From James Cunningham - Head Coach

Half way through the week and we have a wonderful rest day to relax and refocus for the remaining two days of competition at the Games. After the first two days of racing Team Ontario has posted some excellent results and we are currently in a close match for 2nd place overall in the standings.

The atmosphere at the Athletes Village is always fantastic. The Canada Winter Games are run in the same manner as the Olympics, with an athletes village to handle all of the athletes needs for the duration of the games. The village consists of two large residences and a main complex of buildings that house the food service, mission offices, lounges, arcades, computer labs and medical services. The rooms are packed very tight with temporary partitions erected to fit up to 23 people in a 3-bedroom suite, but so far everyone is doing great at keeping things quiet and clean. The cafeteria is quite an amazing operation, on a daily basis they are serving up to 4,000 meals. They are open from 6:00am-10:00pm and offer a dozen different kinds of hot and cold food at any given time. One of the unique and largely mysterious areas of the village is the mission offices. The games are run by a large group of mostly volunteer Mission Staff, each with a different sport to handle. Our Mission Staff, Marc Seguin works day and night to make sure that we have everything we could possibly want or need and on top of that he helps with the daily newsletter and attends events with his camera in hand to capture some footage. The skill and experience of the Mission Staff is evident in the organization and smooth operation of the hundreds of athletes and coaches involved with the games.

We are back at the races in the morning with the mass start skate races. The men tackle a 15km course and the women are up for 10km. Friday is the final day of competition with the relay events.