Let the Games begin
They’re hooting and hollering, all smiling and about as genuine as you can get.
And this is just an interview. Imagine how it’s going to be once Medicine Hat’s Special Olympians take centre stage this weekend.
“I'm nervous, because I'm excited,” says Brydon Marchand. “It will be awesome.”
The home team is more than ready for the games, which start with bocce and bowling preliminary rounds today and the opening ceremonies (which are free and open to the public, by the way) at 7 p.m. in the Cypress Centre fieldhouse.
Other sports running Saturday and Sunday include golf, softball, soccer, swimming, basketball, athletics, rhythmic gymnastics, powerlifting and bocce.
From Marchand and the 5-pin bowlers to Terri Didack in bocce to Christine Sullivan in powerlifting and many more, Hatters will be but a small part of the 900plus group of athletes here through Sunday.
Yes, they’ll try their hardest to win, but no, that’s not the main point.
“For the goals, I'm just going to have fun,” says fellow bowler Sinjin Soper. “I don't care if I win or lose, just do as best as I can.
“You can meet some new people and see how they're like, see how they do. It goes really well, meeting all these new people.”
It doesn’t take long with this group, sitting around a table at Panorama Lanes a couple days before the games, to realize they’re more than teammates, or even friends. A common trait of some sort of intellectual disability may have brought them together, but the word family comes up in almost every conversation with them.
So when you ask Terri Didack about when she starts her bocce competition (Friday, 2 p.m., Family Leisure Centre), she’s actually disappointed she won’t be able to watch her teammates during that time because they’ll be bowling at Panorama.
“It's like family to me. They are part of the family,” says Didack.
Then she reaches for some dog tag-looking things around her neck. They’re photos, with names on them. And the years they lived.
“We lost three of our athletes,” she says. “I'm doing it in memory of them. I'm going to carry this with me… and my dad too. Unfortunately he can't be here with me, but he can be here in spirit.”
She chokes back a tear. Seconds later she’s smiling again.
“I've been kind of nervous, excited, sad, all the emotions,” she says. “I'm good now but a month prior to these games it was really nerve-racking. My sister Sandy, she's a chairperson who got me going on this in 2013. I'm glad she did because these guys are family.”
She points to Soper and Nicklaus Olson, the source of most of the hooting at this point. “I call these guys the newbies,” she says. “I’m so proud of them.”
Soper and Olson are the youngest ones at the table, each having started bowling in the last two years. But bowling’s not the only thing they do.
“I just like to bowl, that's my second-favourite hobby,” said Olson. Your favourite? “Fishing. I like fishing more than anything, but I couldn't choose between bowling and fishing.”
He’s nervous for the provincial games, but a team event in Lethbridge earlier this year helped with the butterflies.
Truth is, everyone at the table is a bit nervous. But there’s a buzz in the air. They’re also equally excited.
“I have no idea but it's going to be fun,” says Todd Reynar.
“It's going to be a blast.”