Special Olympics Ontario is currently in the final stages of confirming Carleton University as the hosting location for next year’s Special Olympics floor hockey tournament.
“We are pretty excited about working with Carleton and making it work for May of 2015,” Kirk De Fazio, the Special Olympics Ontario director of development, said.
Carleton’s athletics director Jennifer Brenning declined to comment because Carleton has not finalized the decision to host the event.
“We are extremely optimistic that everything will occur, and that’s why the athletic director would say, ‘Well, it hasn’t been completed yet,’” De Fazio said. “But the offer is there and we are liking what we see very much.”
He commended the Carleton campus as a potential location for the tournament, citing the proximity of the residential buildings to the athletic facilities as an essential factor. He said this short distance would provide simple and safe access for participating athletes featuring any physical and cognitive limitations.
Approximately 400-500 athletes and 100 coaches are expected to attend, according to De Fazio.
“I’m from Ottawa, so I was very keen to use Carleton University because they have a match of the facilities we need, along with the residential component,” De Fazio said.
The Fieldhouse has been specifically expressed as an effective floor hockey venue. De Fazio said they are discussing delaying reapplication of turf to the floor after examinations and using the broad concrete flooring as the primary site of competition.
Special Olympics athletes are set to carry an Olympic flame through a city-spanning course to the opening ceremony, which may take place at the Ravens’ Nest.
De Fazio said the Ottawa Police Service is helping to organize the event and is also acting as a partner, with Special Olympics Ontario being the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police’s favourite charity.
“The Ottawa Police Service is proud to be a supporter of the Special Olympics Ontario,” said Ottawa police chief Charles Bordeleau, in a press release March 12.
“All of us at Ottawa Police share the belief that everyone has a fundamental right to dignity, acceptance and respect,” Bordeleau said. “Special Olympics prove that one can succeed when one has been given the opportunity.”
This tournament will act as the provincial championship qualifier for the national tournament in Vancouver in 2015, De Fazio said. Teams will be competing this summer across Ontario to attend next year’s Ottawa tournament.
The Special Olympics follows a four-year cycle, similarly to the Olympic and Paralympic games, culminating in an international event, with 170 countries represented.
“I think it’s just such a force for good. It’s something that our community, the Ottawa community, will embrace,” De Fazio said. “They will embrace it and if they come out to see these athletes, with the limitations that some of them have, giving it their all, it changes people.”
