by Stephen Dafoe
The Town of Morinville is holding a Sports Camp July 6 to 10 offering children aged 6 to 12 a variety of athletic activities in which they can participate. The camp will run from noon until 4 p.m. each day.
“The aim is to promote physical literacy, so we are going to introduce a variety of different sports and different fundamental skills,” said Summer Sports Camp Coordinator Lauren Henderson.
Organizers are hoping the 20 hours of full on sports will lay down a foundation that promotes a healthier lifestyle beyond the summer camp, one that provides skills to help children stay in sports longer.
Henderson said after the age of 12, children become less confident in their movements and often pursue other interests. “It’s [the age] where they quit their sports and sit at home playing video games,” she said. “We find that they’re not getting enough physical activity per day. This [program] will help them be confident in their ability to play these sports and find a sport that’s right for them.”
The Sports Camp will combine a variety of sports into five days. Dodgeball, basketball, rope climbing, rock climbing, cross fit, yoga, bowling, mini golf, floor hockey, floor ringette, rugby, and ultimate frisbee are all in the week-long mix.
Tyler Edworthy, Morinville’s Operations and Program Coordinator, said the importance of the program is developing skill sets that participants can carry to whatever sport they wish to pursue.
“This is long-term athlete development,” he said. “This will give them a full set of tools to be successful in that sport or sports. There is starting to be a huge shift in multi-sport activities and development. If you look at any camp, whether hockey camp, football camp, baseball camp, they all do a physical assessment before they do their picks. They draw on those results more than they do the on the ice training. They can create a hockey player, a basketball player, a football player. They can’t create an athlete by the time that they are 14 or 16. If they don’t have those fundamentals down, it takes 10 times longer to teach a 16 year old than a six-year-old.”
Registration deadline is June 25. For more information contact Lauren Henderson at 780-939-7841.
