Local roller derby athletes crack Team Canada roster for junior world cup
Starting off the year is perhaps one of the most niche sports stories of 2023. In January, Rylee Stilborn and Meira McEllistrum found out that they’d be competing for Team Canada in the Junior Roller Derby World Cup, which would be held in Valence, France in July.
Stilborn (14), who goes by the roller derby nickname of ‘She-Hulk’, and McEllistrum (13), nicknamed ‘Tank’, had been friends for years and were just a couple of Albertans who represented Canada at the World Cup.
“Everyone is super nice because the derby community is really small. You make friends from it, and it’s really inclusive,” said Stilborn.
McEllistrum said her favourite aspect of the sport is the frenzied atmosphere of a roller derby match.
The two girls were among the youngest players at the tournament–a tournament which saw teams from the United States, France, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden, and Great Britain competing to be crowned champion.
“I’m excited about playing with people who are 18 years-old,” said Stilborn, who also added that it would be her first time travelling to Europe and was looking forward to some sightseeing along the way.
Stilborn, McEllistrum, and Team Alberta would go on to finish third place at the World Cup.
Airdrie boxer to compete at Canada Winter Games next month
The 2023 Canada Winter Games were a great source of sports stories this year, with local athletes competing in numerous winter related sports and bringing home medal after medal.
Emily Vigneault, a 16 year-old member of Airdrie’s Humble Boxing Academy, was preparing for the Winter Games as the only female member of Alberta’s boxing team when she was interviewed by Airdrie City View.
“It’s a really big opportunity for my career,” said Vigneault, who had only taken up boxing two years ago. Although she was relatively new to the sport, Vigneault was a former competitive Muay Thai kickboxer who finished second at the World Youth Muay Thai Championship in 2017, when she was 10 years-old.
“I fell way more in love with boxing than I did with Muay Thai, so I’ve completely transitioned to boxing…it’s opened a lot of new doors as well,” she said. To further her boxing development, Vigneault joined Humble Boxing Academy in January 2022 and according to her, the background she had in Muay Thai makes her a difficult match up in the boxing ring.
Vigneault won the gold medal for women’s boxing at the 2023 games.
Airdrie-coached curling team wins second national U18 title
Airdrie Curling Club’s Team Plett, coached by Airdrie resident Blair Lenton, swept all nine of their matches to win the Canadian U18 women’s curling championship.
The win meant that Team Plett became the back-to-back national champions, having won the same tournament in 2022 as well. Coach Lenton said at the time that it felt pretty incredible to repeat as national champions.
Team Plett went undefeated in the round robin and earned a bye through to the quarterfinals, where they also swept all three of their playoff games. “We had a couple of close ones,” said Lenton. “But never dropped one.”
Team Plett would also be the Alberta representative in the 2023 Canada Winter Games after they won provincials which was held shortly before they left for Timmins.
Considering that a lot of the teams they played in Timmins would also be at the Canada Winter Games, Team Plett said they were looking forward to their rematches. Both the finalists and the bronze medal winners from the U18 championship also competed at the Winter Games.
Xtreme caps off 2022-23 as U15 AAA provincial champions
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It appears Airdrie produced nothing but winners in 2023, with the U15 Xtreme ending one of the most dominating hockey seasons with a coveted provincial title.
In March, the Airdrie Xtreme U15 AAA hockey team outscored the Calgary Bisons 3-2 to win their first provincial championship since 2018. Overall, the Xtreme finished the 2022-23 season with a near perfect 41-1-1 record throughout the regular season, playoffs, and provincials.
They outscored their opponents 259-83 over those games and went completely undefeated throughout the playoffs.
After their successful season culminated in a championship, many players for the Xtreme team heard their names called in the WHL draft that happened in May.
Xtreme coach Tyson Soloski said that the coaching staff was proud of the work the players put in throughout the year in order to get better. With teams as dominant as the Xtreme were in 2022-23, there is some understanding that the success might not be able to be replicated.
Regardless, the 2022-23 Airdrie Xtreme will go down in local sports history as one of the best U15 AAA teams that has ever come out of Airdrie.
The rise of Croxford's athletic department
This next story was the longest and most detailed feature that could be read in the sport section this year. W.H. Croxford High School is one of the newer schools in Airdrie and its ascension to the top of the field as far as athletic departments go, was worth the deep dive.
In just nine years, Croxford went from zero student athletes to an athletic program that saw roughly 90 students trying out for any given team. According to Jared Fuller, the school's athletic coordinator, over 270 students – more than one fifth of the school’s student population – compete for one or more of the Cavaliers sports programs.
The feature details the success of the school's various teams, like the senior girls basketball squad that has built a “dynasty” in the last few years by either winning, or seriously contending for the league and provincial championships.
The growing success of the football team is also mentioned in the feature. In its first year of competition in 2018, the Cavaliers finished a respectable 4-4 and year after year it sends graduating players to play in junior leagues across the country.
The rise and prominence of the Croxford athletic department would be an interesting read for anyone that wants to learn about how a plucky underdog school developed into one the most athletically inclined in all of Rocky View Schools.
