William McDonald School's reign at the top of the Traditional Games Championships is over.
Weledeh Catholic School is the new kings/queens of the hill as the school's team captured the banner at the sixth annual event at William McDonald School on Saturday. The team of four boys and four girls amassed a total of 46 team points, 10 points better than Chief Paul Niditchie School of Tsiigehtchic, which finished second at 36 points. Deninu School of Fort Resolution was third with 34 points.
Catherine Son, the school's head coach, said the goal was to have the students do personal bests, which they all managed to do.
“They all worked very well together and cheered everyone on,” she said.
The championships featured a total of eight disciplines – four from Dene games and four from Arctic sports. The Dene games were hand games, snow snake, pole push and stick pull while the Arctic sports were the one and two-foot high kicks, arm pull and wrist hang. Each event carried points for the top finishers, which went toward the team's total.
Son said she wasn't looking to get the team's hopes up as the event went on, but the results were getting better and better.
“After day one, we were in first place and we had some events on day two where we were strong so we were in good shape.” she said.
For half of the team, this was their last chance to win the banner as they will be aging out; the event is open to youth between the ages of 10 and 12.
Judy Whitford, the Indigenous education co-ordinator for Yellowknife Catholic Schools, was there for the finale and said the recruitment process for 2019 began shortly after the victory.
“They started asking who was in Grade 5 and who was old enough to do this,” she said with a chuckle.
The event is hosted by the Aboriginal Sports Circle of the NWT and it's become one of the big events of the calendar year, said Beth Hudson, the Sports Circle's events manager.
She said Weledeh came in with a purpose, but it wasn't obvious at the start that they would be a contender.
“I knew they were keeping track of the scores and that told me they were close,” she said. “They obviously spent countless hours training and had a great coach. You need someone like that who has the passion to work with them.”
Aside from Weledeh, Hudson said several schools had trained before coming to the championships and that has spawned a technical package that the Sports Circle will be putting together to help schools and teams train for future championships.
“It's such a high level of competition now,” she said. “Teachers and coaches spent a lot of time training the kids to get them ready and do well and so now we want to give them the tools to help them. Having fun is still the main goal but we want to see the kids succeed.”