Tri-S to host Canada Games?

Sports

Posted By John Towns

Updated 1 month ago

The Tri-S Sport Alliance is thinking about the future – specifically seven years into the future, when Manitoba is next designated to host the Canada Summer Games.

The alliance is currently musing about how to possibly bring the games – which is Canada's largest and arguably most prestigious multi-sport event – to the Tri-S area. The games alternate between winter and summer games every two years, and was last in the province over a decade ago, when Brandon hosted the summer event in 1997.

While the games are typically held in a larger urban centre (Halifax is slated to host the 2011 Winter Games), the hope is that the sport alliance, which is made up representatives from five local sports clubs, will be able to put together a bid with the help of Selkirk, St. Andrews and St. Clements that would bring the games to this area, said alliance member Michelle Stamm.

"As far as Canada Summer Games goes, I think it's usually held in a larger centre," Stamm admitted. "But we've got a million-dollar track in Selkirk and lots of facilities to host athletes, so it is a possibility, depending on if we could get the other facilities we'd need (up to the standards for the games) in time."

Stamm admits that the idea is in its very early stages, but says she and the rest of the alliance's members plan to take a close look over the next couple of months at what's required to host the event.

"It would depend first on what the mandates are for each sport in the games. It takes a long time to build things, and to get funding (for the facilities we'd need)," she said. "So we figured we would start just making some mention of it. We're just taking this one step at a time."

According to Stamm, the idea came forward at an alliance meeting, and was borne out of part of the alliance's mandate to develop more sport facilities in the Tri-S area.

"Ultimately part of the (Tri-S Sport Alliance's) drive and path is to develop a facility in this area that would allow teams to use it and hold competitions and things like that," she said. "And if we can build these facilities through funding or fundraising from an event like this, that would be great."

While Stamm hasn't approached the councils of St. Clements or Selkirk with the idea yet, she has been in contact with St. Andrews council. Reeve Don Forfar says that while it would be unusual for the games to be held in a more rural setting like the Tri-S area, he's all for seeing what kind of funding to put on the event would be available.

"I can't imagine that anything smaller than one of the cities has ever done this in the past," mused Forfar. "But let's take this to the next step – talk to our neighbours, talk to the Tri-S sport alliance, and see if any funding is available to do this.

"We should see if there's a possibility of hosting this together, and because it's only in 2017, it gives the municipalities a lot of years to plan on saving money for and building a facility or facilities to accommodate these games," he said. "We also have the time to do a bit of research to see what kind of federal and provincial money may be available to put toward this."

Patrick Kenny, director of communications for the Canada Games, said it's not unheard of for the games to take place in a more rural area.

"It really depends. What we've done in the past few years is a lot of work in terms of setting our hosting standards, which are divided up into 41 functional areas that the community needs to deliver on," explained Kenny. "When we do a bid process, depending on which province or territory is hosting, that it could be that a more rural area would be the ones that come in as meeting that standard the best."

According to Kenny, there are a number of standards that the Tri-S area would have to meet in order to have a successful bid for the games – not only in terms of athletic facilities, but also in terms of accommodations for athletes, media and officials. He added that in recent years, the bidding process has become more competitive as more municipalities try to get the games.

"We've had games where there's only been one community that was bidding, but the past few years, we've had a very competitive bidding processes, where we've had a number of different municipalities and communities within the province vying for the games," he said. "What we try to do is compare all the bids we get from different communities to the hosting standards, and not necessarily to each other.

"We want to determine whoever can best host the games, not who has the most attractive bid."

Kenny added that the bidding process for the games usually starts about five-and-a-half years before the event – in Manitoba's case, the call for bids should come down in about a year -and-a-half. Once the committee who selects the host location decides on a bid, the announcement is made about four years before the event – or in this case 2013 – to give organizers enough time to complete their work in time for the actual games.