While the Winter Olympic Games are happening in Italy, where Team Canada athletes are competing against the best in the world, the excitement is certainly being felt here in Calgary.
Canada Olympic Park — the venue for the Calgary Winter Games back in 1988 — hosted the first-ever Team Canada Winter FanFest from Feb. 14-15.
“We’re checking out everything over at WinSport and checking out the activities,” said Jemmie Li, who attended Fan Fest with her son Jasper. “He wanted to try skating and curling today.”
People watched and cheered on Canadian athletes, and tried a sport or two themselves, like Maria Ehrlich’s seven-year-old son, Avery, who was really interested in ski jumping.
“I like the jump part, where you slide down, and you jump off. And then you try to land on both skis or one ski,” Avery said.
Ehrlich says the festival is great since children and adults alike can see and try new sports.
“It really showcases the different sports and athletics, and that Calgary’s a pretty active town and there’s lots of things for young people to try,” she said.
There’s also the opportunity to meet former Olympians, like legendary speed skater Catriona Le May Doan, and current athlete and weightlifting champion Maude Charron.
“We have two arenas here for us to do skate sports, and we even have the ice house open with luge, skeleton and bobsleigh to try out. It’s a very unique opportunity,” Charron, a project manager with the Canadian Olympic Committee, told CityNews.
“I myself tried luge and skeleton this morning, and I’m going to try bobsleigh this afternoon. It’s a one-time life opportunity.”
You could even get an expert lesson from local Olympic biathlete Nathan Smith.
“I’m a proud Calgarian, proud Albertan and even prouder Canadian,” he said.
“I actually was here as a young child, one or two years old, when we had the ’88 Olympics. So I don’t remember which events I got to see with my parents, but I was here watching those, and then ya, you feel really proud to represent your country when you’re over there.”
Smith says coming back to this venue now as a role model is kind of nostalgic.
“We could have some future Olympians here, right? Some small kids are learning about a new sport, maybe it piques their interest. You never know where it will go from there. So it feels really rewarding,” he said,
The thrill of the Olympic Games continues for another week, ending next Sunday with the gold medal game in men’s hockey.