2009 Find Your Passion in Sport Poster Series

Curler Travis Jones, alpine skier Sammy Kent and hockey player Leah Sulyma are the proud faces of the 2009 Find Your Passion in Sport poster series.

Today the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC), in partnership with the Government of Canada and the Four Host First Nations, released three new posters in the Vancouver 2010 Find Your Passion in Sport poster series. The series features up-and-coming Aboriginal athlete role models from across Canada (First Nations, Inuit and Métis) and is part of a campaign to encourage greater participation in sport among Aboriginal youth.

“I think it’s important because people need to see that when you put work into something, whether it’s your own life or sport, you can succeed,” says Sulyma of the poster campaign.

Jones, Kent and Sulyma were selected from among 90 Aboriginal athlete nominations received by VANOC.

The Athletes

Travis Jones, curler, Métis

Travis Jones found curling by following the crowd. “All my closest friends wanted to try it out,” he recalls of his Grade 4 introduction to the sport. Jones, whose ancestry is Métis, is now a seasoned competitor and a leader in the junior division.

Read more about Travis >>>

Sammy Kent, alpine skier, First Nations

Sammy Templeton Kent remembers exactly how skiing grabbed him from the start. “I really like to go fast,” says the 20-year-old alpine skier from Whitehorse, Yukon. Kent began skiing at age two on a family trip to Whistler.

Read more about Sammy >>>

Leah Sulyma, hockey player, Inuit

Inuvialuit goalie Leah Ceone Sulyma is getting her fill of American history while on a full hockey scholarship at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. Big-city life with its unpredictability is a change from Sulyma’s quiet, outdoorsy childhood in Inuvik but she manages to excel in her business studies and in goaltending.

Read more about Leah >>>

About the Posters

Each poster in the series includes text in English, French and the Aboriginal language of each athlete’s ancestry. The photos are situated in the natural landscape where the athlete lives or trains.

VANOC will distribute 78,000 posters to every school in Canada, as well as Aboriginal communities and organizations, Aboriginal sport and youth organizations and Friendship Centres across the country with the goal of inspiring youth to explore their dreams and become more active participants in sport at all levels.

The Find Your Passion in Sport poster series includes three Aboriginal athletes that we introduced you to in 2007. They are:

Mareck Beaudoin — a Métis biathlete from Quebec

Chelsie Mitchell — a First Nations snowboarder from British Columbia

Aqpik Peter — an Inuit speed skater from Nunavut

Lesson Starters

The Vancouver 2010 Find Your Passion in Sport posters provide a unique opportunity for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students to learn about Aboriginal athletes and their commitment to their sport and culture.

A complimentary set of lesson starters is also available for K-12 teachers across Canada to use in conjunction with the poster series. The lesson starters provide teachers with developed ideas for lessons that they can modify to suit their particular classroom needs. Developed in collaboration with the BC Ministry of Education and Aboriginal teachers from across the province, the lesson starters can be used in a number of curriculum areas, such as language arts, geography, science, social studies, health, career education and drama.

Download the lesson starters >>>

Aboriginal Participation in the 2010 Winter Games

VANOC and the Four Host First Nations (FHFN) are working together to achieve unprecedented Aboriginal participation in the Games, and the 2010 Winter Games represent the first time in Olympic and Paralympic history that indigenous peoples have been recognized as official partners.

In 2005, VANOC and the Aboriginal Sport Circle (ASC), Canada’s national voice for Aboriginal sport, signed a Statement of Cooperation. This Statement declares the intention to work together to take advantage of the opportunity the 2010 Winter Games provide to inspire and encourage more Aboriginal people to participate in sport across the country.

Related links:

/EDU - the Canadian School Portal for the 2010 Games
BC Ministry of Education
Shop online for authentic Aboriginal merchandise
Sign up for the Aboriginal Participation newsletter
The Four Host First Nations
The Government of Canada’s 2010 Winter Games website