So some of the province’s best athletes will be coming to Prince George in July 2022.
I’m sure there were some people around B.C. who figured they had gotten things backwards when they announced Vernon was hosting the 2022 BC Winter Games and Prince George was hosting the Summer Games, but nope, that’s the way it is.
I have to admit I was somewhat surprised they were announcing the provincial games five years in advance, considering that was basically the same advance time they gave us for the 2015 Canada Winter Games, but then I saw they announced the 2020 Games at the same time, so I guess they just figured, “what the heck, we’ve got the media here, let’s make all these announcements at the same time.”
I have had the chance to work, in different capacities, at two previous Canada Games. I was in Kamloops in 1993 for the Canada Summer Games and in Prince George for the 2015 Winter Games.
In Kamloops, I had the chance to take two weeks’ holidays during the games and volunteered for baseball one week and basketball the other, which was a lot of fun (and a lot of work). In both cases, I was doing scorekeeping, which is something I really enjoy, partly because you usually have one of the best seats in the house.
I used to score keep a lot of high school basketball in Prince George, and usually there were three people at the table: a scorekeeper, a timekeeper, and a shot-clock operator. I remember one game where I was the only person in the crew who showed up.
We got through the first quarter, and the refs came over during the break. One of them asked where the rest of the crew had gone.
I explained there was no “rest of the crew,” that I was it. They decided immediately that to make sure I lived to see the end of the game, they would not worry about the shot clock for the rest of the game. They explained the situation to the coaches, and they were OK with that, so I had a much easier time.
I also got one of the best compliments I ever got (which isn’t a big number to start with) from a ref who I had worked with a fair bit. He came over before one game and was talking to the scorekeeper about how the score on the scoresheet was official.
Then he saw me running the time clock, which includes the scoreboard, and said to the scorekeeper, “but if there’s a difference between the scoresheet and the scoreboard, you’d better be able to show me you’re right.”
As a footnote, the young girl (a student at the time) did an excellent job, and I had the chance to work with her a few more times over the next couple of years.
When the Canada Winter Games were here in 2015, I was unable to get the time off to volunteer, because of my slave-driver of an editor (Bill Phillips), so I had to be satisfied with covering the events for the Free Press.
That actually gave me the chance to see more of the events and the venues, so that was kind of neat.
I’ll be interested to see how or if I will be working at the 2022 Summer Games.
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