Jumping into the pool this weekend for the first competition of the season, the Whitehorse Glacier Bears will be hosting the Ryan Downing Memorial Swim Meet at the Canada Games Centre Friday and Saturday.

The annual meet will have 18 different swim events ranging in length and stroke, with most members of the 120-athlete club competing, Glacier Bears head coach Malwina Bukszowana said.

“We expect some best times with the younger kids of course, we expect them to race the race, not just swim,” she said about the upcoming meet.

For the older swimmers, Bukszowana said it is unlikely they will set club-best times but she wants to see their work on the technical training they’ve been working on in practice before heading to the more competitive meets.

Being a large club, the team’s practices are split into groups, Bukszowana said, meaning there is training pretty much every day. The oldest group has practice six days a week — including a double dose on Tuesday and Friday.

The season-opening meet is focused on best times and ribbons will be awarded for all personal best swims.

The meet will host a club from Haines, Alaska as well as the Yellowknife Polar Bears and the Mackenzie Muskrats Swim Club out of Inuvik.

The Northern Novas synchronized swimming club out of Whitehorse will also be competing, Bukszowana said, noting a technical rule change for synchro, requiring competitors to have a timed swim race.

With the meet being a day and a half, Bukszowana said this hinders the participation of high-level clubs from B.C. because it is too expensive for them to travel so far for such a short time.