Ontario Winter Games set to resume in Thunder Bay this weekend

After what organizers are calling a successful first weekend, the Ontario Winter Games return to Thunder Bay on Saturday with a whole new slate of sports on the schedule.

The games are being broken up into two weekends. The first ran from Feb. 16-19, and the event resumes this weekend, with competitions running from Saturday to Monday.

This time around, the sports will be different, however, with the following competitions scheduled for the next few days:

"We were really happy with the way that week one went," games coordinator Matthew Lawrence said. "Anything that we do for week two will just be minor adjustments."

"We can always tweak things as we go along, but we were quite happy with the with the success of week one."

One nice surprise on the first weekend, Lawrence said, was the number of spectators who showed up at the various venues across the city.

"We got a lot more spectators than we were expecting," he said. "People were out cheering on the athletes, which was really appreciated."

"We definitely got a lot of great feedback from coaches and athletes, so it was well received and well attended, so we were quite happy with it," he said. 

The interest around the games is helpful for the sporting organizations participating, as well.

"We have had a few new people come out to the club recently to try things out," said Shane Baker, junior development chair with Lakehead Archers. "I'm hoping that's as a direct result of [the Ontario Winter Games.]"

"We are trying to get as much information out there to let people know that the games are happening, and archery is going to be a big, big component of it," he said. "So I would like to think that, with the games coming here, that there will be an influx of people coming to