training a few more hours per week than you do right now? Or training more days of the week? You have to look at how you can develop your athletes even when it isn't easy to do on the ice."
The successful structures are known, and in many ways already in place outside of Quebec, said Bedard. It was just a matter of the national body doing its best to foster the grassroots base at the club level. He praised Prince George in particular for being a longtime star on the B.C. scene, and Fort St. John's emphasis on speed skating might play a role in short track success up there as well as the long track opportunities.
Allison said he and the B.C. contingent were thrilled that the provincials this year will be held in Vanderhoof in a club that is now 10 years old in that town, after getting enough skaters to break away from scattered partnerships with Fort St. James and Prince George before that.
"If each province learns from Quebec, I think the rest of Canada will close that gap, and the national program will be stronger than it's ever been," said Bedard.
