There is a lot to be done behind the scenes to get the Niverville Nighthawks ready for their games—and that’s when their trusty Flight Crew steps in.
Currently, there are seven members of the Flight Crew. These are students with physical or cognitive disabilities from the Niverville High School (NHS) who take care of pre-game preparations and attend the attached Community Resource and Recreation Centre (CRRC) nearly every day to organize and help out wherever their services are needed.
Different crew members, with the help of NHS educational assistants, have specific jobs based on their talents and abilities. One member washes the team’s water bottles every day, fills them back up, and leaves them out, ready for the players. Several members do laundry every day and then hang the team’s jerseys up in numerical order so it’s quick and easy for each player to find their number. Crew members also clean up the pucks after each practice and vacuum and dust the Nighthawks office.
On game days, the students have even more to do. They set up the equipment and snack tables for the team and make sure the game day pucks are ready to go.
An hour before each game, two members of the Flight Crew show up to hand out programs, stamp hands, and scan tickets at the door. After their work is done, they can go cheer on the team.
The Flight Crew has been given NHS hoodies from the school. Recently, they each received Nighthawks toques so they can represent both organizations while they watch the game.
The Nighthawks benefit greatly from the Flight Crew’s help, but there are perks for the crew as well. The students learn valuable life skills from the work they do.
Raelyn Voulgaris, the learning support teacher at Niverville High School, says that each student is matched with the task that suits them best.
“The adult services that are available in this community are kind of slim to none, and we figured we have these kids who have so much to offer,” says Voulgaris. “We don’t want them to leave our community.”
Another perk for the crew is that every Thursday they get to play in the gym for an hour with members of the Nighthawks. This gym time is currently sponsored by Penn-co Construction and Voulgaris says she’s had offers from multiple parents to pay for gym time next year.
Voulgaris explains that for some of these kids, a standard gym class would be quite intimidating.
“We have kids who are wheelchair users, kids who are blind, so a regular game of dodgeball isn’t going to always work,” Voulgaris says. “So we worked with our occupational therapist to create a bunch of modified gym activities and a whole group of Nighthawks joins us in the gym and we do a gym class with them.”
The Flight Crew’s gym time was recently improved further with the help of Chantal Todd, the recreation programmer for the Town of Niverville. Todd applied for and received funding for programming support from the Canadian Tire Jumpstart Charities. The grant has allowed the group to purchase some modified gym equipment and pay three Nighthawks team members to run these activities.
Todd explains that she applied for a Jumpstart Grant in the summer of 2022 with the intention of running a program to help children and young adults with disabilities get active. After receiving the grant, Todd tried to run a program with the money but didn’t get enough participation to be able to make it work.
“It wasn’t until we saw the Flight Crew using the fieldhouse here in the CRRC with the Nighthawks that we had the idea to partner with the two groups to run this program with them,” Todd says. “Both groups were very excited to get started with this six-week multi-sport program and build deeper connections with the Nighthawks athletes. Niverville Rec can’t wait to see what other grants we can get to further this wonderful partnership with the Flight Crew students and the Nighthawks.”
The symbiosis of this collaboration is ideal. The students get dedicated support from athletes and the athletes can use these positions on their resumes.
And, of course, everyone has fun.
Nighthawks captain Brett Tataryn is one of the athletes who helps run these gym classes.
“This is a great time for both us and the Flight Crew!” says Tataryn. “The Crew are huge supporters of ours and we try our best to give back to them for all the time, hard work, and support that they give us.”
Gail Chornoboy, the Nighthawks’ billeting coordinator, had the idea of getting students with disabilities to form a symbiotic relationship with the Nighthawks.
“I organised it,” says Chornoboy about the initiative. “It was something I always thought should happen once I got more involved with the team.”
Nighthawks head coach Kelvin Cech also has a lot praise for the Flight Crew.
“One of the bright spots of my day is when the Flight Crew comes in to help out in the dressing room,” says the coach. “From laundry to water bottles to pucks, there are a lot of details behind the scenes that the players and I value, so having the Flight Crew come in and take on a huge part of that is just massive. We appreciate it so much. The gang is so full of energy and enthusiasm. They take pride in what they’re doing, and we’re simply so lucky to have them.”
“These students are so lovely,” adds Voulgaris. “They work so hard and they love it so much and I just want to celebrate them. You have to put them on a really high pedestal and say, ‘Yes, you can! It’s all good! We’ve got you!’”
When asked about to best describe the fact that these are teens with disabilities or special needs, Voulgaris says, “I like to call the kids ‘students with exceptionalities.’”
That’s a fitting phrase, as the Flight Crew is indeed an exceptional group.
