Ottawa will become a hub for floor hockey players and fans when the city hosts the 2015 Special Olympics Provincial Floor Hockey Championships, which aim to raise awareness and broaden the exposure of sports for those with an intellectual disability.
At a March 13 press conference at the Elgin Street police headquarters, a partnership was announced between the Special Olympics floor hockey organization for Ontario, the Ottawa Police Service, the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group and the Ontario Hockey League.
“All of us at Ottawa Police share the belief that everyone has a fundamental right to dignity, acceptance and respect,” Chief Charles Bordeleau stated at the time. “Special Olympics prove that one can succeed when one has been given the opportunity.”
Bordeleau expressed the strong bond police services across Canada have with the Special Olympics, and pledged that the relationship will continue.
OSEG president and Ottawa 67’s owner Jeff Hunt said in a news release that the local sports community is also pleased to be a part of the 2015 event because it’s an important opportunity for the athletes.
“These championships will show how people can be transformed through the power and joy of sport,” Hunt stated.
According to Special Olympics Ontario Director of Development-Eastern Ontario Kirk De Fazio, one to three per cent of the world’s population has some form of an intellectual disability. Canada has thirty-five thousand registered athletes, with a large bulk in our province, more specifically large geographic areas like Toronto with just under twenty thousand. Ottawa has six hundred registered athletes with close to a million population. That makes the one to three percent ratio of thirty thousand athletes in Ottawa with an intellectual disability.
“The key piece here is really awareness,” De Fazio said. “We have a little bit of trouble in society with difference or people that are different and I don’t think we are quite there yet so I see this stage, a sporting stage empowers the athletes, and its going to be fantastic.”
De fazio expressed the event as a vehicle for integration, inclusion, and a greater need for understanding, caring and loving.
Glenn MacDonell, president of Special Olympics Ontario, told Centretown News the participation in such competition is a “pinnacle achievement” for athletes and that since 1987, the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police has recognized the Special Olympics as its charity of choice.
The Ontario Law Enforcement Torch Run, which started in 1987, was the beginning of the relationship between the Special Olympics and police. It includes members of police agencies carrying the “Flame of Hope” across the province, with the idea of raising funds and awareness about the Special Olympics movement.
The annual event is the largest grassroots fundraiser and public awareness vehicle for the organization, adds MacDonell.
“Ontario has enjoyed a stellar relationship, where police agencies have been involved in all our provincial game organizing since 1996,” he notes.
MacDonell adds that the Special Olympics is about changing attitudes and creating a more inclusive society, while strengthening communities and enriching the lives of individuals with an intellectual disability through active participation in sport.
“For parents, they are watching their child or young adult achieve something, in most cases, they thought, maybe wasn’t possible,” MacDonell says. “For volunteers, supports and friends, you’re leveling the playing field and likely will have an experience of a lifetime doing it.”
The games will run from May 7-9, 2015 at Carleton University according to De Fazio, who picked the location, the University is not only geographically central location in the city, but also has the residential component and athletics facilities to accommodate all participants in the event.
It’s a “one stop shopping” kind of thing, he said and added the team is excited to have Carleton University as a partner.
The event includes 24 teams, 348 athletes, 72 coaches and over 400 volunteers, parents, caregivers and supporters.
Just in the early stages of planning, De Fazio said the team is in a good position, getting the word out, however bringing the event to Ottawa will cost approximately thirty-five thousand dollars. More business partners and sponsors is what they are looking for now.
For Ottawa, MacDonell said drawing in over a thousand people could lead to an economic impact.
“However, the overall impact normally resides in how the people involved, the stories shared and the peripheral elements make the city feel about itself.”