May promises to be a special month for the Humboldt and Area Special Olympics floor hockey team with their upcoming trip to the Special Olympics World Invitational Games in Toronto. Now the intrepid group of hockey experts will be off on another adventure with the Special Olympics National Games in Thunder Bay, Ontario to be held from February 25th to the 27th, 2020. The roster for the Saskatchewan representatives was just released this week by Special Olympics Saskatchewan.

From May 14th to 17th, over 2,000 young athletes will descend on Toronto for athletic competitions in a variety of disciplines. The Humboldt group, which goes under the Humboldt Broncos team name, was selected based on their performance in provincial play and previous tournament performances. They've known about their participation in the World Games for several months. Now, to top off their accolades, the floor hockey team is off to another high calibre event next year.

Floor hockey coach Brian Reifferscheid explains, "The Thunder Bay competition is the national event for Special Olympics. Each province has a team representing them in the various sports in the national winter games, and the Humboldt Broncos floor hockey team is representing Saskatchewan."

Reifferscheid will be travelling to Thunder Bay as part of the coaching staff along with Lawrence Weber and Darren Whitehead of Prince Albert. 

The team earned its way to national competition through its winning percentage at the Saskatchewan Special Olympics Winter Games held in Regina this past February.

The excitement level and preparation are both peaking for the athletes says Reifferscheid, "Our athletes are very excited about having the opportunity to compete at this level. We're training for it and we're having a lot of fun. It's a lot of work, but we are looking forward to it." Much of the preparation is geared up for the May tournament which will wind up being training for the national competition in February.

As part of the training regimen, the team will continue to play a series of exhibition games with local participants. In fact, Mayor Rob Muench and Humboldt City Council members showed up to display their stickhandling skills earlier in the week. Reifferscheid explains, "Until we are off to Toronto, we are practicing twice a week. Our practices are held at St. Dominic School gym."

Humboldt will be watching anxiously for results from the World Games in May. More information is available at https://youthgames2019.com/.