Bert Church reclaims first RVSA boys soccer banner
W.H. Croxford was not the only Airdrie high school that made news in 2023. Bert Church High School’s boys soccer team went undefeated in 2023 and claimed a Rocky View title for the first time in five years.
After beating rival Springbank 4-3 to win the league championship, Chargers head coach Sebastien Durand expressed a great deal of admiration for his players' resilience throughout their eight matches of the 2023 campaign.
“If we look back at the last two seasons under my coaching, we played well all year and then we got to the end and we didn’t get the result we wanted. So we wanted something different and [the players] got it,” said Durand back in June.
As he reflected on the team's undefeated season, Durand touted the collective effort and shared vision that propelled the Chargers to success and noted that their title was well deserved.
Airdrie athletes contribute to medal hauls at 2023 Alberta Summer games
Over four dozen Airdrie athletes competed among the 3,000 that took to Okotoks and Diamond Valley in June for the provincial games. Airdrie athletes performed for Zone 2, a geographic area that extends west to Banff and east to Brooks and north to Olds and south to Nanton. (It does not include Calgary.)
Some of the highlights included an overall Zone 2 finish of third place, with the U15 boys lacrosse team winning a gold medal. The lacrosse team included six players from the Airdrie Rockyview Rage. Another gold was won for Zone 2 in the U14 girls soccer team that had three Airdrie players on it.
Two Airdire players won a silver medal for girls softball and fifteen medals were won by Zone 2 swimmers, many of which hailed from the Nose Creek Swim Association and the Airdrie Phoenix Swim Club.
In total, Airdrie athletes contributed to a medal count that saw Zone 2 earn 35 golds, 47 silvers, and 38 bronze medals. All in all it was a very impressive showing for Airdrie athletes at the 2023 Alberta Summer Games.
George McDougall Mustangs win second straight championship
The last Airdrie high school to get in on the championship glory in 2023 were the George McDougall Mustangs. In November, the football team completed their undefeated season with a league championship victory over rival Cochrane High School–the Mustangs second championship in a row.
On average, the Mustangs scored somewhere around 38 points a game in 2023 and only averaged a touchdown against. The team's most high stress and closest game came in late October against the Cochrane Cobras, who had been chasing down the Mustangs all year long.
In the championship matchup, the Mustangs and Cobras were bogged down by bad weather and poor field condition, until the second half when the Mustangs offense broke through and ended the game with a 36-5 victory.
The George McDougall Mustangs were a top 10 national ranked team in 2023 and their roster was filled with players who will most likely go on to play some form of college football for Canadian universities next year.
The Mustangs moved on to the Tier 1 provincials where their season came to an unfortunate end against the Foothills Falcons. But there is no taking away the dominance of the George McDougall Mustangs in 2023.
Airdrie born rower wins Gold and Silver at Pan Am Games
Olivia McMurray was written about multiple times through 2023. Her name appeared in editions of this paper as she journeyed from Pan Am qualifiers to the actual games, which culminated in a historic finish for the Airdrie born rower.
McMurray won a silver medal in women’s coxless pair with her partner, Abby Dent of Kenora Ontario and then contributed to a gold medal for Canada when the women’s team won gold in the first ever women’s eight race at a Pan Am event.
The Canadian team beat the United States and Chile, who hosted the 2023 Pan Am Games, by almost a full boat length in the final of the women’s eight. “We just had the best we ever had,” said McMurray after the Games. “We just found a rhythm immediately, it just felt so effortless.”
McMurray recounted that the Canadian team had lost to the Americans in other races, including in the coxless pair. “I think having those losses really motivated us,” said McMurray. “[But] we knew we had the eight best women…I was thinking to myself that I was glad [I was] in a boat with these women and not against them.”
For McMurray, there wasn’t a better way to end the 2023 rowing season than by winning a gold medal for Team Canada on the international stage.
Kiwi curlers call the Airdrie Curling Club their winter home
A similar story also appeared in publications like the The Guardian, and The New York Times, and was shown on segments on Global News and CBC.
Team Hood, which consists of Ben Smith, Brett Sargon, and skip Anton Hood, represent their native New Zealand as the county’s national curling team, and have spent all winter living in a Calgary retirement home, competing in numerous curling leagues in Calgary and Airdrie.
In an interview one night before a league game at the Airdrie Curling Club, the members of Team Hood said they had come to Canada in order to train with the best, in order to beat the best. New Zealand is not what one might think when it comes to curling hot beds, with only has 10 sheets of curling ice, and the community is so small that the three members of Team Hood met playing the game while living on opposite ends of the county.
The three curlers are in Canada on their own dime and had to get jobs working as plumbers or at the Calgary Curling Club in order to live, and were able to acquire housing at the Chartwell Colonel Belcher retirement home in Calgary through a curling connection.
Team Hood has represented New Zealand in international tournaments numerous times against some of the world’s best with a goal of competing in the Olympics for their country. They said the level of competition at the Airdrie Curling Club is no joke.
