Alberta’s biggest youth sports stage, the Alberta Winter games were hosted in Medicine Hat over the long weekend, with 14 St. Paul and area athletes representing Zone 7.
Being a part of the opening ceremony was a big highlight, and being a part of such a huge event with 2,500 athletes there as well was a great feeling, according to the athletes who attended.
Local athletes competed a number of sporting events, including: mixed curling, volleyball, wrestling, hockey and figure skating.
Although Zone 7 finished at the bottom of the eight zones in the overall medal count, the group managed to have a strong outing grabbing six gold, seven silver, and seven bronze medals, for a total of 20 medals.
Zone 3 dominated the games with 40 golds, and 112 medals in total, with the second place finisher Zone 6 being 32 medals behind at 80.
The Zone 7 male volleyball team included a number of area athletes - Corey Amyotte, Allen Parker, Corbin Ockerman, Dustin Dubrule, Joshua Foote, Nathaniel Buffalo, and Daniel Hebert. The male Zone 7 volleyball team came out with a two wins, four losses and finished fifth overall.
Zone 7’s female volleyball included one local athlete, Taylor Fedoruk. The team finished with a record identical to the male team at 2-4, but instead finished sixth in the final standings for the weekend.
Bradley Mistol was the lone St. Paul athlete competing with the Zone 7 male hockey team, the team finished with one win and three losses and a sixth place finish.
Moving on to curling, Cameron Kuzma and Cody Doucet represented St. Paul in the Mixed Curling tournament. They came out with a 13th place finish after picking up one win and three losses.
Figure skater Megan Mortensen participated in the Juvenile U12/U14 Combined Women’s singles and placed seventh overall, out of 16 total skaters. Many of her fellow competitors travelled from dense urban areas that had a much larger pool of athletes to select from.
Wrestling athlete Annabelle Culham took part in the female 60kg wrestling competition, and placed fourth out of seven athletes competing in that category.
When the group was asked as a whole about the experience throughout the weekend they all noted how it was an exciting and unique event to be part of.
Over 6,000 people attended the opening ceremonies, and there was also a dance to encourage the athletes to meet new people and make new friends with some of their competitors.
