Rink roots - Team GB Coach Richard Shoebridge's call to the next gen

Rinks with National Lottery links
Before Richard’s family moved to Canada when he was 11, he had already got his skates on in the UK.

Richard is now a regular at Nottingham’s National Ice Centre – originally built with £23m of National Lottery money. But his links stretch far and wide.

“My dad was part of the Mohawks - it was Birmingham Mohawks back then, now it's Solihull Mohawks.”

Solihull Mohawks have had a couple of small grants from Sport England using National Lottery funds: one helped the club during COVID, the other covered sessions for young people to get into speed skating.

Big picture, over 250 ice and snow sport clubs around the UK have received National Lottery money over the years.

O Canada to Team GB
“I grew up skating in the Canadian system and eventually came back over to here to compete in the Great Britain team. Over in Canada it’s like every single person knows how to skate, not speed skate but skate. That's the culture. Here we're lucky if we get a hundred people registered for the British Championships.”

Coaching Team GB’s short track speed star Niall Treacy 
“I started coaching at the beginning of 2017 – developing Niall. In fact, Niall came with me to my first ever competition as a coach. We've been through quite the journey together.” A journey poised to grow to new heights after Niall’s (literally) crashed out of the Milano-Cortina chase for medals.

As a nation, do we punch above our weight on the ice?
“We do well in this country, for the limited amount of people that we have competing in the sport we always seem to get a few to the top level. It's not all down to me as a coach - there are people running the club system in this country and so on. Together we produce some phenomenal athletes."

"Canada has thousands of speed skaters, same with Korea - their bases are bigger, so they get more top performers. But we've got a relatively high percentage of top performers given the small numbers involved in the sport.”

How's developing the grassroots, or ice roots, going?

“Local clubs like the one at Altrincham are great. My daughter speed skates as well – she's just turned eight. We went together to one of their taster sessions in Altrincham.”

Those taster sessions are funded by a National Lottery grant through Sport England and Richard acknowledges that even small-scale support can make big differences. “The National Lottery funded initiative in Altrincham is great.”

Opportunities to try speed skating are not always easy to find in every part of the UK. But when they are within reach, Richard urges people to get on the ice.

"My daughter now comes to the club sessions here (National Ice Centre, Nottingham). Every week, we've got probably 10 to 15 regular youngsters – a close-knit group, really cool to see.”

“And we brought our other daughter down to the ice in Nottingham – she’s three and really likes skating – a great hour on the ice.”

Get your skates on
“We always look to pull more people into the sport. We just had a young boy start at the Nottingham club. He saw speed skating for the first time and loved it. He kept telling his parents, ‘I wanna try speed skating’ until he showed up one Sunday. And he brought a friend who now also wants to come speed skating.”

Need for speed
The speed of this dynamic sport is a major attraction for people at all ages. Richard shows a pair of speed skates with blades much longer than you see in figure-skating.

“Anytime we do public sessions, I try and get people to try on speed skates. They always go, ‘oh, what are those?’ Then, ‘why are your blades so long?’. And then they watch speed skating and go, ‘wow, you go so much faster’. That’s often when people wanna come try speed skating and get involved.”