Kamloops - Sports

Sports

Club League Sport Venue Established Championships
Kamloops Blazers
WHL
Ice hockey Interior Savings Centre
1981
9
Kamloops Rattlers
TOJLL
Box lacrosse Memorial Arena
2001
5
Kamloops Storm
KIJHL
Ice hockey McArthur Park Arena
2006
0
Kamloops Broncos
CJFL
Football Hillside Stadium
2000
0
Kamloops Excel
PCSL
Soccer Hillside Stadium
2007
0

Kamloops hosted the 1993 Canada Summer Games. It co-hosted (with Vancouver and Kelowna) the 2006 IIHF World U20 Championship from December 26, 2005, to January 5, 2006. It hosted the 2006 BC Summer Games. In the summer of 2008, Kamloops, and its modern facility the Tournament Capital Centre, played host to the U15 boys and girls Basketball National Championship. The city is known as, and holds a Canadian trademark as, Canada's Tournament Capital.

Sun Peaks Resort is a nearby ski and snowboard hill. Olympic medallist skier Nancy Greene is director of skiing at Sun Peaks and the former chancellor of Thompson Rivers University. The Overlander Ski Club runs the Stake Lake cross country ski area with 50 km (31 mi) of trails. Kamloops is home to world-famous mountain bikers such as freeride pioneers and Mountain Bike Hall of Fame members Wade Simmons, Brett Tippie, (also a former Canadian National Team member for snowboard cross and giant slalom), Richie Schley. Also home to freerider Matt Hunter. Kamloops was featured in the first mountain bike film by Greg Stump, "Pulp Traction", and later the first three "Kranked" films, which starred the original Froriders, Tippie, Simmons and Schley. In 2007, the Kamloops Bike Ranch opened in Juniper Ridge along Highland Drive. The Kamloops Rotary Skatepark located at McArthur Island is one of the largest skateboard parks in Canada.

Kamloops is home to the Western Hockey League's Kamloops Blazers who play at the Interior Savings Centre. Alumni of the Kamloops Blazers include Mark Recchi, Jarome Iginla, Darryl Sydor, Nolan Baumgartner, Shane Doan, Scott Niedermayer, Rudy Poeschek and Darcy Tucker. Two-time champion coach Ken Hitchcock would later win the Stanley Cup with the Dallas Stars. Lacrosse teams include the Thompson Okanagan Junior Lacrosse League's Kamloops Junior B Rattlers, as well as the Kamloops Storm. Also calling Kamloops home is the Canadian Junior Football League's Kamloops Broncos, and Pacific Coast Soccer League's Kamloops Excel, both of whom play at Hillside Stadium.

Soccer for the city includes: Kamloops Youth Soccer Association, Kamloops Blaze rep team and the Kamloops Excel (see above). TRU hosts the Thompson Rivers WolfPack, and has sports teams that include men's and women's volleyball, basketball, soccer and badminton. Also the WolfPack have hockey, rugby, badminton, golf and baseball teams.

Kamloops hosted the World Masters Indoor Championships 2010 on March 1–6, 2010.

Kamloops hosted the 2011 Western Canada Summer Games.

Kamloops is deeply steeped in dodgeball tradition. While loosely organized community-based dodgeball has existed for decades, an official league did not begin until the fall of 2011. Kamloops Dodgeball League is now the premier organization in the BC Interior for recreational dodgeball athletes.

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Famous quotes containing the word sports:

    Reading about ethics is about as likely to improve one’s behavior as reading about sports is to make one into an athlete.
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    Come, my Celia, let us prove
    While we may the sports of love;
    Time will not be ours forever,
    He at length our good will sever.
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