The Alberta Winter Games are being hailed as a great success by organizers, who emphasize that the many volunteers who contributed their time and effort have done a magnificent job.

“Everything went really well,” said Robin Marks, Jasper’s games chairman, and a volunteer himself. “I jumped on a couple of the buses before they left Sunday morning and spoke to coaches and athletes and they were all really impressed.”

All venues were praised by competitors and spectators alike, but games staff heard the most positive feedback about the outdoor speed skating event held on Lake Mildred.

“I think we knew all along that if it went off even reasonably well, it would be the signature event,” said Marks. 

Games assistant Max Voykin spent time at each event over the course of the weekend, speaking with officials and zone mission chiefs. He said that another sport that drew a great deal of positive attention was fencing, which saw crowds of more than 100. Organizers had expected between 20 to 30. Still, he heard a lot about speed skating.

“Everybody was just blown away by the speed skating, they couldn’t even express how impressed they were,” he said.

Don Hayes, the chair of the speed skating event, was effusive in his praise for the 40-odd volunteers who contributed their time to keeping the oval in top shape and the competitors comfortable.

“It went extremely well,” he said. “They all did a wonderful job.”

Hayes had been involved with the original bid for the games, and hadn’t expected to have a role in the events themselves. However, when he saw that organizers were still looking for a speed skating chair, he couldn’t refuse. With no prior experience in the sport, Hayes laughed when asked if he spent a lot of time on putting the event together.

“Oh yeah, I sure did, but when you’re retired you’ve got lots of time!”

Up on the ski hill, meanwhile, a combination of conditions, weather and good organization made for a memorable set of events.

“From our perspective it couldn’t have possibly run any better,” said Brian Rode of Marmot Basin. “The conditions were great, the weather was good, the course was good and everything went very, very smoothly.”

The games provided an opportunity for exposure for both Marmot and Jasper, and Rode is pleased that everything fell into place for the weekend.

“It was nice to see these kids and families from the different corners of the province who maybe haven’t had the chance to see Jasper or come to Marmot, come here when conditions were so excellent.”

Recognizing that the events did run smoothly involves a major debt of gratitude to the volunteers behind the scenes, according to Rode. 

“My hat is off particularly to all the volunteers who organized all the events,” he said. “When everything goes smoothly and easily like it did, you don’t realize how much work is put into it.”

There were 363 volunteers helping with the Games in Jasper, according to Voykin.

“260 of them signed up in the last three weeks, in typical Jasper fashion, so we ended up with way more than we expected,” he said.

The work done was hard, and not always glamorous.

“There were people pulling night shifts from midnight until six in the morning, and people working on food service were up at 4 a.m. to start helping with breakfast,” Voykin said. “Obviously, these games ran solely off the effort of volunteers and people were working on everything.”

For Rode, the fact that the Games involved three communities was a positive as well.

“Not only did it get our community base working together on an event, we also did that in cooperation with Hinton and Edson.”