(As published in The Cape Breton Post - Sports / November 17, 2010)

SYDNEY — The Cape Breton Regional Municipality has won the right to host the 2012 edition of the Canada 55+
Games.
 

The bid was a joint venture between the municipality and Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation. The steering committee
made its pitch to the Canadian Senior Games Association, the body that oversees the Games, Tuesday afternoon in
Halifax.

“The rationale behind it is to showcase the community,” said CBRM recreation manager Frank Bruleigh. “We’ve hosted
lots of national and international events before. We spoke to them about Celtic Colours, the Canada Games, the Coal
Bowl each year. The past four years, the municipality has worked in conjunction with ECBC to do the tall ships and
Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, we’ve done the programming for that. In addition to the Vince Ryan tournament
and the fact that Cape Breton is a good community for volunteers.

“The other issue is promotion of active and healthy lifestyle in particular for an aging population, which is what we
have.”

Sports at the event include bowling, 5-km and 10-km running, pool, badminton, curling, darts, floor shuffleboard, golf,
hockey, horseshoes, lawn bowling, slopitch, swimming, table tennis, tennis and track and field. Recreational events are
represented as well, with contract bridge, duplicate bridge and Scrabble also making an appearance.

The Games, although competitive, are also intended to promote camaraderie and activity among older adults.
“I think it’ll be an exciting time,” said Carl (Bucky) Buchanan, who helped prepare the bid with Tony Martin. “There will
be people from all over the country and there’s roughly 30 different sports that’ll be played. Some very active and
others more passive, but a wide variety.”

Bruleigh said they’re expecting up to 2,000 participants at the event over the four-day period in late August. The CBRM
will be contributing $100,000 to the Games, with ECBC contributing an estimated $150,000 and the province chipping
in an estimated $70,000. Athlete registration fees will contribute $150,000, with the remainder of the revenue coming
from corporate funding and gifts in kind/services.

Bruleigh estimated the economic impact for the area will be from $1.75 million to $2 million.

“It provides us with an opportunity — it’s been 25 years since the Canada Games which we had 6,000-plus volunteers
— to bring up some new people and restock the bank of volunteers that we need. Hopefully, we’ll have people from
Cape Breton get involved in this as participants.”

Events Nova Scotia is proud to have helped CBRM and the bid committee in their efforts to bring these games to Cape Breton Regional Municipality. Congratulations!