The 2024 Manitoba Summer Games powered by Manitoba Hydro are still two years away, but the host committee recently received a $100,000 capital improvement grant from Sport Manitoba.
Dauphin was originally to host the games in 2020, but they were postponed to the following year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When it became apparent the city would not be able to host the game in 2021, it was agreed Dauphin would instead host the games in 2024.
“But with working with Sport Manitoba we had agreed that they wouldn’t have to put out a bid for the next summer games cycle in 2024 that Dauphin would host. So with that discussion, we had indicated to them that every time there is a new community, there is a community improvement grant that gets granted,” said host committee co-chair Clayton Swanton.
The host committee suggested to Sport Manitoba that Dauphin could benefit from new capital improvements, which resulted in the grant being issued to the host committee. The funding will be used primarily on the track at the local high school, which Swanton said was in okay shape to host in 2020.
“But we knew that it was starting to need a refresh from the 2004 games. When 2024 rolls around four years later (from when the games were originally scheduled) and 20 years since it was built, we knew that to host in 2024, we’re going to have to spend some money there,” he said.
Swanton said the host committee will look at all of the venues over the next couple years to see what has changed since 2020.
“We had everything in pretty good shape and ready to go when we got shut down. So over the next couple of years we’ll re-examine each one of our venues and there may be some other areas that do need a bit of dressing up. We’ll determine that closer to 2024,” he said.
Since the 2020 games were shutdown, the host committee has been on pause, which gave the volunteers a break.
“They were all ramping up and gearing up for 2020. We put a bunch of work in. We’re going to need those same volunteers or new ones to step up and be ready to go in 2024 and we don’t want to overwhelm them with too much preplanning,” Swanton said. “So we’re all just taking a bit of a breather right now, waiting until it gets closer.”
Planning for the summer games is expected to get underway again in early 2023. The city is already seeing some of the legacy benefits of hosting the games, with the North Gate Trail system, which would not have happened without the games on the horizon. And Dauphin Recreation Services has set up a pair of pickle ball courts in the curling rink.
“That wouldn’t have been possible without those two sport courts that the 2020 games had purchased in order to host volleyball,” Swanton said. “So even though we didn’t host, we still have a lot of legacy items coming out of the planning we had done in order to host in 2020.”
