Airdrie athletes have been competing on the national stage this week at the 2023 Canada Winter Games, hosted in Prince Edward Island.
The multi-sport event, which lasts for two weeks from Feb. 18 to March 5, features over 3,600 of the top U20-aged athletes from throughout Canada, who are competing for their provinces across 20 sports. The quadrennial Games are akin to a national Olympics, and seek to replicate that atmosphere in various ways.
Locally, some of the athletes competing for Team Alberta in P.E.I. include Bert Church High School boxer Emily Vigneault, hockey players Wyatt Pisarczyk, Emily McDermid, and Farah Walker, ringette player Kennedy Rice, and archer Haley Priest. Airdrie-based curling coach Blair Lenton was also at the Games, as the coach for Airdrie Curling Club's Team Plett.
Vigneault, who is fairly new to boxing but previously an accomplished Muay Thai kickboxer, won her first bout of the games in the girls' 60-kg weight class against an opponent from Nova Scotia. The Grade 11 student-athlete will be back in the ring on Thursday to fight a boxer from Quebec.
Pisarcyzk, who was drafted by the Western Hockey League's Calgary Hitmen last year, was a defenseman for Alberta's U16 boys' hockey team, and helped the squad manage a fifth-place finish.
Rice, a W.H. Croxford High School graduate who plays in the National Ringette League for the Calgary RATH, earned a silver medal as part of Alberta's ringette team. The squad fell 4-3 in the gold-medal game to Quebec on Feb. 25 after winning their first five games and beating Saskatchewan 5-3 in the semi-finals.
Lenton's Team Plett finished their curling competition with a silver medal, adding to what has already been an impressive 2022-23 season that has seen the quartet win the U18 national championship.
In archery, Priest's competition in the individual female compound division got underway March 1 (after press time). The U18 women's hockey tournament is also taking place during the second week of competition, from March 1 to 5. Alberta's team features Airdrie goaltender Farah Walker and forward Emily McDermid.
As of the City View's press deadline, Team Alberta was tied for third place in the medal standings with Ontario. Alberta's medal haul as of March 1 at 10:30 a.m. included 11 gold, 18 silver, and 20 bronze medals, for a total of 49 podium placements.
To see the full Canada Winter Games results and medal standings, visit cg2023.gems.pro
