“We’re pretty excited,” said Doug Hamilton, board chair of the Niagara 2022 Host Society, before the ceremony Saturday. Originally scheduled for 2021, the games were postponed to 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.įor organizers, the opening Saturday was a long time coming. Niagara began its road to the Games in 2016 and won the bid to host in 2017 over Ottawa, Sudbury and Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge. The Canada Games are the largest amateur sporting event in the country and this year’s event is only the third time in 55 years they have been held Ontario. The crowd, provided with light-up wrist bands, was enthusiastic with lots of cheering, applauding and even a spontaneous wave that went around the arena several times. Catharines arena with teams from Canada’s provinces and territories taking up a large portion of the seating and floor.

More than 5,000 spectators and Games participants packed the downtown St. The Niagara 2022 Canada Summer Games kicked off Saturday night with an opening ceremony spectacle that included the parade of athletes, live music, acrobats, a cauldron lighting, glimmering “waterfalls” and a “cargo ship” with a hidden trampoline “sailing” down the Welland Canal. “It’s exciting to part of a multi-sport event like this and I know this is an experience that we’ll all remember for the rest of our lives.”

“I’m super excited to be carrying the flag for Team Ontario and leading our athletes in the opening ceremonies of this year’s Canada Summer Games on our home soil,” the basketball player from Vaughan said earlier in the day at a press conference in Niagara Falls.Ĭarrying the flag, she said, is an honour and represented the hard work and dedication, not only of herself, but all her teammates. Team Ontario’s Taija Sta Maria waved the provincial flag back and forth as thousands of clapping spectators and a dancing turtle mascot greeted athletes inside Meridian Centre Saturday night.

Spectacle summer nights