Sports | DrumhellerMail

Local athletes head to Alberta Winter Games

RockyfordStandard AWG
   Four individuals will be a part of the Alberta winter games in Fort McMurray come February 16.
   The weekend event features an array of sports for athletes to compete. This includes archery, speed skating, snowboarding, squash, synchronized swimming, volleyball, wrestling, ringette, hockey, freestyle skiing, fencing, curling, cross country skiing, biathlon, badminton, and gymnastics.
   Hailey Kenney of Rockyford area and Madison Wheeler of Standard will be playing on the girls ringette team. The 16 - csyear - old’s are extremely excited to be attending this year’s games.
   “I look forward to mostly playing with my friends, especially since they are coming to the winter games so it makes it more fun,” said Wheeler.
   Wheeler is a forward and currently plays on the Rockyford U19A Big Country team and attends Wheatland Crossing School. She has been playing since she was five with 11 years experience playing ringette.
   This is Kenney’s second Alberta Winter Games as she also participated in Medicine Hat 2016 Winter Games with the Zone 2 team. They placed fourth that year. She plays defence and also plays on the Rockyford U19A Big Country team and attends Wheatland Crossing School. She has played ringette since she was four years old with now 12 years experience in the sport.
   “It’s really cool because the last time I went, we were representing people from our zone,” said Kenney. “Definitely [looking forward to] getting more skill and experience because it is very high skill from the highest competition so I’m definitely working my hardest to try and get gold.”
   Tryouts began last December in Indus, Airdrie, and Chestermere. Each player was required to attend all three as each had different components that were focused on.
   “The one was all skill and then there’s half skill, half play-time, and then one is just full playing time,” explained Wheeler.
   The eight zones compete against each other to win.
“The top two out of each pool play off and then the winners get to go to the gold medal game and the losers get to go to the bronze medal game,” explained Kenney.
   Drumheller resident Brian Curran is acting as mentor for the male hockey team and 12-year-old Chase Walker of Byemoor will be one of the hockey players under Curran’s wing.
   The winter games are expected to run from Friday, February 16 to Monday, February 19.

Saints finish season at Three Hills tournament

   The girls Junior B St. Anthony’s Saints basketball team wrapped up their season in tournament play in Three Hills.
   The Saints were in Royals' territory on Saturday, February 10. They began tournament play versus the home team Three Hills.
   The team met earlier this season at the Saints’ home tournament, with St. Anthony’s winning. This time the Saints had a slow start and the Royals jumped out to an early lead. The Saints had a strong final quarter, but it was too little too late as they fell to defeat, 26-16.
   The second game was against Olds Koinonia Christian School and again the Saints fell behind early to the bigger team. They rallied late in the game, but they couldn’t make up the difference and fell 42-18.
   This put them in the C Final to play the DVSS Junior B Dynos. After another slow start, the team began to find their stride in the second quarter and continued to extend the lead, winning 22-8.
   This wraps up the season for the Saints. The team managed six wins and seven losses over the season. All the players made progress improving their skills and team play.

Drumheller Skiers headed to Special Olympics

Mitchell Pennington, Quinn Delisle, Jay Dekeyser, Patrick May and Brian Taber stand together in full skiing gear on Sunday, January 28, for the Special Olympics Alberta Alpine Qualifier.

Martin McSween has led a successful skiing team for approximately 22 years.
After attending the Special Olympics Alberta Alpine Qualifier held at Canada Olympic Park (COP) in Calgary on Sunday, January 28, Jay Dekeyser, Quinn Delisle, Mitchell Pennington, and Brian Taber are headed to the Special Olympics Alberta Winter Games in 2019.
Dekeyser, Delisle, and Pennington represent the Drumheller contingency while Brian Taber represents Olds.
“It was great,” began Martin McSween, head coach of Drumheller and Olds special skiing teams.
Dekeyser won silver this time and has competed at the national level before in 2008 when he travelled to Quebec.
“That was very cool and he still talks about it, he wants to go back again,” said McSween.
Brian Taber of Olds swept up a gold medal as well.
Over 70 skiers were taking on the slopes in -25 degree weather.
Since the team did so well, they will all be participating in provincials in Calgary next year.
If any of the athletes do well, they can become members of Team Alberta who will attend the national games in 2020. Successful candidates from that level will move up to Team Canada where they will participate in the World Games in 2021.
Training consists of dryland training sessions at the Badlands Community Facility (BCF). Nakiska is their main venture for snow covered trails. They tend to travel three to four times a season.
“The dryland really helps and the longer runs at Nakiska give us a really good, full day of training,” said McSween.
Delisle fell during one of the races at the event but managed to keep himself in control. Each participant has a minute to get back up and must go through each gate properly.
“He was amazing, he did everything that he was supposed to do and I was really proud of him for doing that actually. I guess he impressed all the other coaches so that was cool,” said McSween.
Each member will face three different courses at provincials; slalom, giant slalom, and super giant slalom.
A slalom is a track that has gates that are closer together, a giant slalom has wider turns and a super giant slalom has the widest of turns.
Points, times, and the specific age groups determine who will move on to the next level.

Pictured above: (l-r) Mitchell Pennington, Quinn Delisle, Jay Dekeyser, Patrick May and Brian Taber stand together in full skiing gear on Sunday, January 28, for the Special Olympics Alberta Alpine Qualifier. submitted.

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