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Alberta Marlin Aquatic Club (AMAC)
Over 50 years ago AMAC was established by passionate Medicine
Hat families and their love of swimming. In those days, swimmers
travelled by bus to practices in the city of Ralston which
contained our area’s closest indoor pool. Today the club has
grown to become the largest year round swim program in the Medicine
Hat area encompassing swimmers from learn-to-swim to master
swimmers in their 70’s and we practice at the most advanced
training facility in southest Alberta.
A hallmark of AMAC is the strong teaching of the fundamentals of
swimming while attempting to keep it fun and creating an
enviornment where every athlete is part the team. Many former
swimmers continue the sport as adults for fitness or health and
have come through our program. A majority of swimmers participating
in our national group have gone on and swam at the University
level. A majority of those received athletic scholarships or were
aided by their swimming career in consideration for admission. This
national program is unique in our city and only AMAC offers this
training program for its older and more advanced swimmers. This is
made possible by the close proximately to CHHS which aids in the
early morning and early afternoon practices for these student
atheletes. The current landscape to be competitive with clubs in
larger city centre's such as Edmonton, Calgary, and across the
country requires our swimmers to compete against programs who spend
30%-40% more training time in the pool then our athletes. The club
has found a happy compromise by using specialized advanced
instruction and a swim centric dryland program to offset those
advantages. We feel that less time in the pool with more quality
time spent in instruction is what has given the club its unique
ability to compete with larger clubs. In recent years, the AMAC
coaching experience has evolved into custom and long term
specialized plans for each swimmer.
This methodology has resulted in numerous National Champions
over the years at both the age group (15 and under) and senior
levels (15+). In recent years, the club has produced over 10
national champions in various events and is a perennial favorite to
win provincial banners at the Alberta Provincial Championship with
its most recent title in the 2016 Long Course season!
At the international level, the club has also found success and
most recently our club had Richard Hortness making Team Canada for
the 2008 Olympics in the 50m free and in 2012 as a member of the
4x100m freestyle relay team at the Olympic games in London. Tianna
Rissling earned a spot on the Canadian National team for Worlds in
2011 and just missed joining her teammate at the 2012 London
Olympic Games. Through the years, the club has been able to attract
and retain nationally renowned coaches such as Aaron Dahl who went
on to become a perennial fixture in Canada’s National
coaching staff out of Victoria. Peter Schori whose AMAC program was
our most successful to date revolutionized and designed the
national and junior programs during his decade in Medicine Hat. He
recently took over for the University of Lethbridge and held
numerous positions with Canada's National coaching squad while at
AMAC.
While AMAC has had success and continues to have success at the
advanced levels, the club is a great
starting point for any swimmer at any level and offers a
program for any age or experience. The club continues
to strive to keep costs lower for all swimmers in Medicine Hat by
hosting and operating numerous invitational and provincial swim
meets to help reduce the cost to all Medicine Hat swimming
parents who might otherwise incur larger travel expenses if these
local meets were not offerred. In addition to operating 4-5 swim
meets each year, we help the city hosts summer games by managing
the swim portion of those games at the FLC.
The club trains and operates out of Medicine Hat Family Leisure
Centre (FLC). This facility boasts a super fast, 8 lane, 50 metre
competition pool with weight room facilities. We
are fortunate to have Crescent Heights High School directly
across from our training facility which allows the older swimmers
to walk as a group to the FLC after school for training and still
be home by 6:30pm.
The City has recently approved a $36 million dollar expansion to
the FLC including field house, more pool seating, and even better
fitness facilities. Construction is slated to begin May 2014 and
conclude August 2016. With the city support and an improved
facility, AMAC will continue to thrive for many years to come.
About Medicine Hat
Medicine Hat is a beautiful city of 60,000 people, nestled on
the banks of the South Saskatchewan river in south eastern Alberta.
It resides only an hour from the Cypress Hills and the U.S. Border,
with 3 hours to Calgary and the Rocky Mountains as well. Medicine
Hat is known as the sunniest city in Canada and boasts one of the
most reasonable real estate markets in Alberta.
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