The last Team Alberta training camp before the Special Olympics Canada Winter Games set the stage for the Feb. 28 to March 3 competition in St. Albert and Jasper.
Last weekend's activities provided 78 athletes, 23 coaches and 11 mission staff the opportunity to check out the athletes' village in Edmonton and some of the Games venues in St. Albert.
"This weekend has been incredibly beneficial to us as an organizing committee. It gave us a better idea on how to prepare the venues and prepare our operations for the Games, just by knowing how the athletes and their teams operate from an administrative as well as a human standpoint," said Mike Williams, the Games manager of the organizing committee. "It also gave us the opportunity to see the athletes and interact with them and gain more of their insight from their perspective on the expectations they have for the Games."
More than 650 athletes and 300 coaches and mission staff from 10 provinces and two territories will attend the seventh national winter festival for athletes with an intellectual disability.
Cross-country skiing, curling, figure skating, snowshoeing, floor hockey and speed skating will be staged in St. Albert. Jasper is hosting alpine skiing at Marmot Basin.
"This weekend was a real good kick off to the Games. It was a fantastic event and it really emphasized that the Games are coming," said Williams.
He is confident everything is good to go for the national qualifier for the 2013 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
"The group of volunteers that are the members of the Games Organizing Committee are absolutely phenomenal. They're farther ahead of any Games that I've ever worked on, from regional Games all the up way to the Olympics and World Cups," said Williams, who worked on a variety of committees at the 2010 Vancouver Games.
"To have a group of volunteers that have us ahead of schedule in almost all places, it allows the freedom for the staff, the organizing committee and the national office to identify those little pieces that slip through the cracks that sometimes you don't find out until the first or second day of competition," he said. "We now have the freedom or the time, based on the planning being done ahead of schedule, to make sure that those little pieces don't even need to be an issue come Games time."
Special Olympics Alberta organized the training camp in co-operation with the Games Organizing Committee.
"The Special Olympics Alberta office did an absolutely fantastic job of organizing this weekend to get the athletes into the venues and the athletes' village," Williams said.
Curling classic
Saturday's main event was the learn-from-the-pros clinic and all-star games at the St. Albert Curling Club. The Team Alberta curling rinks from Red Deer and Calgary graced the ice with special guests Jamie Sale, an Olympic goal-medal figure skater, and Special Olympics Alberta board of director, University of Alberta track and field head coach Georgette Reed, Mayor Nolan Crouse and world-calibre curlers Marc Kennedy, Scott Pfeifer, Blake MacDonald, David Nedohin, Don Bartlett and Jamie King.
"When we showed up their faces just lit up. They're so appreciative and so happy to be sharing this day with all of us," Sale said. "I said to the curlers this just fills me up and they said they wouldn't want to be anywhere else today. It just feels real good to be able to give back to these guys."
Sale was recruited by Special Olympics Alberta last summer. Her dad, Gene, is the curling coach for the Red Deer rink going to the Games.
"I've seen the impact that he has made and the impact the athletes have made on my dad," Sale said. "What I particularly like about these athletes is that first and foremost they are really doing this for the right reasons. They all want to win and are very competitive but they really, really, really love what they do and you can see it in their faces.
"I tell people you can really take a lot and learn a lot from these athletes in what we do in life. There is so much joy in their faces in what they do and we often forget about the fun in things sometimes."
Sale hails from a family of curlers but needed a few tips from the athletes to familiarize herself with the sport.
"It was fun. My dad's team was teaching me so after a few rocks I got better, I think," she said. "I found it really hard to balance on this ice. It was really difficult. It was hard sweeping too. I was tired. It was hard work."
After curling up a storm, Sale joined the Team Alberta figure skaters at Servus Credit Union Place for a spin around the ice. Her role was to offer support and encouragement to the athletes.
"I'm there to tell them they can do it. When Liz Manley or Brian Orser said to me you can do this I thought, 'he believes in me' or 'she believes in me' and I'm going to do the same thing with the skaters," she said. "I don't need to be a coach out there because they have great coaches. I will just be their cheerleader."
