The Provincial 55+ Games

This weekend the Nova Scotia 55+ Games were held in Yarmouth. This event is held biannually and this was the third time the games had taken place. In the off year, there are national games (next year to be held in Brockville, Ontario).

The games consist of lots of different competitions - cerebral like crib, scrabble, crossword puzzles, sudoku, lexicon, moderately active like darts, pool, horseshoes, and vigorous activities like bowling, golf, baseball and hockey. There are opening ceremonies as well as closing ones and a banquet. All participants get a goodie bag (reusable PharmaChoice ones - very useful) filled with info, pins, samples, coupons, a T-shirt for the games, some magnifying devices, health and safety brochures and pill containers (they knew their audience). Event winners got medals and it was strange to hear senior citizens doing rousing cheers for their area of the province. The number of active participants this year was 333, which seems like a good number for a small province - next year they expect 1500-2000 at the national games.

The hotel where the activities were centred was the Rodd Grand on Main Street - 7 floors, restaurant, lounge, meeting rooms, pool, sauna, exercise facilities and extremely friendly and helpful staff. From our room on the 5th floor, we had a lovely view of the harbour and could watch the Cat arriving from Maine and docking and then returning out to sea. We could have taken our kittens with us, but opted to leave them home with Shirley (next door neighbour) feeding them - probably a wise choice given how little we were actually in the room. The restaurant was excellent - Friday evening I had planked salmon and Wayne had scallops, Saturday breakfast Wayne had the buffet and I had Eggs Benedict. The banquet was a roast beef buffet with a variety of fresh salads and hot veggies and several dessert choices (pie, mousse, cakes, squares). On Sunday morning, the Knights of Columbus put on a free breakfast for the whole group at their hall a few blocks away.

Wayne played hockey for the Barrington team - 4 games from Friday at 6:00PM to Sunday at 10:15AM - a true test for senior hockey players. His team was 1-2-1 with the tie occurring in the last game on Sunday and knocking the Halifax team out of an undefeated tie with the Valley team for the gold medals. I saw the Friday and Sunday games (Saturday I wandered around downtown Yarmouth and did the tourist thing - Yarmouth is a pretty city with lots of amazing old buildings) and his team improved greatly just playing 4 games together. They had an amazing skater, Jack, who is well into his sixties but could skate rings around the Halifax defenders. The uniforms were cute and everyone had fun too.

This week the Shelburne County 55+ games are underway. Wayne was supposed to do a Tai Chi demo this morning (but I was the only participant), this afternoon we have a hike, this evening a Coffee House, tomorrow bowling and Friday a golf scramble. The closing banquet is in Birchtown on Saturday evening.

Wayne put down his name as interested in playing hockey next year in Brockville for the provincial team - apparently there are 2 divisions- one for over 55 and the other for over 65, so maybe we'll be going to those games next Fall. Forever young!