By Jody Jewers, Editor, The Sport Section
It was an eventful two weeks for Nova Scotia’s contingent at the Canada Summer Games in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Bluenose brigade brought back 61 medals to finish fifth overall, trailing Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta in the overall count. That’s the highest total for this province at any Canada Games, eclipsing the 56 earned in Ontario at the previous Summer Games in 2022. It was no surprise most of Nova Scotia’s haul came from the water, with paddlers getting to the podium 33 times. Eric Chouinard of Cole Harbour led the way with four gold (C-1 200 metres, C-2 500 with Duncan Giles of Dartmouth, and C-4 200 and 500 metres with Giles, Alec MacAulay of Fall River and Alex MacNeil of Timberlea) and a silver (C-2 200 with MacNeil).
“One of our quotes as a mission staff early on in our process was, ‘Nova Scotia’s not just a participator, we’re a contender,’” says provincial chef de mission Cathy Burton of Hammonds Plains. “We knew we had some gold medals, but we had no idea we were gonna land where we did. We were aiming in the 50 to 55 range overall and if we managed to beat the 56 from the last Games, we would be very happy and we certainly did better than that.
“We didn’t have rowing at these Games, so we figured that might affect our medal count negatively, but boy did our athletes prove us wrong on that one.”
Burton also pointed out that Nova Scotia recorded 17 fourth place finishes during the fortnight, so that medal count could have been higher. Several team events had Nova Scotia edged out in bronze-medal matches. The women’s soccer squad earned its third straight bronze and the men’s softball team, silver medalists in 2022, picked up a bronze this year. Women’s basketball also made the podium in third place for its first medal in 20 years.
As big as any challenge faced by the athletes during competition was the threat of wildfires that were burning in parts of Newfoundland. The box lacrosse and soccer venues had to be changed and sailing and beach volleyball were rescheduled.
Given Nova Scotia’s recent battles with wildfires, Burton says her team was able to take it all in stride.
“Everyone stepped up, from the mission staff to the athletes to the volunteers,” she says. “We worked overtime on changes to schedules, to transportation, to mealtimes for athletes and everyone just rolled with it and made it work.
“Everything was well organized and they were able to control the controllables. For many of the volunteers there, they were living in the areas affected by evacuation orders or pending evacuation orders. People joined in and helped out wherever they could.
“The other interesting thing about it was that it was incredibly hot that first week, and by the time of the changeover day for Week 2, it was like someone had turned off a furnace and it got bitterly cold. So you had two weeks with extreme temperatures and volunteers did everything from extra water to keeping athletes warm and out of the rain at times. It was something that you couldn’t control and we were able to manage it and the Games as a whole did a really good job managing that.”
