Pilat crowned female coach of the year

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This article was published 30/03/2020 (2351 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Tanya Pilat spends six days a week on the ice. But as a figure skating coach with a 30-year track record, she doesn’t mind.

The West St. Paul resident had been figure skating since eight years old before she became a professional coach at 16. Now, three decades later, Sport Manitoba has honoured her efforts to develop the sport with its female coach of the year award — for the second time.
She also received the Learn to Train Athletes Dr. Jack Hunt award.

Every year Sport Manitoba recognizes sports excellence at its Night of Champions, but this year’s event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Award recipients were instead announced online on March 21.

“I find that figure skating doesn’t always get the recognition out there. Especially in Canada you hear about the hockey and the football… so it was really nice to see that figure skating was being recognized as having some great athletes and coaches,” Pilat, 46, said.

Pilat joined Century Skating Club in 1993, and 10 years ago moved to East St. Paul Skating Club, where she is the program co-ordinator. She also teaches private lessons to 16 students.
“What puts a smile on my face the most is when I get to the rink and see the kids. But also trying to help the skaters, when they have a goal, realize that goal and maximize their potential,” she said.

“I do have a high degree of technical requirements that I expect all my skaters to learn from. I try to have fun with my skaters and think outside the box when it comes to dealing with each individually because no two skaters are the same, so I can’t expect the techniques to be exactly the same amongst all the skaters.”

Pilat’s passion for figure skating appears to be genetic, as two of her five children are also involved in the sport — one as a coach and another as a competitor. The latter is Pilat’s highest-achieving skater, she said, as she’s performed successful programs at the Canada Winter Games and Skate Canada Challenge.

“It brings a great deal of pride for me. I’m very proud of my kids, all of them and what they’ve achieved in their sports journey and career,” Pilat said.

Over the years Pilat has been working to build up the sport in Winnipeg. But with a dwindling number of athletes, funding ice time has become a challenge.

“The cost of ice rentals across the city has been going up, and provincially as well, so we really struggle with finding ice time and affordable ice time,” she said.

“(I’m) trying to maximize the different programs but share the ice at the same time so that we’re putting more skaters on the ice, and the more you have on the ice the cheaper it can be.”

Five years ago, Pilat launched a six-week long annual summer program in the city’s northern region, making off-season skate practices more accessible to Interlake-area athletes. Before, they had to travel up to two hours one way to a program in Winnipeg’s south end, but that time has since been cut in half, she said.

“That program has really started to recruit new skaters to stay with skating for a longer season, so instead of just going from October until March, they can do some skating in the summer and really start to reinforce some of those skills and get a head start on the season,” Pilat said.

As for the future of figure skating in Manitoba, Pilat said mentorship is key.

“I’m hoping that we continue to see strong development of coaches within our province so that we can continue to work towards trying to have the athletes continue with their passion as well. I think with a strong coach you will get those strong skaters and the passion will continue.

“For us to be able to mentor and be strong mentors for the youth coming up is very important, and it’s one of the parts of my coaching that I take very seriously, is being able to mentor the younger coaches and to have them building that foundation, that grassroots level that I came from for the skaters and for the athletes and within the clubs.”