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Yvette Delcourt
Yvette Delcourt started her skating career at a young age, falling in love with the athleticism of the sport and freedom of movement it provided. Yvette's coach early on in her skating was World Professional Champion Sadie Enders, with contributing coaches through the years including Mary Rose Thacker, Gus Lussi and Winnie Silverthorne.
Her love of skating naturally led her on a path into coaching, starting at a Kelowna summer school in 1958.​
Yvette’s path led her to coaching positions in Victoria, Nanaimo, Prince George and Kamloops during her first decade of coaching. In 1973, she accepted a position at the Kelowna Skating Club, where she began to make a tremendous and lifelong contribution.
Yvette was a fantastic teacher and had a warm rapport with skaters of all ages. She loved working with beginners and developing skaters and also took great interest in working on power skating with young hockey players.
​Always keen to expand her knowledge, she made efforts to learn from other many successful coaches, including Barbara Roles and Doug Leigh. Yvette continued to champion opportunities for other coaches to increase their education throughout the years.
Her decades of knowledge, experience and professionalism led her into organizational and leadership roles within the KSC, leading to long held positions as KSC Administrator and Executive Director.
Yvette was well known for making strong connections within the skating and sporting communities in the Okanagan and abroad and took great pride in helping to provide and host opportunities to promote figure skating.
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While playing a huge role in growing the Kelowna Skating Club’s membership of recreational, power skating and figure skaters, Yvette recognized a need to provide more opportunities for aspiring competitive skaters. In partnership with Skate Canada BC/YT Section, Yvette was integral in the creation of the Okanagan Regional Training Centre in 1995. The ORTC raised the profile of figure skating in Kelowna and the Okanagan Region, leading to increased competitive skating and stronger results.​
In 2002, under Yvette’s advisement, the KSC hired Jason Mongrain as Head Coach and Technical Director of the Okanagan Skating Academy (formerly ORTC). Karen Mongrain was welcomed to the staff the following year.​
As the competitive results continued to improve over the next several years, Yvette endeavoured to support and promote progressive ideas and plans for the benefit of continued competitive opportunities and growth for skaters and coaches.
​In 2009-10, Yvette took part in the discussion, design and implementation of a new coach driven club model, designed to improve programs, coaching and scheduling to support competitive skating development. This model was the first for a traditional Skate Canada club in BC and beyond. Skate Canada BC/YT supported and designated the KSC to be a Centre of Excellence.​
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In the following years, the KSC continued to reach new heights of competitive success, as Jason and Karen Mongrain coached multiple National Champions, International Medallists, and numerous Provincial Champions. Many of these skaters took their first steps on the ice at the KSC.​​
Yvette took enormous pride in seeing grassroots skaters develop into elite athletes at the Kelowna Skating Club. As a mother and grandmother of competitive figure skaters, she fully understood the impact of providing a safe and supportive training centre where young skaters could fulfill their potential while living at home in the Okanagan.​
Yvette was posthumously inducted into the Skate Canada BC/YT Hall of Fame as a Builder in 2018.
Despite her soft-spoken and kind nature, Yvette was a strong and passionate leader in our club and sport.​
While Yvette is greatly missed, her legacy will continue to live on and be celebrated at the KSC. Many decisions continue to be made with the consideration: “What would Yvette think?”
