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Year in review
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 Northwest Territories: The year in sports
Sara Wilson
It's time to take a look back over the past year's sporting achievements, and it was easy to see how athletic the youths and adults alike are in the NWT.
With a much smaller population than most provinces and territories, our sporting teams held their own, and showed the rest of Canada exactly how good they are.
Looking back, here is a small sample of the achievements made this past year, and teams to watch for in 2012.
Taryn William and Colin Miller led their curling teams to an unbeaten victory in the Territorial Junior Curling Championships in Inuvik, held Dec. 31 to Jan. 3. William's perfect six-for-six record, and Miller's best-of-five victory were two of the highlights of the championships, but the goal at the end of the day was to have good games.
Hay River's Brendan Green raced in Slovenia and had a couple notable finishes - a 21st place finish in the men's 20-km individual event in December which he followed up with a 29th place finish in the men's 10-km sprint on Dec. 18.
The following day Green joined with his male and female teammates for the mixed 4 x 7.5-km mixed relay where Canada placed 13th overall.
Green was in Oberhof, Germany, for the fourth World Cup stop of the season during the first week of January. Green competed in the 4 x 7.5-km relay, where he was the anchor leg for the team, his efforts helped the biathlon squad to an 11th place finish on Jan. 5.
Fort Smith's Sarah Daitch teamed up with Olympian Chandra Crawford to claim victory in the classic sprint relay at the Bow Valley Corridor Regional Race in Canmore, Alta., in December. Daitch ended up beating the team of Madeline Williams and Dasha Gaiazova.
Daitch and Crawford completed three 1.2-km laps each, tagging off back and forth during the race.
Daitch skied the final leg and managed to overtake Williams on the final straight to win.
The cross-country skier also took home first place in the 10-km race outside of Radium Hot Springs, BC, in late January, and a second place finish in the 2.7-km classic in the Western Canadian Cross-Country Ski Championships in West Kelowna, BC.
The Tulita T-Wolves won a bronze medal at the Wolfpack Invitational Basketball Tournament in Fort Simpson in January. The T-Wolves, which played in the senior division, was comprised of teachers and past players. The team managed to pull out a 54-52 win over the Hot Shots Junior Men's team from Yellowknife.
The Weatherby Warriors took home top spot at the High Level Minor Hockey Association's novice tournament in High Level, Alta., in the first weekend in January. The hockey squad from the Yellowknife Minor Hockey Association admit that their three-for- three record was won "rather handily."
The Hay River Huskies won the peewee and bantam division at the minor hockey association's senior tournament in Yellowknife.
Special Olympics
Special Olympics NWT entered a team of six competitors in the speed skating and figure skating categories to the Special Olympics Alberta winter provincial championships and proudly took home 12 medals - nine of which were gold. The figure skaters took home two gold medals, while the speed skating team was top on the podium seven times.
Inuvik welcomed its first mixed martial art gym, with 26-year-old Kylik Taylor on board to show residents what the sport is all about.
"It's kind of always been on my bucket list, you know, own your own gym and train and become a boxer," Taylor said, laughing. "It's like a dream I have that's really far fetched but you might as well try."
The YK to the Hub bike race saw 60 cyclists take part in the 500-km, three-day ride. While the weather threw the riders some curve balls, the temperature stayed above zero, and riders were able to cross the finish line.
A group of seven Inuvik cadets competed against teams from Fort Simpson, Norman Wells and two from Whitehorse in the Western Arctic Area Skills Competition in Fort Simpson. Their efforts yielded a second place finish, narrowly missing the top spot in the tent set-up division.
While it wasn't a first-place finish, the team enjoyed taking part in the competition and meeting people from all over the North.
"My best part was meeting people, making new friends, seeing old friends and having fun," Master-Cpl. Don Gruben said.
Samuel Hearne Secondary School hosted its seventh annual invitational basketball tournament in February and it attracted quite the crowd. Organizer Lorne Guy said more than 130 players made up 13 teams for both male and female divisions.
Chloe Larocque of Samuel Hearne was top scorer in the pool A junior girls division with 11 points, and Chris Church and George Ankama led their division in pool B with eight points a piece in their winning victory.
Showtime beat out Fort McPherson in pool C by a score of 40-23, with Brad Mainse lead the scoring with 11 points.
Perfect record
Paul Delorey skipped his Hay River rink to victory at the NWT Masters Curling Championship in Fort Smith in March as he finished top in the standings with a perfect record of four wins and no losses following the double round-robin event.
This was the first year competing in the masters division for Delorey and he said the record didn't indicate how tough the competition was.
"Fort Smith were the defending champs and Don (Webb) was a good player," he said. "I hadn't curled in a while, but I thought I would get back into it and it felt pretty good."
