Southern Alberta Summer Games ready for competition in Coaldale

By Lethbridge Herald on June 27, 2024.

Coaldale is set to host athletes from across region for the Southern Alberta Summer Games beginning  July 3.

There are 1,700 athletes from 13 regions in southern Alberta that will be competing in four days of competition.

“They’re going well,” said Mark McIntosh, SASG games coordinator, on preparation.

“All our sports chairs are working hard to get all the schedules and all the equipment and just get ready for the tournaments which are all starting next Wednesday.”

It has been five years since the last SASG and for McIntosh it was about getting the word out there after the long hiatus.

“So just putting out the word about what the games are (and) how they started,” said McIntosh.

“They’re the longest running sporting event I believe in western Canada (with) just the grassroots nature of it.”

McIntosh hopes the SASG will grow for years to come after this year.

“Hopefully from this year we’ll continue to grow and they’ll know what it is and know that it’s a chance to just be exposed to different types of sports,” said McIntosh.

McIntosh wants to see the athletes  have a good time.

“Another bonus would just be maybe checking out some sports that you’d never thought of trying before,” said McIntosh.

“Whether it’s just getting some exposure to E-Sports or maybe watching a lacrosse game.”

McIntosh said it means quite a bit to us, when asked about Coaldale hosting the SASG.

A main reason is because this will be the SASG event since 2019.

“We’re very thrilled to be the ones to bring it back and … hopefully started it off again, so it can be an annual thing again,” said McIntosh.

“Another reason we’re very excited is just to showcase our new recreation centre, the Shift Community Recreation Centre, which is also going to have its ribbon-cutting ceremony next Wednesday as well at noon.”

Lethbridge is sending around 430 athletes to the games.

“It’s been really cool to see how engaged this community is with sport,” said Kamryn de Klerk, Lethbridge’s SASG regional director.

“It was just awesome to see how much people wanted to participate because (we)weren’t sure what our numbers were going to look like at the beginning with it being so long since the last one.”

Soccer was the sport that a majority of Lethbridge athletes signed up for.

“We had hold try outs and for mini soccer you get two teams and we still had to cut around 30 plus kids because we didn’t have enough space for them,” said de Klerk.

“We had a lot of interest in mini soccer and men’s soccer as well.”

De Klerk believes that Team Lethbridge has a shot at competing for many gold medals.

“I think we’re a really talented group and I think that the games will go really well for us because I think we got some really good athletes on our rosters,” said de  Klerk.

The Southern Alberta Summer Games are July 3-6 in Coaldale.

More information can be found at http://www.southernalbertasummergames.ca.