She thought it was a scam.
Sarah Saunders, executive director of Engage Sport North, thought she was being messed with when The Amazing Race Canada first reached out to see if they could work together for a segment of a show that was taking place in Prince George.
“They originally contacted Rob Stiles, a member of our team,” Saunders said.
Stiles oversees the para sport programming and Northern Adapted Sport Association under the umbrella of Engage Sport North, a non-profit organization that supports athletes, coaches, officials, educators, parents and sport leaders in Northern BC.
“It was a very vague email — we thought it was a scam — it said ‘a national TV show is going to come to your town’ and we’re like 'yeah, sure,'” Saunders laughed, recalling the skepticism about the legitimacy of the initial email inquiries.
“We kind of brushed them off at first. And then they were persistent and finally they did spill the beans as to what the show was and then we thought ‘OK, this sounds kind of legit!’”
The CTV summer series challenges teams of two to race across the country to complete physical and mental challenges in pursuit of a grand prize of $250,000 from FUZE Iced Tea, a trip around the world and two 2025 Chevrolet Blazer EV SS vehicles. The Amazing Race Canada is hosted by skeleton bobsled Olympic gold medalist Jon Montgomery and based on the popular U.S. version.
So once the emailers said they were from The Amazing Race Canada, that’s when they started planning, Stiles added.
“They contacted our para sports because the show really likes to highlight accessibility and inclusivity and all those kinds of things and of course that’s what we’re all about,” Saunders said.
During the most recent previews of episode 5 showcasing the summer series on CTV there are glimpses of what’s to come featuring Prince George and the local competitors, Grace Dove and Joe Syme.
If you don’t blink during the commercial you see a flash of the Northern Sport Centre where people are playing an adaptive game of para badminton.
“Yeah, so they hadn’t done para badminton before and that’s one of the programs that we offer, particularly for those athletes with disabilities all over Northern BC," Saunders said.
"They contacted us to say ‘hey, do you want to be part of this thing we want to do?’ and we said 'yes, we’ll help out!'”
So Engage Sport North gathered a bunch of people together to be part of the day, including Engage Sport North staff and friends of Engage Sport North and local community members who wanted to participate in the para badminton activities, she added.
“So we just advertised it as that because we weren’t allowed to say anything so we just got everyone together and then on the day they were told what we’d be doing and then the staff of the show took over,” Saunders explained.
“They had ideas around what the competition would be, the format and we just took our direction from that.”
Saunders along with Rob Stiles were on hand to offer successful The Amazing Race Canada competitors their next clue during the show.
“I guess I didn’t really have a whole lot of context because I hadn’t watched the show a lot so I kinda just did what they said and got the opportunity to be part of it. You tend to get excited when you’re in that atmosphere and so they told me this was my role and told me what to do and I did what they said. It was really cool for our organization to be involved. We’re just a little regional not-for-profit and it was kinda cool to be on national TV.”
Engage Sport North is part of the national sport system.
“And that’s why they reached out to us,” Saunders said.
“We play a role in the whole body of sport in Canada through our connections with the Canadian Sport Institute and we are tasked with delivering sport in Northern BC.”
Looking back at the experience, Saunders said it was really quite impressive how The Amazing Race Canada approaches a shoot.
“The people were super nice and it was amazing how many people were involved in making a thing like that happen,” Saunders said.
“There were so many camera people and they had GoPros on every corner of the badminton net. They even had a drone taking footage. It was actually kind of amazing to see how many people make a thing like that happen — maybe I’m just naïve — but there’s an army of people there and they were very good to our volunteers and it was fun to work with them all. It was a long day but it was really fun.”
For more information about Engage Sport North’s services visit https://engagesportnorth.com/
