Airdrie won’t be hosting the 2015 Western Canada Summer Games.
The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (Fort McMurray) was named as the host by Alberta’s Minister of Tourism, Parks and Recreation Cindy Ady, at a ceremony in the northern Alberta community on June 29.
Wood Buffalo beat out entries from Airdrie, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and Lakeland County (Bonnyville/Cold Lake).
The reaction from Linda Bruce, the chair of Airdrie’s bid committee, was one of frustration, but also of understanding.
“It was disappointing for sure, but when I was going through it over the last so many months, I figured our real competition was Fort McMurray,” she said. “I guess I’m not surprised in some ways and from what I understand they put in a very strong bid. There were a lot of things in their favour. I think they’ll do a fabulous job, although of course we would have liked that opportunity.”
Ady told the press in Fort McMurray that the five communities all had strong bids, but that Wood Buffalo’s just stood out more than the others.
“For the size of the community, it punches way above its weight if you will for the number of people that live in your community, it’s amazing,” she said.
The WCSG, featuring 18 different events during 10 days, would have brought around 2,500 participants from across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut to Airdrie.
Bruce said she was impressed with how Airdrie’s council and community came together to support the bid, as well as the work from the bid committee members.
“We were taking a big leap into a very large games,” she said. “When we started this process, it was cold. We had nothing to go on and had to put everything together in just a few months. I really firmly believe that we did a fabulous job. I think if you looked at the results, we would probably be a close second.”
The bid committee will have access to the results to have the opportunity to see where any potential weaknesses were in its bid, as well as compare the standout elements of the bid from Wood Buffalo.
The lasting aspect of this bid, Bruce said, is that Airdrie will be more prepared for the next time it puts a bid proposal together.
“It was a fabulous experience for our community and those that were involved in applying for this. We now have a package essentially ready to go – we would just have to update it with whatever the relevant information is,” she said. “It was a great group to work with and I think we did a bang-up job. We had the right enthusiasm and our community was on board – just have to find out what Fort McMurray’s magic was and make sure we have that next time.”
