Muir makes memories for many

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This article was published 13/02/2021 (1878 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s been about 55 years since Eleanor Muir taught herself how to skate.

It was on a pair of raggedy, worn-out hand-me-downs at an outdoor rink in Churchbridge, Sask.

“I just loved watching people glide around and fly around. I saw all these really good skaters and I thought, ‘Oh, well anybody can do that,’” Muir said.

Naturally, it took her just one step onto the ice to fall flat on her face.

“I thought … this is not going to happen. I’m going to learn to skate,” Muir said.

And learn to skate, she did.

She also learned how to coach, how to referee, and how to do it while leaving a lasting impression on hundreds of athletes across western Manitoba.

At the same time, she was blazing a trail for women referees across the province, without thinking much of it.

“From the first game I reffed, I fell in love with it. Hook, line and sinker,” Muir said.

For the 63-year-old, skating was never supposed to be more than a hobby to escape a busy household, as the second oldest of eight children.

After a few years of skating on her own, an 11-year-old Muir told her mom she’d like to take figure-skating lessons.

The pair struck a deal. If Muir bought her own skates, her mom would enrol her.

“So, I babysat at 25 cents an hour for God knows how long, went to the hardware store in Churchbridge and bought my first brand new pair of skates. They were $35 and when I was 12 years old, because that’s how long it took to save up, $35 was a lot of money,” Muir said.

“I paid for them all by myself and I never looked back.”

It took Muir just one winter to fly through the figure skating badge program. After that, she began taking part in competitions.

By the time she was 15, the local club agreed to pay for her lessons, as long as she taught the little kids how to skate.

It was Muir’s first experience in coaching, but most definitely not the last.

She took a step back when she was 18, moving to Russell when she was 20. Her now husband, Brian, lived in the small Manitoba town his whole life.

They married two years later, in 1978, and are set to celebrate 43 years of marriage this July.

The pair had their son, Jayce, in 1980.

By that time, Muir was well out of the skating scene. She didn’t get involved again until it came time to enrol Jayce in lessons at Russell’s community rink.

“I wanted him to learn how to skate and kids always listen better to somebody other than their mother,” Muir said.

It was during those lessons Muir realized there was a handful of kids who couldn’t get up after falling or really move on their own.

She volunteered for what she thought was going to be a one-season deal. But, she loved instructing so much, she ended up coaching at the club for the 33 years.

When Jayce first started playing under-6 hockey a few years later, there was such an influx of registrants that the local club needed to create two teams, but only had one coach.

Muir put her name forward, but one of the team dads laughed in her face.

“He said, ‘You can’t coach, what do you know about hockey?’ Ticked, I stormed out of the rink,” Muir said.

Coincidentally, that negative interaction ended up spurring on some of the most positive moments in the next 30 years in Muir’s life.

“Another dad who was at that same meeting, he happened to be a referee and said, ‘You want to show them what you know about hockey? Take up reffing.’”

He invited Muir to a referee clinic in Foxwarren, asking if she’d be interested.

It took a little bit of convincing on the morning of, but in the end, he told Muir she better be ready to go, because he was picking her up regardless.

Ultimately, Muir loved reffing because she was able to interact with kids for a full 60 minutes each game.

Muir’s chatty nature extended to her time on the ice, which definitely threw “city kids” for a loop when she reffed their games.

“They looked at you like you got green horns growing out of your head because they’re not used to officials talking to them, or allowing them to talk to you,” Muir said.

When she first began refereeing, there were just over a dozen female referees scattered across the province.

Muir eventually became part of Hockey Manitoba’s referee development committee, where it was her job to recruit and retain female officials.

One of those officials was her granddaughter, Lainie Muir.

Lainie, 13 at the time, came out to Russell to ref her very first game with Muir.

Making the moment sweeter was Muir’s father, Arnold Van Caeseele, who made the trip out to Russell to watch the game. He passed away on New Year’s Eve, suddenly, a few years later.

“Having them both there, it was just such a special moment, “ Muir said.

She’s hoping to make a few trips out to Brandon next season to watch Lainie, now 17, in her rookie campaign with the Assiniboine Community College Cougars women’s hockey team.

After Muir’s eight years with Hockey Manitoba’s ref development committee, Lainie was just one of at least 100 new female referees added to the province’s hockey scene.

Muir was also a mentor at Hockey Manitoba’s Female Bantam Challenge, an annual tournament created as an identification camp for AAA female players and a development program for up-and-coming female officials.

NHL linesman Ryan Galloway is another senior mentor who helped at the annual tournament, producing multiple females who’ve gone on to referee both national and international hockey.

Muir herself has reffed six national competitions, starting with the Canadian senior women’s championship in 1994.

She’s shared the same ice as Canadian women’s hockey icons like Hayley Wickenheiser and Sami Jo Small as well.

In 2007, she refereed Team Canada in a pre-tournament matchup against the AAA U18 Central Plains Capitals boys team, shortly before the Women’s World Ice Hockey Championships were set to take place in Winnipeg.

Although her time on the national stage was nothing short of a spectacular experience, it was back home in Russell where her presence left a strong and long-lasting impact on skaters throughout Westman.

