Photo Courtesy Grande Prairie Sports Connection

By Tanner Smith

Sports

Northwest Alberta Sport Excellence Awards set for Friday

Mar 2, 2023 | 4:39 PM

The Grande Prairie Regional Sport Connection will be hosting the Northwest Alberta Sport Excellence awards Friday night.

The evening highlights athletes, coaches, officials, sports builders, and volunteers from all over the Peace, extending from Fox Creek to Slave Lake and the Northwest Territories and BC borders.

The award ceremony will also feature some special guests, including Alberta Sports Hall of Famer Kelly Sutherland, Alberta Sports Hall of Fame Director Tracey Kinsella, and a special presentation from the 2024 Alberta Winter Games Manager Lisa Kerkhof regarding the upcoming games coming to Grande Prairie.

Karna Germsheid, Executive Director for the Regional Sport Connection, says recognizing these people in our region is important, especially builders and volunteers right now, as so many of these events require an army to put on. Grande Prairie recently hosted the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling and will host the Alberta Winter Games in 2024 and the Special Olympics Alberta Games in 2025.

” It’s an ecosystem. Everyone needs to play their part in order for sport to happen. We have all these great sport builders, volunteers, and officials out there, and honestly, if they didn’t exist, sport wouldn’t exist, for youth or adults.”

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She adds this region is also so diverse in the sports communities people get involved in, having a representative from 20 different sports being recognized Friday night. Germsheid says this is another reason why these events are important for the area, as they allow
youth to be exposed to something they would not think would be available in this region, let alone at such a high level.

” Everybody that is in sport is in sport because they love it or love someone who is involved with it, and it’s really nice sometimes to see these different communities come together under one roof, so they can actually see this is happening in other places too. People are in the trenches as well, offering these opportunities. There are so many things going on in the northwestern Alberta region.”

These events also allow youth to see the sacrifices and hours put in by parents, coaches, and other volunteers. ” I didn’t understand till I was an adult what my coaches gave up, being with me every weekend, every practice, every day of the week, and it’s really exciting to see, especially the youth, that there is so much to offer and there are just so many roles to play. You’re not just one sport, you’re not just one part of the sport, there are just so many different opportunities to grow into different forms of sport or different lines of sport.”

Tickets for the award ceremony are sold out, however, if you want to attend, contact Grande Prairie Regional Sport Connection by clicking here.

The event will take place in Clarkson Hall at Evergreen Park, with the doors opening to the public at 7 p.m.