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By Sam Laskaris
Windspeaker Contributor
MASKWACIS, Alta.
Officials with the Alberta entry for this year’s North American Indigenous Games will be looking for improved performances from their athletes, but they won’t be disappointed if they don’t get them.
Alberta will be sending a contingent of about 425 individuals to the multi-sport competition. The 2017 NAIG will be staged July 16 to July 23 in Toronto. Team Alberta will include more than 300 athletes.
Coaches, managers and support staff are also included in the Alberta contingent. The Indigenous Sports Council Alberta (ISCA) is in charge of selecting all of the representatives from the province.
Wayne Page, the assistant co-ordinator for Alberta’s NAIG entry, is confident the team will be able to improve upon its efforts from the last NAIG, held in 2014 in Regina.
Alberta placed 11th in the overall medal standings at those Games, picking up 21 medals (three gold, nine silver and nine bronze).
British Columbia won the medal standings with 160 medals, including 63 gold. Saskatchewan was next in line with 159 medals while Ontario placed third with its 149 medals.
“The differences when we look at Ontario, B.C. and Saskatchewan is that they put a lot of financial resources into it,” Page said. “And if you look at B.C., they already have a lot of kids competing in mainstream sports at a high level.”
That has forced Alberta officials to look at things somewhat differently.
“We’ve taken a little bit of a different approach this year,” Page said.
In some cases in the past, ISCA officials filled their NAIG teams simply with athletes who had expressed an interest in taking part.
But this time around quite a few more qualifying events were staged within the province to identify some of the better athletes.
Some of these qualifying events were staged last summer. For example, 20 squads from across the province showed up to a volleyball tournament last July in Grande Prairie. ISCA officials were able to identify numerous elite players at that competition.
“This year we also went to different sports governing bodies in the province, looking for (Indigenous) athletes competing at high levels,” Page added.
All athletes who will be representing Alberta in Toronto need to pay $1,500 each in order to take part. More than 5,000 athletes from across Canada and the United States are expected to compete in this year’s Games. They will participate in various age groupings in 14 sports.
Those sports are archery, athletics (track and field), badminton, baseball, basketball, canoeing/kayaking, golf, lacrosse, rifle shooting, soccer, softball, swimming, volleyball and wrestling.
Alberta though will not have any athletes in the wrestling or canoeing/kayaking events. Page said ISCA officials made the decision not to take part in these two activities.
“With wrestling you never know which wrestlers will be showing up in the different weight classes,” he said. “Wrestling is only a one-day event and we’d be charging these kids $1,500 to come. They could win their category by a walkover (if no other entrants are in that weight division). These are some of the challenges we have to take into consideration.”
Page said some individuals from the province had expressed an interest in taking part in canoeing/kayaking competitions.
“We got some letters of interest,” he said. “Kids wanted to compete. But with (canoeing/kayaking) you almost have to already belong to a club. You can’t just go out there and do 200 metres. Unless you’re training and paddling in a club you’re not going to survive the distances. These races are 1,000 metres, 2,000 metres and 3,000 metres.”
Page said the Alberta team will be shooting for a Top 10 finish in the medal standings at this year’s Games.
“It comes down to a philosophy of what you’re trying to do for the kids,” he said. “I think medals are sometimes secondary.”
Following the 2014 NAIG, Page said members of the ISCA board deemed it the worst performance ever for an Alberta entry.
Athletes, however, were asked about their time at the Games in a survey.
“Not one kid talked about medals,” Page said. “They talked about the experience of being there.”
Page is anticipating some of Alberta’s best efforts this year will come in athletics, basketball, swimming and volleyball.
This year will mark the ninth edition of the NAIG. The Games were first held in 1990 in Edmonton. Though the intent was to alternate Games between Canadian and American locations, they have only been held in the U.S. twice, in Blaine, Minnesota in 1995 and in Denver in 2006.