As much as the unseasonably warm weather this week has caused headaches for organizers of the 2015 Canada Winter Games, Prince George might as well be Mexico to Hayden Hickey and the rest of the short track speed skating team from Nunavut.
Anything's a holiday when you can say goodbye to -66 C cold.
An hour before they left for the Games, the temperature in their hometown of Iqaluit was -59 C and with the wind chill it felt like the wrong side of the high sixties. So coming to P.G., where it was a balmy 5 C on Friday, felt like springtime to the 15-year-old Hickey.
"It's a lot warmer here," Hickey said. "We had an extreme cold warning of -60 C before we left, every single community in Nunavut had an extreme cold warning of at least -55 C or below. We were glad to leave."
Short track starts Sunday with the 1,500m event.
"It's going to be exciting, with lots of competition, trying to get some best times, skating against Quebec," said the 15-year-old Hickey. "My goal is just times and trying to keep up to everybody else, not necessarily medals. I skated today and the arena is warmer which makes it harder to skate but the ice is really nice. It should be good skating."
Assuming it gets cold enough to freeze ice, Hickey hopes to have time to check out long track speed skating for outdoor oval at Exhibition Park, which he's never live seen before.
His teammate Tyler Kirk, 17, has competed in three Arctic Winter Games but says nothing compares with what he and the four-skater Nunavut team is in for over the next week at Lakeland Dental Arena.
"This is totally way bigger than that," said Kirk. "I've trained a lot this year."
Their coach Kyle St. Laurent celebrates his 29th birthday today and can't think of better venue to help celebrate while representing Nunavut.
"This is my first time at a Canada Winter Games and it's been really great, the city has been overly friendly to us," said St. Laurent. "In a city this size, people aren't usually that friendly to you.
"I'm looking forward to having my skaters beat their personal bests. The main thing is beating their best times, coming down here and have fun and meet new people. This is their first time at a Canada Games and they aren't likely to win medals."
Wheelchair basketball athlete Michael Kilonzo of Mississauga, Ont., and his Ontario team open their tournament Monday against Saskatchewan.
"I've never been here and it's a small community but everyone is really nice here," said Kilonzo. "We have a good team and we're really close-knit, we don't just play for this one tournament. We are like a good bunch of friends and we've been together for years."
Kilonzo says people who have never seen wheelchair basketball are in for a few surprises when they come to the court at Duchess Park secondary school.
"People don't think about the contact or how fast-paced wheelchair basketball is," he said. "There's lots of contact and it has the same rules as standup basketball. The nets are the same height, there's dribbling, it's just modified a bit for the chair."
His teammate Hisham Mohammad of Whitby, Ont., knows Avril Harris of Prince George, an able-bodied member of the B.C. team and can't wait to get rolling on Ontario's medal quest.
"It's truly an overwhelming experience, it's a beautiful city and I love the smalltown feel - the people are really nice and I love it here," said Mohammad, 20. "We're usually representing our own club, with Ontario behind us, but now we have a multi-sport event and the entire squad is supporting you.
"This is my first and last Canada Games and I'm honoured to play wheelchair basketball for Ontario. I'm really hoping to see all the events I can if we have time. I've never seen ringette and I've never seen archery or biathlon. I've tried sledge hockey as well and I know a lot about wheelchair sports and I want to show other people how exciting wheelchair basketball is. You always see people's abilities in disabilities."
Alpine skier Abby Harrison of Calgary, 15, was disappointed to see so much rain falling on Prince George Friday morning, knowing what all that liquid sunshine was doing to the super-G course at Purden Mountain Ski Resort. All the alpine events have been pushed back a day and that means she'll have to wait until at least Sunday for her first race.
"I was thinking the rain is not good for super-G because you can't do speed events in slush, it's not safe," said Harrison. "We're going to do a training day (Saturday) and there's too much slush we'll do a (giant slalom) and the next day it will be a super-G day hopefully. They can't do the slalom first because it leaves big ruts and that would work against us in a long run."
The Alberta team includes seven girls and six boys.
"My goal is to podium," said Harrison.
"It's cool, I''ve raced against a few B.C. people but never really outside of that and I've never represented Alberta. It means a lot. This is sort of like the Olympics for younger people, sort of what it could be like in the future."
Jenny Snowdon centres a forward line for the New Brunswick ringette and she already has great memories of Prince George. The 18-year-old and several of her current teammates won the national under-16 ringette championship when the city hosted that event in April 2012.
"I still remember nationals like it was yesterday, that was the first time New Brunswick had ever won and we have a lot of players from that team here now," said Snowdon. "All the teams here are pretty strong so it's going to be tough competition."
Snowdon is bunking in with her teammates six to a room in the Ramada Hotel and that means long lineups for the bathroom, but she says they are being treating like queens.
"The food is very good, like nothing I've ever experienced, there's literally everything you can think of and the rink is so close to the hotel (three blocks away from the Coliseum), so you don't get stressed about it," said Snowdon. "It's very organized."
Ringette is not yet an Olympic sport but until that happens, this is as close as Snowdon will get to living that experience.
"I'm just looking forward to the competitiveness and the team bonding that I won't ever get again," said Snowdon, whose two sisters played ringette in the Canada Games.
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