Halifax Gears Up For Canada Winter Games

By 250 News

Prince George, B.C. - The excitement is starting to build in Halifax, as the city gets set to host the 2011 Canada Winter Games...

Speaking with guest host, Prince George Mayor Dan Rogers, on the Meisner program this morning, a spokesperson for the Halifax Games says, with the countdown to the event into the single digits today, momentum is mounting.

Director of Community Services and Communications, Melissa MacKinnon, says, "You can sense even on-line in social media and on the radio now, people are getting excited." 

MacKinnon says Halifax has hosted the World Junior Hockey Championship and the Tall Ships Festival, but says the scope of the 2011 Games is so much larger.  "What's different about the Canada Games is it's a multi-sporting event -- we're essentially putting on 20 national championships over an 18-day period."

She highlights some of the stats: 

• a $46-million dollar budget, most of which is from the three levels of government, but the host society had to raise $8.2-million  - "Which we're on target to meet this week, so that's huge for us."
• 5,000 volunteers
• 65 full-time staff
• 3600 participants
• more than 10-thousand additional visitors

MacKinnon says the call for 5,000 Games-time volunteers was issued a year to the day from next Friday's Opening Ceremonies and the target was reached in early November -- earlier than any other Canada Games in history.  She says, "(That) allowed us a lot of time to train and orient those volunteers and get them ready to host the country."

The 2011 Halifax Winter Games spokesperson adds that they need to raise $1-million dollars through ticket sales and they're going better than anticipated, "So, we're right where we want to be with nine days to go."

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