On March 8, the CRRC in Niverville, in association with Sport Manitoba, hosted its first Bison Transport Girls Multi-Sport Event.
Teresa Mistelbacher, the CRRC’s supervisor of camps and recreation programming, explains that the program introduces young females to a variety of sports through half-day try-a-sport-type events.
The morning program was meant for girls aged 7 to 10 and the afternoon was for ages 10 to 12. Mistelbacher says she was thrilled with the number of young women who came out to participate, noting that the morning session had a full slate of 40 participants and the afternoon almost as many.
Mistelbacher herself chose the four showcased sports based on what activities she hears about in her day-to-day work. After selecting the sports, she worked directly with Sport Manitoba to make sure they had representatives at the event well-versed in each one.
“We did wrestling and used our local instructor, as well as someone from Wrestling Manitoba, to host that event,” Mistelbacher says. “We had volleyball, so we worked with Volleyball Manitoba to have coaches for that. We had basketball, and we also had softball represented.”
Mistelbacher chose softball due to the excellent baseball and softball programs in the local area. Volleyball and basketball were chosen due to their popularity around Niverville.
“As far as wrestling goes, I actually had heard from Sport Manitoba that some of their mixed martial arts programs were very popular with females,” she adds. “They said they’ve had really great success with things like judo in other areas, and I know we have a really great wrestling program here, as well as kickboxing and jiujitsu. I wanted to make sure we had some representation of mixed martial arts here at our event. I heard lots of girls on their way out saying, ‘Wrestling was my favourite!’”
The participants were given time at each of the four sports stations so they could get a chance to learn a little bit about them, try the sports, and get some guidance from coaches and volunteers.
The event is supported by funding from Bison Transport and is intended to allow girls to try these sports as well as go home with a T-shirt commemorating the day.
Mistelbacher says that based on the success of this day, she’s hoping the CRRC will host it again.
“We do a free come-try-it series every September to kind of celebrate our programs, but this was the first time we’ve done a dedicated day just for girls and with hand-selected sports. I think that this will become an ongoing thing. I’ve already been in talks with Sport Manitoba about providing this on an in-service day for the next school year as well.”
For this inaugural event, Mistelbacher and her team focused on what they could do in the CRRC’s fieldhouse, but she says they are open next time to trying all sorts of different activities throughout the facility, as well as at Hespeler Park.
