The Cochrane Water Ninjas have grown to 93 members this season and are now in the early stages of their lifesaving season.

With more swimming lanes time slots assigned, they have been able to grow its membership to allow more youth to participate in the sports. Twenty-six are new to the sport and they now have six adult master swimmers participating, the highest number yet.

Last season, they had 89 members, 21 more than the season previous, with a waiting list.

Head coach Marlee Palmer says the team has been in the pool for about a month and the intensity of their training is now increasing.

"We're just trying our best right now and we if we can have some sort of competitive season. For right now, the kids are just happy to be back in the water, which is great."

"I think we're at that point right now, where we go a little bit and a little bit faster. It's not bad for the kids being out of the water for five months, and it only took them four weeks to get use to it."

At this point, there are no competitions allowed for the sport.

Palmer hopes they will be receive permission to do some inhouse time trials.

"The idea behind running our own home-based competitions is that we'll run, if we can, two or three of them, and then it would be goals by personal best times at these competitions."

Those competitions will be value should the nationals go ahead in June. As of yet, no final decision has been made  on whether they will be held. 

The sport continues to thrive in Cochrane and growing to rival the membership in Calgary.

"In terms of competitive, yes we do have the largest team, but Calgary would be our second biggest team," says Palmer.

The club's season continues until April.

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