Former NHLer, Ryan White, included.

“I think the biggest thing I remember, for being a woman ref which was very rare, she was so commanding on the ice,” White said.

“I grew up with a hard-nosed mother who had some bark to her bite and (Muir) was the same way.”

The hockey player ran into her a few years back, while playing in the annual Cody McLeod Golf Tournament at Rossman Lake Golf Course.

Muir was helping out at the fundraising tournament hosted by McLeod, a Binscarth product who went on to play 12 years in the NHL.

“I didn’t recognize (White), but he kept looking at me and looking at me,” Muir said.

“He had another buddy there who he played minor hockey with and they finally came up and asked me, ‘How come we know you from somewhere?’”

Muir asked if they ever played minor hockey in Russell.

As it turns out, she refereed both of them multiple times in their U10 hockey days, about 20 years prior. She left such a lasting impression, the memory of Muir’s demeanour stuck with them both.

“It just all clicked,” White said. “Seeing her years later at that golf game, I couldn’t really put a name to her, but I always had that memory of her and how she commanded the game … when we went out there we were always allowed to play hard and physical, but if we crossed that line she was right there and she didn’t take any guff.

“I think the biggest thing was she demanded respect from the players and the players gave it to her.”

White and McLeod aren’t the only big names Muir had the chance to referee or instruct over the years.

There’s countless others, including New York Islanders blue-liner Ryan Pulock, who took Muir’s power-skating camps whenever she held them in Grandview.

Muir held the wildly popular camps — which she dubbed “Preseason Power Skates” — throughout Westman in her last 10 years of instructing.

From Grandview and Gibert Plains to Foxwarren, Waywayseecappo, Hamiota and more, Muir would teach up-and-coming players techniques for improving balance, agility, transitions, lateral movements and endurance.

But Muir never coached skating for the recognition, even though a sizeable number of her power skaters moved on to play hockey at the Junior A level or higher.

“I did it because I loved it. I absolutely loved teaching skating,” Muir said.

Ultimately, it was a passion that also saved her life.

In 2011, Muir’s first grandson was born.

She said he was perfectly healthy but lived for just four days and died because of human error.

Muir simply couldn’t cope.

“I just didn’t know how to deal with it,” she said. “It was really, really hard.”

Muir grieved but kept going to the rink each day, helping little kids learn how to skate.

“It literally saved my life, because I was so lost … in essence, all my little people were my therapy,” she said.

Muir coached skating for 33 years, but it was during the final decade of her tenure she developed a teaching program that came to be known as “Bucket Babies” throughout Russell.

“It was the most epiphanal thing I ever fell asleep thinking about,” Muir said.

She normally accepted only eight to 10 newbie skaters per group, because of how taxing it was to help every child when they fell. If one started to cry, she still had to be mindful of the other nine skaters on the ice, all waiting for her attention.

One day, Muir decided to try something new.

She upended a bucket she usually stored toys in, handed it to a child and got him to grab it.

“He just took off across the ice. He hadn’t skated in his life, but he just took off,” Muir said.

“I thought, ‘Oh my goodness.’ So, from that day forward I went to the rink and I had 10 buckets with me. Every child learned to become independent, at the age of two or three years old.”

The technique taught kids to keep their hands in front of their body, instead of flailing about. It also enabled them to get up by themselves without any assistance, because the bucket was there as a prop.

“I’m sure Skate Canada would’ve had a hissy fit if they’d saw, but I tell you what, I did that for probably the last 10 to 12 years I taught lessons and it was a huge, huge success,” Muir said.

Psoriatic arthritis put an end to her coaching career in 2019, at the age of 61. She’d given Russell’s skating club notice three years prior to her departure, so it would have time to find a suitable replacement.

Muir’s arthritis affected her feet and hands, making the pain of wearing skates longer than half an hour nearly unbearable.

But, with four grandchildren in Glenella, she’s still known to throw on her skates from time to time.

“Grandma still teaches them how to skate,” she said.

Muir refereed her last game in 2018, but not before receiving major recognition from Hockey Canada.

In 2017, on her 60th birthday to be exact, Muir was presented the Hockey Canada Ambassador award.

It recognizes individuals in the hockey community who’ve given it their all and helped improve the lives of people they interact with through the game of hockey.

“It was kind of a huge, huge accolade when you think about it,” Muir said.

Over her time in the sporting community, Muir has impacted generations of hockey players and skaters alike.

Russell products Rob, Jeramy and Trey Ewbank are a grandfather, father and grandson trio, all whom Muir has refereed.

She’s also grateful for the countless friendships she’s made through sports.

A lot of them were developed at the rink, but others during summer days at the diamond in Russell.

Muir umpired both baseball and fastball for 30 years as a way to stay busy through the summer.

She enjoyed all the activities she was part of, but coaching skating is Muir’s first love.

“Skating is like flying, only your feet are on the ground. It gives you a certain amount of freedom, it’s a sport,” Muir said.

“… I do everything for the long haul. I don’t just do it, think ‘Eh, maybe not,’ and quit. Everything I do, I stick to it,”

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