{"id":10699,"date":"2015-05-13T17:58:15","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T21:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=10699"},"modified":"2015-06-03T23:38:41","modified_gmt":"2015-06-04T03:38:41","slug":"cadet-earns-silver-as-marksman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/cadet-earns-silver-as-marksman\/","title":{"rendered":"Cadet earns silver as marksman"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

Growing up with brothers over a decade older, Tyler McKechnie took to challenging video games at a young age.<\/p>\n

\u201cI played a lot of shooting games growing up,\u201d said McKechnie. \u201cIt got me into the aspect of marksmanship then.\u201d<\/p>\n

While some teens may be content with hours playing the latest Call of Duty title, the Aurora teen has taken his talent from the couch to the real world.<\/p>\n

Now 15, McKechnie has turned his passion for marksmanship into more than a hobby \u2013 his four years in the Army Cadet Corps have proven he\u2019s a skilled shooter.<\/p>\n

McKechnie was one of five local residents from 2799 Queen\u2019s York Rangers Royal Canadian Army Cadet Corps to represent Aurora at the Regional and National Marksmanship Championship last month.<\/p>\n

As a team, the cadets overtook some elite company to secure second place out of 291 teams in Ontario. Individually, McKechnie took home another silver medal, good enough to be selected as a member of Team Ontario for the national competition later that weekend.<\/p>\n

The competition is based on a combined score of prone and standing shooting positions, of which McKechnie says the technical aspects vary greatly. That particular day, his standing shooting made up for a poor prone performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy standing was amazing. I\u2019ve never shot that well standing before.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a score of 81 standing, it was a personal best for McKechnie.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really proud of that score.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, there wasn\u2019t much rest for the silver medal champion. Wrapping up provincially on the Saturday, the nationals took place on the Sunday.
\n\u201cReally, all you could do was hope for a good night\u2019s sleep,\u201d said McKechnie on his short preparations. <\/p>\n

Following a short practice relay, it was a grueling day of over a handful of championship relays. As of press-time, the final results have not been released, but McKechnie believes Team Ontario is \u201chovering somewhere in first or second place right now. It was tiring.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Cadet Corps\u2019 main aim is to provide instruction on the proper use and safe handling of a firearm, there\u2019s no denying the physicality of the sport. <\/p>\n

Captain Christopher Barron added that the sport is both physically and mentally demanding.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving to shoot in both the prone and standing position means that these cadets are truly skilled, physically fit, and able to focus their concentration under varying conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Physically, McKechnie works on keeping himself in good form, and continues to play hockey within the Aurora Tigers organization.<\/p>\n

He has three more years of making a name for himself within the Cadet Corps. Even then, he doesn\u2019t plan on giving up the guns.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m already looking at getting into civilian marksmanship. It\u2019s something that I think I\u2019ll be a part of for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Growing up with brothers over a decade older, Tyler McKechnie took to challenging video games at a young age.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}