Former metropolis sportscaster writes books to get children shifting – Winnipeg Free Press

A lightbulb went on as Lisa Bowes was making ready to name girls’s hockey on the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Bowes, a sports activities broadcaster with CTV on the time, realized one thing was lacking among the many books she would usually learn to her three-year-old daughter.

“I used to be on this Olympic mindset and, on the identical time, studying to my younger youngster. I believed, ‘Maintain on, I don’t actually see too many books on the market which are educating households about several types of sport,’” Bowes mentioned, in a current chat with the Free Press.

Three years after her epiphany, Bowes revealed Lucy Tries Luge, the primary in what can be a collection of Lucy Tries Sports activities books.

The publications observe Lucy, an empowered younger lady, and her various group of pals, giving their finest go at a brand new sport. Every guide reinforces 5 ideas of wholesome youngster growth that children want to remain in sports activities: make a pal, play, take part, have an encouraging coach and grasp a talent.

Lucy has tried luge, short-track velocity skating, soccer, hockey and basketball, up to now. She’ll take some swings in April when the sixth version, Lucy Tries Baseball, launches in English, French and Spanish.

The guide targets kids three to eight years outdated.

“As our youngsters are studying to learn, Lucy and her pals are inspiring them to strive — to persevere,” mentioned Bowes. “So, what I hope is that as a toddler and their dad and mom and their caregivers are studying a Lucy guide, they’re saying, ‘Wow, I really wish to strive soccer. Can I am going and check out that, mother?’ So we’re placing the ability nearly within the palms of that younger youngster to reveal them to several types of sport and to create an motion merchandise.

“They’re a useful resource software to encourage our youngsters to maneuver, to be energetic and to persevere.”

The Lucy Tries Sports activities collection is at the moment in a whole bunch of libraries and school rooms internationally and was even featured in a present store on the 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sports activities Museum in Doha throughout the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

The collection has offered a full-circle second for Bowes, who hails from Guelph, On., however lives in Calgary. Earlier than she was a recognizable determine in sports activities tv in Winnipeg within the Nineties, she was on a path to instructing. She completed a level in bodily training earlier than making the bounce to broadcasting.

“I’ve type of come full circle on my diploma as a result of I actually do care. I’ve change into very obsessed with making an attempt to make a distinction in these declining bodily exercise charges. And that’s what this guide is addressing — a kids’s well being disaster, made worse from COVID,” mentioned Bowes.

Certainly, a scarcity of exercise amongst kids is rapidly turning into an epidemic.

Simply 15 per cent of kids ages 5 to 17 had been assembly Canada’s 24-hour motion tips previous to the COVID-19 pandemic, based on the Public Well being Company of Canada.

Because the onset of the pandemic, solely 4.8 per cent of kids ages 5 to 11 and 0.8 per cent of youth aged 12 to 17 are assembly these tips. In Canada, Indigenous, colored, and immigrant kids and people with disabilities are at even larger threat of insufficient exercise.

“Sure, it’s a sports activities guide collection, however there’s a number of objective behind it,” Bowes mentioned. “I did a number of analysis earlier than I went into this course of to make it possible for we had been on level in simulating what a younger youngster would expertise as they fight sport.”

The collection is simply getting began, too. Ad infinitum for the guide line, Bowes mentioned an animated collection of Lucy Tries Sports activities is within the works.

“There are nearly 200 sports activities on the earth that we are able to strive. I’d love to put in writing Lucy’s Huge Guide of Sports activities and have it as a useful resource information for all Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade 3 school rooms,” Bowes mentioned.

“Lucy is for all children, boys love her too. If children can see it, they are often it.”

jfreysam@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jfreysam