The GOOD Games, which brings together traditional, para, Special Olympics, and non-traditional sports in one festival, is set to run for the first time ever during winter at Chinook Blast.
The festival, which until now has been run in Guelph, Ontario, will be held at the BMO Centre from Feb. 13 through 15 during the Family Day long weekend, with more than 100,000 sq. ft. of free family friendly sporting activities that range from high performance competitions to games that everyone can participate in.
Emphasis on the free.
“We never wanted finances to be a barrier for sport, and at its core, the GOOD Games is a way for people to experience the transformative power of sport. Our three pillars are physical health, mental health and community health, and we’ve seen it happen at the games,” said GOOD Games Chief Growth Officer Mike Jean.
He said making sport accessible was about removing the barriers to entry that families face, especially with rising costs in all aspects of life.
“Just to go to McDonald’s. It’s $100 a family of four. When I was a kid, if church wasn’t doing it, or school didn’t have it, then I didn’t play it,” he said.
“I played sports because I played at school. It’s very important, and even that sometimes could have been an issue, equipment, field trips, and those things were always a tight stretch. So, to be able to have no barrier to entry, to be able to experience sport and kind of figure it out after that is our mission.”
Get involved, get inspired says GOOD Games
What Calgarians can expect from the GOOD Games, said CEO and Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame member Helen Stoumbos, is something unique in the world of sport: a festival where fans can be inspired by the highest level of play, but then also have an opportunity to try those sports themselves.
She said that among the sporting events that will be held in Calgary as part of the festival will be volleyball, pickleball, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair rugby, freestyle trampoline (now a part of the X-Games), freestyle soccer, 3-on-3 basketball, and even soccer tennis among others.
That lineup also includes five-time world champion freestyle soccer champion Andrew Henderson.
“We’re looking to work with Canada Sports Hall of Fame and maybe running an educational event with Olympians on Friday as well a community learn and play day. So lots in the works here. We’ve confirmed our sports and now we’re building out the festival to see what we can do to bring the community together,” said Stoumbos.
“Everybody that’s come to our event has said they’ve never seen anything like it. It’s really hard to explain what exactly the good games are. You really have to come experience it.”
The reason why the GOOD Games are expanding to Calgary has a lot to do with the sporting culture in the city, she said.
“I don’t think there’s a better city than Calgary, to be honest with you. I think sport is embraced here. People love events,” said Stoumbos.
“We’re working together to have programming that complements [Chinook Blast]. Some of our programming at their event, pushing some of our athletes and our festival goers to go to Chinook Blast and experience some of their events. It’s perfect, because we do attract a lot of tourism to our event. A lot of athletes travel in for it, and the ability to give them a bigger experience beyond our event is so great.”
Stoumbos said that the GOOD Games would also be working with Sport Calgary during Chinook Blast to complement the sporting activities that have become a major part of the February festival.
“We’re working together. I think we’re all we all have the same mission. We want to get people moving and active, and I think together, we can kind of create even more of an impact,” she said.
“I’m hoping we get 20,000 people over the weekend. I’m hoping we can kind of hit our target of what we hit in Guelph this past summer. I think we have a lot of different experiences for people to come throughout all three days.”
For more details, see thegood.games.
