Week One Filled With Highlights
Broken sport records, good weather, friendly volunteers, and record attendance made headlines during week one of the Halifax 2011 Canada Games.
Team Quebec leads the medal count with 67 (26 gold, 25 silver, 16 bronze), followed by British Columbia with 40 (14 gold, 11 silver, 15 bronze).
With another week to go, the Host Society is only $26,000 away from reaching its ticket sales target of $1 million.
Ticket sales to date total $974,000 with sold-out games for male hockey (gold), and female curling (gold, bronze and semi-final). Female hockey (gold) and male curling (gold) for week two are already sellouts.
Sport venues have been lauded by national sport bodies, with particular compliments to the Canada Games Oval and the freestyle moguls at Ski Wentworth.
Attendance at sporting events has been extremely strong, with sold-out events at the Canada Games Centre (artistic gymnastics), Halifax Metro Centre (hockey), Mayflower Curling Club (curling), Cole Harbour Place (ringette) and St. Margaret's Bay (short-track speed skating).
More than 217,000 people have streamed Games action live on www.bellaliant.net
An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people attended free concerts in Celebration Square at Grand Parade. Great Big Sea will perform in Celebration Square tonight, Feb. 19, at 7 p.m. The concert will serve as a thank you to volunteers with all invited to attend.
The Games blog squad has been gaining in popularity. Games-related tweets are consistently trending (top 10 most popular topics) in Nova Scotia and Canada in week one. Social media volunteers, Games participants, and spectators are encouraged to identify Games-related tweets using the hashtag #2011canadagames.
The Games website has had more than one million page views since Feb. 11, and an average of more than 50,000 unique visits per day. Medal statistics, schedules, social-media feeds, concert information and much more are available at www.canadagames2011.ca.
Week two sports are archery, alpine skiing, badminton, boxing, cross-country ski, male curling, figure skating, female hockey, judo, snowboard, synchronized swimming, and table tennis.
Key cultural components of the Games include the National Artist Program (NAP), free noon and evening entertainment at Celebration Square and the Closing Ceremony. Tickets are on sale for the NAP Gala performances and the closing ceremony.
The 2011 Canada Winter Games is the largest multi-sport event held in Nova Scotia and Halifax's first Canada Winter Games.