Hay River's badminton players conquered the NWT Badminton Championships in Yellowknife in March.
One of the competition's big winners was J.J. McKinney who won gold in the junior boys singles, in the junior boys doubles with John Stanga, and in the junior mixed doubles with Trudy Hiebert.
In addition to McKinney, Calvin King, Brooke Schaefer, Kjel Crook, Caitlin Chambers, Paige Kruger and Alex Keefe - all from Hay River - took home some hardware.
"It was a strong showing for our town, no question," McKinney said.
The NWT Speed Skating Championships in Yellow knife held in March saw more than 100 skaters from six communities take part.
Inuvik had a strong showing on the podium with five first place finishes. Kyra McDonald from Inuvik took first place in the peewee girls division, Perry Flynn also from Inuvik placed first in the bantam boys category, Winter Ross placed first in the bantam girls division, Darcie Setzer was first in the midget girls category, and Connor McLeod rounded out the Inuvik winners with a top spot finish in the intermediate boys category.
Hay River wasn't left off the podium with Kaed Blake winning the midget boys, Jesse Karp taking third place in the bantam boys and Phyllip Scheper placing third in the intermediate boys division.
Hay River hosted the third annual Polar Pond Hockey event in March, with the Northwest Voyageurs of Hay River winning the open men's division over the NWT Chiefs by a score of 21-17. The women champions went to the Easton Fection from Hay River after they defeated the Moosehide Mammas from Fort Simpson in a 13-10 victory. The Hay River Huskies took home the win in the senior division.
Behchoko soccer
Behchoko showed when it comes to soccer they are among the best.
The soccer teams managed a windfall of wins at the Connie Loutit Memorial Soccer Tournament in Fort Simpson.
Five titles in total went back to the Tlicho community, including the U-12 girls, U-16 boys and girls titles and the open men's and women's titles.
"I had no memory of how many goals we scored, but it was pretty bad," Michael Botermans coach of U-12 girls, said.
"I just told my players to stay back and pass the ball around to make time go faster. Whenever someone would ask me what the score was, I just told them it was 5-0."
The Hay River Rusty Blades and the Fort Simpson Sub-Arctic Eagles came away from the 28th annual Canadian North Balsillie Cup in Yellowknife with titles to brag about.
The Rusty Blades knocked off Yellowknife's Coldwell Banker Blades by a score of 5-2, while the Eagles defeated the Hay River Rusty Blades Ds in the B division championship final, 6-3.
"It was good, tough hockey," Hay River goaltender Marc Miltenberger said. "We got down in the first three minutes but came back and got it done."
Basketball squads from Hay River stepped it up during the 2011 Cager tournaments held in Yellowknife this past February, though the juniors ultimately fared better than the older teams.
Princess Alexandra School of Hay River captured first place banners for both girls and boys Grade 7 squads in the 2011 NWT Power Corporation Junior Cager basketball tournament.
The Grade 7 boys team defeated St. Joseph School of Yellowknife handily with a score of 41-28 in their final, while the girls took down Ecole Boreale, also of Hay River, in a low-scoring final match that ended 14-9.
Senior hoopsters
The senior hoopsters from outside Yellowknife were not so lucky in their tournament. Hay River's Diamond Jenness Panthers were the only non-Yellowknife team to make it to a division final, but ended up losing to St. Pat's by a score of 80-61 in the boys U-19 final.
The Lutsel K'e Drifters 12-B boys soccer team lost a heart-breaker of a game to finish in second place in the Junior Super Soccer Tournament held in Yellowknife, April 28 to May 1. After winning a close semifinal game earlier in the day that went to a shootout, the Drifters were beaten by Range Lake North Blue in the final 6-5 in a sudden-death extra time showdown.
Teams from the communities fared better in the Senior Super Soccer tournament that wrapped up May 8. Both Behchoko and Fort McPherson managed to capture winning banners. Chief Jimmy Bruneau School won both the U-15 A girls division and the U-19 A division. Fort McPherson was also a winning team over the weekend, defeating Paulatuk in their final by a score of 7-5.
Volleyball teams from the communities took home four different championship banners during the annual Junior and Senior Spike It tournaments this year.
Volleyball
In the Junior Spike It tournament held in Yellowknife during the last weekend of October, volleyball teams from Behchoko and Fort Smith won in their divisions.
During the Senior Spike It tournament the following weekend, five schools from outside Yellowknife made their finals and two took home championship banners.
The girls U-19 squad from Mezi Community School in Whati claimed their very first tournament win and Fort Resolution's Deninu School's boys rallied from a two-games-to-zero tough start in their final against Chief Jimmy Bruneau School to win the U-19 A division 3-2.
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