School sports in good shape in Chinook School Division

Posted on October 6, 2025 by Ryan Dahlman

Matthew Liebenberg

School sport activities in Chinook School Division provided many highlights during the 2024-25 school year and student participation was high.

Valerie Gordon, the athletic coordinator for the South West Athletic Conference (SWAC), felt it was a very positive year.

“Our numbers in many of our sports has increased to record levels of participation,” she said. “We have a very strong officiating initiative. We’ve had many provincial medals at our various events, if that’s one way to describe success. I look at our participation numbers and to me that shows that what we’re doing, we’re doing well.”

She presented the athletics status report at a regular Chinook School Division board meeting on Aug. 25 and also spoke to this paper during an interview on Aug. 28.

The COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on extracurricular activities, but that effect has been waning and participation in different sports have been increasing.

“Numbers went down for a bit after COVID and things slowly started to come back up,” she said. “I just think it’s the quality of the school program and the work and the promoting of the different sports by our athletic directors. Kids feel welcome and included to take part. So that’s a good thing.”

SWAC coordinates and administers inter-school athletic activities in a geographical area that matches the Chinook School Division area. There are high school and junior programs, and there is a designated athletic director for each school with students in grades 7-12.

The sport activities on the high school level are badminton, basketball, cross country, curling, football, golf, soccer, track and field, volleyball and wrestling. Activities offered under the junior program include badminton, basketball, cross country, curling, track and field, volleyball and junior football in Maple Creek and Shaunavon.

“For our individual sports, cross country and track and field are our two biggest,” she said. “I believe every school pretty well takes part in those two activities. So those are big. In terms of team sport, volleyball far and away is our biggest team participation sport in our district.”

She noted that cross country experienced its best participation ever in the past year with over 200 athletes. The majority were in Grade 4-8 and 22 Grade 9-12 runners qualified for provincials.

The success of the cross country program is a result of a previous decision to create a category for younger grades.

“And just over time, kids are hearing about it and asking their coaches to start a team,” she said. “It just seems to be something that everybody’s enjoying.”

The golf program has been another success story with record participation during the past year. There were 72 golfers ranging from Grade 4-12 from 12 different schools. The senior competition had 51 golfers and 21 golfers from Grade 4-8 participated in the first ever junior golf championship.

“We had one of our biggest numbers ever in our Grade 9-12 playoff,” she said. “We’ve always wanted to start a junior one, but we never have room because we’re so full on the senior end. Golf has made a huge comeback in our district in the last couple of years. And again, you have to look back to the schools and the promotion that they’re doing for those sporting activities.”

Seven senior and 12 junior schools competed in curling during the 2024-25 season. Doubles curling made its debut last year as an initiative by the Saskatchewan High Schools Athletic Association (SHSAA) to generate interest in the sport due to dropping participation in smaller rural divisions.

A team from Hazlet School competed in the first ever SHSAA doubles curling provincials and finished in fourth place.

“We’re going to try again,” she said. “We don’t have great uptake yet, because it’s so new. We’ll maybe have some double curling clinics and once people see this sport and take part in it, we’re hoping to see some numbers increase.”

An initiative by SWAC to introduce 3-on-3 basketball last year was ruined by bad winter weather. Five schools were interested, but poor weather prevented each of the league nights from taking place and the intention is to try it again during the 2025-26 school year. 

“Winter and basketball is a tough mix,” she said. “Our basketball team numbers are probably the lowest of any team sport in the district. Some of that has to do with conflict with community sports. The figure skating, dance and hockey. Some of it is just because winter seems to be a horrible time to travel and have kids on the road. So 3-on-3 basketball is something that we’re excited to try to get off the ground. It offers you that opportunity if you’ve only got four, five or six kids who want to play.”

All SWAC schools participated in track and field during the past school year and there were over 500 athletes. A significant change was implemented with positive results by splitting the competition into two events. There was a senior meet for Grade 9-12 athletes and a junior meeting for Grade 6-8 competitors.

“The major benefit is participation numbers,” she said. “It meant they could take more athletes. It was the first year we tried and we’re very pleased with those results.”

Gordon’s role with SWAC includes the coordination of activities involving over 275 teams, more than 565 coaches and over 75 adult officials as well as dozens of youth officials during the school year.

SWAC monitors requirements for coaching certification as well as criminal record and vulnerable sector checks for coaches.

There is a new requirement with a September 1, 2026 deadline for the completion of Safe Contact training by all football coaching staff instead of only one coach on the team. This training provides information on safe tackling and blocking techniques as well as safety education and awareness.

The SHSAA has made the Aboriginal Coaching Modules a mandatory program for all high school coaches in the province. The deadline for the completion of this training is the fall of 2027. SWAC has already began the scheduling of training and about 60 coaches will attend the in-person course during 2025-26.

“It is so impactful to understand the Aboriginal experience in sport and how it may differ from what most of us traditionally experienced in our high school sporting life,” she said. “We’ve got five courses set up and next year we’ll have some more set up. We are training our own in-house facilitator to be able to offer courses in our area as needed.”

Gordon’s report referred to the challenges of keeping the SWAC budget within the allocated amount. This is due to expenses that are difficult to predict, for example competition results will determine travel and accommodation expenses of teams. The Chinook School Division increased the budget allocation to SWAC with $10,000 for the 2025-26 financial year

“It definitely is going to help take the pressure off,” she said. “The board has been very generous and receptive to the cost of doing business with my job and that there are inflationary costs. What I really appreciate from our Chinook Education staff, our superintendents, our director and our trustee board is they see the value in high school and junior high school sports. They see the benefits to the kids and they’re willing to fund these programs, and it’s always greatly appreciated by us.”