Sixty-eight Northwest Territories athletes will take part in the 2022 Canada Summer Games in St Catharines over the next two weeks.
Saturday’s opening ceremony will be streamed live from 6pm MT, launching a two-week tournament in which Team NT will compete in seven sports. Events begin on Sunday with NWT tennis and soccer players in action.
Basketball player Mali Straker will carry the Northwest Territories flag at the opening ceremony.
In a press release, Sport North said Straker had “trained for countless hours and sacrificed spending time with family and friends” to achieve her goal of become a university athlete at Laurentian University and, this coming season, St Francis Xavier.
Advertisement.
Advertisement.
“Mali has become one of very few athletes to play U-sports basketball from the Northwest Territories,” Sport North stated.
“Mali excelled in her rookie season, being a starting player in many games and being a valuable piece to her team. She also was an academic all-Canadian.”
In week one, the NWT is represented by a male soccer team, male and female basketball teams, a male beach volleyball team, six tennis players and six swimmers.
Week two features the territory’s female volleyball team and 10 track and field athletes.
On Sunday, the first NWT athletes in action will be the tennis players from 7am MT in the mixed team event against Newfoundland and Labrador. The NWT faces Ontario in soccer at 2pm MT and the territory’s swimmers will compete in the female 4x200m freestyle relay from 1:30pm MT.
This year, Canada Games organizers say more than 90 percent of the events in Niagara will be live-streamed.
