I am working Saturday night of the change over day, August 5th, at the polyclinic on the University of Manitoba campus. The changeover day is when the athletes of the first week of the Canada Summer Games leave and the athletes for week 2 arrive. The polyclinic is a multidisciplinary clinic set up
for the athletes/coaches/officials of the Games to get care needed. There are sports doctors, physiotherapists (my personal fav), athletic therapists, nurses, pharmacists and sports psychologists. Tonight, as most changeover days, it is slow so I thought I would reflect on my past week at the Canada Games here in Winnipeg.
When I arrived in Winnipeg, I was brought to the hotel where I was going to be staying for the next 2 weeks. The Delta in downtown Winnipeg. SCORE! It is a very nice hotel, rooms are spacious, bed comfy. And that is also where I met my roommate for the Games.
My roommate, John, from Toronto.
John Biggar is my roomie. He is from Toronto and works a Mend Physiotherapy Clinic in Leslieville is anybody is looking for a great physiotherapist in Toronto. John really likes baseball, working with baseball athletes and softball athletes. In addition to being my roomie for the two weeks, we were also scheduled to work softball together for a couple of days. He stated that he was hoping to go and work/volunteer at the U18 Baseball World Championships. Which was happening in… of all the places… Thunder Bay, Ontario. The event is going to continue in September of 2017.
The past week of softball, was excellent. I saw a lot of great softball games and minimal injuries. The last day, when the championship was to be played, a player ran over to the medical tent holding his right hand. Apparently, the ball hopped and hit him directly on the tip of his finger and bent the nail down and sliced open the tip of his finger under the nail. That took a little bit to clean him up and get his finger bandaged. That was the worst injury I saw that week, luckily. I did have to bandage his finger up 2-3 more times, because as he said “every time I swing the bat or throw the ball, I can feel blood squirt out…”.
There were minor injuries that required some good old taping skills, a few thumbs, wrists and an ankle or two. I had not taped an ankle in a couple of years but it was amazing. The skill just returned when called upon.
The entrance sign to the softball diamonds
I met some other great people, other than John. Val was the medical manager for the softball venue, John Blumberg Softball park. Very nice venue as well. Val helped to organize where the equipment would be kept and the medical tent was situated. She had a very smooth process in place for following the team’s practice/warm up.
The medical tent was situated between both the two ball diamonds where the games were played. Behind the ball diamonds there were two practice fields, side-by-side. There was a shelter close to the practice fields. There was a medical bag, AED and ice set up under the shelter and that is where the therapist stayed so he/she could keep an eye on both teams. The teams would arrive about an hour before their game to warm up and practice. When both teams left for their game, they would play each other, the therapist would follow but leave the medical equipment at the shelter for the next therapist. The therapist would follow the teams to their ball diamond and be the therapist for their game and treat any injuries that occurred during that game. It was a pretty slick system.
Right next to the medical tent was the volunteer tent. That is important because that is where all the food for the volunteers were kept. And if you know me, you know that I like food!
Not only food at the ball diamond but Winnipeg is a Foodie mecca! There are a lot of food spots aka restaurants in Winnipeg. It was unfortunate that I seemed to work just about every evening for these Games, I had to miss out on the medical team dinners.
I did make it out to some restaurants though. Hermano’s is an Argentinian Steak house, great place to eat. The Original Pancake House at the Forks Market. Tall Grass Bakery, also at the Forks Market, which tries to locally source their flour and ingredients. To name only a few.
This has been a great Games so far and I am looking forward to week 2!