Joan has been coaching for just over 10 years and has enjoyed every minute of it.  She began coaching with the Salt Spring Island Special Olympics group in 2012.  When she moved back to Alberta in 2018 she continued her coaching with Special Olympics Calgary and has been coaching with them ever since. Joan also swims competitive Masters and competes at local, national and the international level.   She was the training coach for the Alberta swimmer who competed at the Special Olympics World Games in Berlin, Germany who brought home a gold, silver and 4th place. She looks forward to getting to know everyone and helping them with their swimming needs.

Max Kruger started coaching the Cochrane Masters in 2022. He started swimming competitively at 6 years old with the Cochrane Piranhas where he spent every summer training and competing for 11 years (except one missed year due to covid), and 3 years as a coach. He has also spent 5 seasons competing and training with the Cochrane Water Ninjas in Life Saving Sport over the winter. Most of his coaching experience is with younger children as he started his coaching career helping to run a development program for swimmers aged 4-6 with little to no swimming experience for a year with the Piranhas, then moved to Coach his own groups for the last two years of swimmers aged 10-13. Max learned a lot last year from the Masters, and can’t wait to use all that he has learned in my sessions this season! One of his favourite things about coaching with the Masters team is the variety of different skill levels from the swimmers! It keeps Max very excited to try and learn new drills and new ways to explain different techniques. One thing that many of the Masters can attest to about his practices is that he loves drills and technique, so that love for learning and using new drills might not come as a surprise to many of the Masters! Max is currently a student at the University of Calgary studying Mathematics and Education, hoping to be a teacher one day. He loves any type of pet (so if you have any pets, he would love to see pictures)!!!