ESTEVAN - Megan LeBlanc has taken her fitness studio business and has expanded it to provide year-round training opportunities and help people get in shape.
She started her company, Meg LeBlanc Fitness, three years ago, but wanted to do more, so she opened Athlete World, a new gym and athlete training centre with a synthetic ice surface for hockey players to improve shooting and stick-handling skills. She believes the synthetic ice is the only one southeast of Regina.
"It's an extension of what I was doing before, and also adding in more of the athlete development side and the hockey training side of it. Putting in synthetic ice and shooting lanes has been a big addition to the business," said LeBlanc.
Located in a strip mall in the 1300-block of Seventh Street, Athlete World offers personal, group and online training, weight loss programs and other similar services during the day. Starting at 3 p.m., it turns into what she called an "athlete centre" where teams are training. While the simulated ice surface is a drawing card, she works with other sports besides hockey.
She also has an athlete development program for the U11, U13, U15 and U18 levels.
"It's a youth fitness class where you learn how to train like an athlete and just overall how to be healthy, and that runs twice a week, and also, on top of that, if you are a hockey player, you have access to the shooting lanes twice a week," she said. "So basically, you get two workouts and two shooting sessions every week, and if you're not an athlete or if you're not a hockey player, then you just do two workouts."
People can wear skates on the ice surface while they work on their skills, or they can wear shoes.
"It's different than real ice. It's as close as it gets to real ice without it actually being real ice, but you can definitely walk on it a lot easier than if you were to go walk on normal ice," she said.
Still, it feels like a normal ice surface when wearing skates, she said.
LeBlanc's introduction to synthetic ice came when she advanced through the hockey ranks. She took personal training in school and experienced cool facilities throughout North America. LeBlanc came home to Estevan, pondered her dream facility and built it, believing that if she would have had a facility like Athlete World when she was a kid and advancing through the game, it would have helped her skills.
"There's so much potential in the young athletes in Estevan, and this facility and these programs are what allows you to unlock the next level."
After graduating from high school and female minor hockey, LeBlanc went to school in Edmonton and lived there for four years. She played collegiate and university hockey, and she also worked for a professional hockey training company that allowed her to train on and off the ice with every skill level from U11 to the NHL.
"I learned so much there, getting to be able to train with … my boss [Shawn Belle] who used to play in the NHL, so it was cool just learning from those types of people and seeing all those setups there with all of the cool [things] like synthetic ice and having their training facilities literally designed to train athletes," said LeBlanc.
While she enjoyed living in Edmonton, Estevan is home for her and she loves being in the city.
Support for Athlete World has been great, she said. LeBlanc is pleased to have opened the gym, and if she didn't start out with Meg LeBlanc Fitness three years ago, she doesn't believe Athlete World would be happening now, because she has learned a lot.
