P.E.I. welcomes athletes arriving for the 2023 Canada Winter Games

Athletes from across the country began to arrive in Charlottetown Friday, one day before the scheduled kick off of the 2023 Canada Winter Games.

A total of 12 chartered flights landed at the city's airport on Friday, bringing 1,500 athletes and coaches to the Island for the first of two weeks of competition. Two of those flights were diverted to other airports due to a winter storm system accompanied by freezing rain, but both arrived later to Charlottetown. 

Team B.C. was the first to arrive on the tarmac Friday morning. Lauren Cochrane, a curler with the team, says she got very little sleep on the long flight from Vancouver.

"When we got here, everyone was so welcoming and saying 'Welcome to PEI' as soon as we got through the doors, so it was really awesome," she said.

Jeffer Ward and Elise Froese are on the Team B.C. wheelchair basketball team. They said they've been training multiple times a week in preparation for the Games. 

"This is my first time, so I've been training a lot with my coaches to get to this point so I'm excited to be able to compete again,"  said Ward.

"I think we have a good shot at the gold medal," said Froese. "I'm very excited for that game and I really hope we get to it."

In total, P.E.I. is welcoming more than 3,600 young athletes, coaches and managers from across the country to compete in over 20 sports and 150 events. 

Final preparations

The Games officially start Saturday night at 7:30 p.m., with the opening ceremony at the Eastlink Centre in Charlottetown.

Musicians, artists and technical staff spent most of Friday in rehearsals for the show. 

And with a little over 24 hours left before the kick-off, CEO Brian McFeely said it's all come down to the next two weeks. After more than five years of planning — much of it in the midst of a pandemic — he said it's time to show the country some true Island hospitality.

"We are ready," he said.  

"[It's] just so gratifying. With these 5,000 volunteers who have come out to support the Games and to welcome Canada, it's just going to be an exciting couple of weeks." 

Former athletes honoured

But before the Games get underway on Saturday, four former athletes were set to be welcomed into the Canada Games Hall of Honour on Friday night.

Among them, P.E.I.'s top doctor, chief public health officer Dr. Heather Morrison. 

Morrison represented P.E.I. on the field hockey team in 1989 and again as team manager at the 1993 Games.

"For me at the time, I mean to go off to Saskatoon and then Kamloops, wearing the PEI colours, it was a really special experience and we were so excited and so proud," she said.

Morrison said while she doesn't remember the outcome of the games she played in, the experience has stayed with her.

And she had a message for the current crop of athletes: "Yes, the competition is important, but it's to soak up the whole experience and the other people you're going to meet here at the games and also the experience with your own teams."

Another of the inductees, former Olympian Sami Jo Small, competed in the 1991 Canada Games in Charlottetown. It was the first time women's hockey was included in the event.

"It was really special," she said. "I was in that room of 13- to 17-year-old athletes … Little did I know that Haley Wickenheiser was sitting in the room, Cassie Campbell was in that room, Sheryl Pounder — so many of the future Team Canada players that I got to play alongside were in that room." 

Weather still a 'concern'

After all the planning, organizers said there was still one factor outside of their control: the winter weather. Friday's blowing snow and icy conditions caused two flights to be diverted: Team Alberta to Halifax and Team Manitoba to St. John's. 

But a good amount of snow is also an important part of many Games events, said the CEO.

McFeely said organizers have worked hard to make sure there will be enough snow on the ground for the events.

"You always look at the forecast there and we have some good cold weather next week, so we can make lots of snow," he said.

"So, you know, that would be a concern … but for the most part I think we're ready."