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A new sports academy opening in Fort McMurray is aiming to offer an assist to young athletes who wish to advance their sports careers without having to leave their home community.
The Wood Buffalo Athletic Academy will be for athletes in grades 4 to 8, with room for up to 180 students in the first year. The school is expected to eventually include students up to Grade 12.
Annalee Nutter, superintendent of the Fort McMurray Public School District, said the school has been in talks for three years. But once they found a location — rooms inside MacDonald Island Park — it came together quickly.
Now the school board is just waiting on student applications, so they know how many teachers they need to hire.
The school will include a hockey program and a multi-sport program.
Athletics programming is in demand in Fort McMurray, said Nutter. With some families leaving the community in its pursuit.
Annalee Nutter is the superintendent of the Fort McMurray Public School District. (Jamie Malbeuf/CBC)
“We are just looking at ways to keep students in the city, in our school systems. To have them not have to move away,” Nutter said. “Sometimes it’s move away from their family to go live elsewhere in a boarding situation or sometimes the family just up and moves, because they want this for their children.”
That’s a choice that Brooke Voigt, former Canadian national team snowboarder and Olympian, had to make at 15.
During her teen years, she moved away from her family and friends in Fort McMurray to attend a national sports school in Calgary.
“If you can not move away from home at 15, because you have those facilities in your hometown, I think that’s amazing for the youth of McMurray,” Voigt said.
She can see the program helping to keep people in sports for longer.
“It’s getting rid of a lot of barriers for them,” Voigt said.
Voigt said it also helped her career to attend a school that understood her need to travel for sports and could support her with online resources.
“I don’t know that I would’ve graduated if I hadn’t gone to a school that would have accommodated that, or it would’ve been very difficult,” Voigt said.
WATCH | Brooke Voigt makes the podium in 2020:
Brooke Voigt claims bronze at slopestyle World Cup in Italy
The Fort McMurray, Alta., native’s final run of 68.66 points gets her on the podium at the FIS World Cup in Seiser Alm, Italy.
Tuition at the school ranges from $3,500 a year to $5,000 a year based on the program and age of the student.
So far the school has 106 applications, with more expected. The board says part of the application includes a letter of recommendation, so some of the potential students are waiting on those before they can apply.
Jeff Jones, executive director of Academic Athletic Development, is consulting on the venture. Academic Athletic Development handles the logistics and operations of sports alternative programming at Vimy Ridge Academy in Edmonton.
Jeff Jones, executive director of Academic and Athletic Development and a coach at Vimy Ridge Academy, speaks to families at an information session for a planned Fort McMurray athletic school on March 23, 2026. (Vincent McDermott/CBC)
“Families are just really busy, and so they’re looking for an opportunity to get some evenings back,” Jones said. Students can get their training done during the day, and can free up time for the family.
Jones said as many as 15 students attending Vimy Ridge have been from Fort McMurray in a given year.
Jenna Jackson, mother, went to an open house about the Wood Buffalo Athletics Academy.
“To have that embedded in their curriculum would be amazing to have them have that opportunity in their day rather than constantly being on the road or constantly being out of the home.”
WATCH | New sports academy tries to keep kids in Fort McMurray:
Keeping athletes in town: Sports academy aims to keep kids in Fort McMurray
A sports academy is opening in Fort McMurray, Alta., this fall. The local school board is trying to make more opportunities for student-athletes in town, so they don’t feel the need to move away to bigger cities.