INUVIK
The partnership between the Top of the World Sportsmen's Club and the Inuvik Youth Centre paid off with two medals at a recent championship in Yellowknife.

Jozef Semmler, left, Christine Day, Chris Garven, Jaylene Ruben and Renee Theoret travelled to Yellowknife recently to represent Inuvik at a territorial shooting competition. Ruben and Theoret both won medals. - photo courtesy of Chris Garven

Jaylene Ruben, a new shooter, and Renee Theoret, the outgoing executive

director of the centre, won bronze and silver medals April 18 at the Northwest Territories Federation of Shooting Sports Territorial

Airgun Competition in Yellowknife.

Chris Garven, one of the instructors from the sportsmen's club, said he was more than pleased with the results, which have grown out of weekly sessions held at the youth centre for interested participants.

"It's a great facility," Garven said enthusiastically.

"We can set up in 10 minutes and then take it down in 20 minutes or so ... we have to gather up the pallets afterwards."

The program has been running for approximately three years, beginning under previous leadership at the centre.

Garven and Rick Lindsay are the primary instructors, and 2015 marks the third year they've held qualifying competitions for the tournament.

Ruben, the sole youth competitor on the team to win a medal, said she is excited about the progress she's made.

"I think shooting is fun because when I get good at it, I can go hunting," she said.

She's never been hunting, but is enthusiastic about the idea. Needless to say, she plans to continue working with the program at the youth centre.

"It's a very valuable partnership," Theoret said, "and a cultural project as well for us and the gun club."

Theoret said she has some small experience with shooting, but attributed her success to the chance to practice at the weekly sessions with Garven and Lindsay.

"I was in the army cadets but only for a month when I was 14," she explained.

"I did go to army base camp where I came in second place for target shooting, but I haven't shot since then."

Garven said that most people's idea of airgun shooting likely doesn't match up with the reality of the competition.

"People are using $1,000 guns at this," he said. "It's serious shooting."

He said the partnership with the centre was vital for the development of the sport in town. It gives the participants a set time and location, providing the consistency needed to work at developing their shooting skills.

"We've done very, very well with it," he said.

"We're building on it every year, and getting a little bit better.

"We're going to keeping working on it, and we're changing the program up a little bit, We're going to start a separate time for the really interested shooters, likely before the others come in, so we can have a progression instead of everyone shooting at once."

He finished not far out of the medals himself, even while battling an arm problem he called "frozen shoulder" that restricts his mobility and steadiness.

The five members of the team all placed in the top eight in the categories they competed in, which Garven said was remarkable.

"It was very close on the selection process," he said. "There were maybe half-a-dozen points between the ones that qualified and the ones that were eliminated. That's astounding. I'm very pleased with the performance."

Ruben and Theoret shot in the "high 300s and low 400s," Garven said.

The official scores haven't been released yet.

"It was a combination of the coaching and the kids being dedicated enough to come out regularly. That really made a difference. The kids that show up once in a while did not shoot as well, and it was obvious why. It was because they weren't getting the practice in."

"With the ones who show up regularly, we can correct the mistakes they're making little by little. If we have to start from scratch every week, it makes the job a lot harder."

Seven people vied for the five spots, which Garven was pleased with.

He said the Yellowknife team sent either six or seven shooters, and considering the difference in population, "we're doing pretty good."

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