Shooting team stays on target
Date: Jun 11, 2005 11:56 AM
PUBLICATION: The Moncton Times and Transcript
DATE: 2005.06.11
SECTION: Opinion/Editorial
PAGE: C1
COLUMN: Linda Hersey
BYLINE: LINDA HERSEY Sports People

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Shooting team stays on target

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“I believe I had a bronze at the Canadian national championships that was my
biggest win. I’ve gotten more bang out of seeing the kids get their reward out of
it,” says shooting coach Tony Wood of Sackville.

“We’ve actually done very good here in Sackville with the Sackville Sportsman
Association. I’m the president of the Club and the chief range officer for the Club.”

A cabinet maker with a very cheerful disposition, he was never much into sports
growing up. Imagine his surprise when he found himself one day as a Canada Games
coach!

“If you told me I was going to be coaching kids, I would have had you measured
for a straight jacket,” he laughs. “I just got involved in shooting and
always enjoyed that. It just got to a point where they made shooting part of the
Canada Games and asked some people to coach and it sort of went on from there.”

Wood began shooting in 1987, a natural progression from his love of outdoor pursuits
such as hunting and fishing. He acknowledges a long-time fascination with handguns
and when a friend joined a local handgun club, he followed. He’s never regretted
that decision. The shooting he became involved in is called ISS, and that’s Olympic-style
shooting.

“Once I got involved in it I met some other people in New Brunswick who were
shooting in the sport and so I wanted to make the provincial shooting team and did.
I was with the provincial shooting team for about six years and then once I got
involved in coaching kids, it came to a point where I had to make a decision whether
to continue shooting or focus solely on coaching the kids.”

The kids won, of course, and in 1989 he began to coach. While he wasn’t coaching
for the 1991 Games, he was indeed active and recalls that three of the four youngsters
for the pistol team were from the Sackville club. He also points out that with shooting,
every Canada Games since 1991 has produced medals. And the excellence continues.
“I was the Canada Games coach for New Brunswick – 1995, ’99 and 2003, and I
guess probably for 2007 it looks like I’m going to be the Canada Games coach as
well. We’ll be taking a team up to Whitehorse.”

Besides running three businesses, coaching, hunting, fishing and his new pastime,
bow hunting, there is family. He and wife Jennifer have two grown children, Nathan
and Amanda, and both have distinguished themselves in shooting.

Kids as young as 11 can get started in this sport and coach Wood is fiercely proud
of what his team accomplishes. The cornerstone of the program is respect for firearms,
and these young people are very responsible in what they do.

“It’s just a tool,” he says about a handgun, “the same as anything
else, hammer or saw or anything. It can be used for good and it can be used for
bad. It’s an individual choice.”