Saskatoon welcomes Canada’s best young broomballers for national tournament

Saskatoon is getting ready to welcome some of the best broomballers in the country.

On Wednesday, the 2023 Canadian juvenile broomball championships open in Saskatoon. The event will bring together the best eight under-20 boys and girls teams in the country to compete for national glory.

The tournament runs from Wednesday until Saturday at Merlis Belsher Place.

Dean Demers is the coach of the Debden Roadrunners girls team, which is the reigning national champion. He said he’s hopeful the Roadrunners can build off their success from last year’s tournament.

“Last year we went to Cornwall, Ontario, and that was a real good experience. We had a real good tournament,” he said.

“It was an eye-opening event, getting to play these new teams from other provinces. There’s a lot of skill out there, but as the results show, our team was pretty good too.”

He said he knows the team will have a target on its back after its success last year.

“Last year, when we went, nobody knew who the Debden Roadrunners were at all. This year, we do have that title: Defending champions,” Demers explained.

“Maybe they will think we were a fluke last year, I don’t know, but we’re pretty confident in our team. There’s a lot of good teams there, but we think we’re one of those good teams there.”

It’s an impressive achievement for a town of just over 300 people. While the Roadrunners do get some players joining from other communities, Demers said the broomball community in Debden is going strong.

“The program has been going on since the ’80s,” he said. “COVID did slow sports down somewhat all over, but the program here is still going strong.”

Kara Thiessen, 17, is one of the players on the Roadrunners. She said she’s interested to see what her team can do with most of the players returning from last year.

“It’s hard to say, because it’s new teams we’re playing against,” Thiessen explained. “I guess we’ll see what the competition is like.”

She said it’ll be nice to have a Saskatchewan crowd behind them this time.

“I think it’ll be a lot better for us, because we’ll have fans cheering us on and getting us hyped up, hoping we can do the best we can,” she added.

Ayla Peterson is a 16-year-old player with the Roadrunners. She said they only play a select few teams during the season, so it’s a unique experience to play teams from other provinces that might have a little more experience.

“We only have a few teams here to play against, so it’s a lot different playing other teams from across the country. Everybody plays different,” Peterson explained.

The girls team isn’t the only squad from Saskatchewan that has seen success in broomball.

Over the past 30 years, Saskatchewan boys teams from Odessa, Balgonie and Bruno have all won national championships.

All of the games in the championship tournament will be streamed on YouTube.