Four young archers from Hay River have made the NWT team which will be going to the upcoming Arctic Winter Games (AWG) when archery is introduced as a demonstration sport.
In fact, they will make up half of the eight-member team that will be heading to Whitehorse in March.
The four – Shanelle Moore, Jack Irwin, Grayson Groenewegen and Delayna Cross – won the right to be on the team at NWT trials held at Princess Alexandra School in Hay River from Jan. 23 to 25.
Paul Bickford/NNSL photo
Nineteen archers participated in the trials. Along with the host community, others came from Fort Smith, Yellowknife, Behchoko, Fort Simpson and Paulatuk.
Carson Roche, the community co-ordinator with the Aboriginal Sports Circle of the NWT and the president of Archery NT, was an organizer of the trials.
Roche is looking forward to archery being in the AWG as a demonstration sport.
"If it works out well, it will go into the next games after that," he said, noting that about five contingents are expected to send archers to the Whitehorse games.
Roche said it will be good for the growth of archery in the North.
"Once this team goes and they compete, I'm sure they're going to do well," he said. "It's going to spark some interest in the communities and it's just going to keep growing. It's great for archery."
The team will compete in four categories – male and female recurve, and male and female compound.
Basically, recurve features a regular bow with no attachments on it, while compound features bows with attachments and sights that make them more accurate and powerful.
The other members of the NWT team are Tayla Minute (Fort Smith), Fergus Rutherford-Simon (Fort Smith), Amy Paziuk (Fort Smith) and SaNaeah Allen (Fort Simpson).
The alternates are Noah Zoe (Behchoko), Jaylen Base-Smith (Yellowknife), Abby Venema (Fort Smith) and Ella Skauge (Yellowknife).
The coaches for the team will be Cheuk Pang of Yellowknife and Cynthia White of Fort Smith.