1st Canadian goalball championships in 3 years underway

After being put on hold due to the pandemic, the 2022 Canadian Goalball Championships are underway this weekend in Calgary at the Bob Niven training centre at WinSport. 

Goalball is a Paralympic sport played exclusively by athletes who are blind or visually impaired.

Blair Nesbitt, a player on both the Alberta and Canadian men's goalball teams, said it felt good to be back on the court. 

"It's been really hard on athletes not having competition, and competition is what helps make players better."

He said the tournament will help coaches evaluate different athletes and begin making selections for the national team pool ahead of the world championships set for later this year. 

The game is played by throwing a ball along the surface of the court, in the direction of the other team's net. Players track the ball's movements by listening to the sound of the bells inside it.

Both the Canadian men's and women's goalball teams recently competed at the Goalball Americas Championships in Sao Paulo, Brazil this past February. The women's team won silver while the men's team took home the bronze. 

Linda MacPhail, the executive director of the Alberta Sports and Recreation Association for the Blind (ASRAB), said the Alberta men's and women's goalball teams had province-wide representation from Calgary, Edmonton and Red Deer. 

"We've got [a] really good range and very competitive athletes," said MacPhail. 

"Two of the women on the women's team were competing in Tokyo for the recent Paralympic's … and some were just at the Inter Americas competition in Brazil." 

Round-robin matches will run from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, with medal matches taking place between 10:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. on Sunday. 

Nesbitt said an important