Husky News

The Sled Dog Open attracts more kids then an appearance by Daniel Radcliffe at a Harry Potter convention.

The elementary school relay component of the annual mid-winter track meet brings thousands of kids from Saskatoon and the surrounding area together for two days of competition.

“We’ll have about 675 teams competing from about 65 schools,” said event organizer Scott St. Pierre. “The focus of this meet is more on our community then on (the Huskies.)”

The Sled Dog is an opportunity for a multitude of local track scene forces to come together for a contest of the highest, fastest, and strongest among the youngest to the oldest.

While the school relays monopolize the Field House track for most of Thursday and Friday, college and track club teams will take over around dinner time on Friday.

“There is a whole series of meets in Saskatoon that create a great opportunity for social development as well as athletic development,” said St. Pierre. “Between this meet, the K of C, another meet in March, and the grand finale, the Saskatoon Indoors, in March or April, athletes get to be a part of and make a commitment to a program.”

Last year, organizers were unable to avoid scheduling the meet the same weekend as the University of Alberta hosted Golden Bear Open in Edmonton. Subsequently, very few universities participated in the Sled Dog meet. That conflict will be avoided this year, as the Golden Bear Open took place last weekend. The universities of Regina, Calgary and Alberta are expected to arrive with a modest band of athletes.

“As long as we can continue to avoid that scheduling conflict, we’ll be able to entice more university competitors to come back,” said St. Pierre. “It’s about trying to get our (track meet) fixtures across Western Canada organized a little better.”

University of Saskatchewan Huskies track and field head coach Ivan Tam isn’t concerned that the Sled Dog may not attract intense interest on the university track circuit.

“It’s a home meet, so it will be a fun weekend where (the athletes) can rest and recover,” he said. “Everybody is going to be competitive but there is less pressure not having to compete against a bunch of schools and not having to travel.”

Some of the Huskies’ top performers will be missing in action, as Tam is taking a contingent of eight CIS national championship hopefuls to the McGill Team Challenge in Montreal in the hopes of qualifying a relay team and a number of individuals for the CIS standard.

“They have a very fast track; last year a lot of the performances that qualified athletes for the nationals were ran at this meet,” said Tam. “We had some money in the budget so we decided to go out there and see what it was all about.”

The Sled Dog Open elementary school relays run today and Friday at 4 p.m. The age class and open events that club and university teams compete in start Friday at 6 p.m. and from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.

Source: The StarPhoenix