Playing for the community at the Alberta Indigenous Games

Posted on: Staff Writer

From edition: August 6 2021 Strathmore Times

By Lorenzo Gavilan Vargas Times Reporter

The Alberta Indigenous Games (AIG) will take place on Aug. 12-19 in Edmonton. There will be 12 sports offered at the Games and medals are up for grabs.

AIG CEO Jacob Hendy says the opening ceremonies for the games will be something that Edmonton has never seen before.

“That’s going to be at West Edmonton Mall, at the Ice Palace,” said Hendy. “It’s going to be the largest indigenous gathering ever there, they say.”

The opening ceremonies will work much like the Olympics, with team members coming out with their fellow athletes and the flag of their community.

Teams have been forming on Siksika where open try-outs were held for an intermediate ball hockey team on July 27-29.

There is an added incentive to play for your community at the AIG. There is a points system in place, where each gold awards seven points, silver awards five, and bronze awards three for the athlete’s home community. At the end of the Games, the three nations with the most points will win a banner and first place community will win a special prize.

“We’ll have a cup that we’ll put their community name on for that division and then they’ll come back and battle it out every year,” said Hendy. “People want to play for their home community as much as possible.”

Events will be split up into different age dependent divisions. Each event is unique, but most are split into junior, intermediate, or senior divisions. 

“Monday we have four sports that actually don’t cost anything to register because we want people to try it out,” said Hendy of the special day on Aug. 16 where all major team events are on break for others to try them out.

A cross country race, the only individual sport at the AIG, will be held in the mornings. The rest of the sports held are rugby sevens, beach volleyball, fastpitch softball, and hand games. 

For more information, visit the AIG website or their Facebook page. For interested Siksika athletes, visit the Siksika SN7 Facebook page for information.