Sport Yukon hosted the Hope on the Horizon tour this past weekend. “We felt it was very successful,” said Sport Yukon Executive Director Tracey Bilsky.

There was a panel discussion Friday evening, followed by various sessions on Saturday, at The Old Fire Hall in Whitehorse.

“The Saturday sessions were great,” related Bilsky. “We started out with Dina Bell-Laroche (a partner with the Sport Law & Strategy Group) and she talked a lot about culture and organizations and how we can improve the culture and how we can strategically communicate to our stakeholders, measuring strat (strategy) plan goals and milestones, so a bit more on the inspirational side, but also structurally what we should be focusing on in our organizations.

“Then we moved on to Steven Indig, who’s a lawyer, (with the Sport Law & Strategy Group) and we talked about hot topics. He talked a bit about insurance and how there are fewer insurance companies that are covering sports, so to be very careful to read your insurance policies.

“Then we chatted about boards and then how important it is to carefully select or approach people to be on your boards that have the skills that can help you. Yeah, like creating nomination committees, even though, in a lot of our cases here with our small population, whoever’s in the room, if they’re there, then great. He made a good point that there are certain skill sets that your board members should be bringing to your governance structure and it tweaked some thought for a lot of people in the room. Getting some creative people on their boards, and also, if they have more skill sets on their boards, it takes the workload off of their shoulders. So we had a lot of good discussions about that.”

Bilsky said one of the most important aspects of the weekend was a focus on collaboration.

“There’s so much for these sport governing bodies to do. They have to fulfill a lot of education. They have to financially file with (Yukon) Societies. It started some conversation about maybe there’s a possibility to amalgamate some organizations under one title.

“It would be quite a pivot. And so it’s something we definitely want to look into. But at this point in time, our groups are looking for some small changes that they could make, some small things that they can consider, especially when it comes to responsibilities around safe sport, and being compliant with some national initiatives.”

The final session on Saturday was on True Sport values with Melissa Sullivan of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport. Bilsky said organizations can adopt True Sport values. Events can also register as true sport events. True Sport values are based on the seven principles of True Sport:

• Go for It (Strive for excellence)
• Play Fair
• Respect Others
• Keep it Fun
• Stay Healthy
• Include Everyone
• Give Back

Bilsky said the principles are based on making sure sport is fun, and kind.

“That was the inspirational part of the day for me, was to remind these groups why we’re actually here and what the true power of sport really is. And if we can get back to those True Sport values, then maybe we can keep officials in the game, because there would be no tolerance for official abuse, as an example.”

On a national level, sport organizations have been declaring that they are True Sport organizations. There are currently over 5,000 True Sport members, including regional and local organizations, and even individual members. The True Sport tagline is, “True Sport lives here.”

“When they were up here, they met with not just us but the representatives from the Yukon government Sport and Recreation branch to explain where this could fit and how this could work. So something really good that came out of the weekend, certainly something that we’ll be we’ll be looking further into,” related Bilsky.

She said there are True Sport posters that say, “No ref, no game.”

“It might just remind one or two people that that is an actual fact. If there is no official on the floor, there isn’t a game,” said Bilsky.

“Those people in a lot of cases certainly don’t get paid a lot to do it and they’re there for the love of the sport. And if they’re getting screamed at by parents and coaches and players, you can see why officials are dropping off, and we have an official crisis in the nation because people just don’t like to be abused that way.”

Bilsky added a small thing like the posters could stop some of that type of behaviour.

She also said some of the most valuable parts of the weekend were the breaks.

“Sport leaders of different organizations were able to just have a coffee together and chat about what they do and what works for them. And there was a discussion about directors and officials insurance and realizing that a couple of organizations didn’t actually have it. And it’s imperative, right, that organizations have DNO insurance.”

When asked what she felt Hope on the Horizon accomplished, Bilsky replied, “It really did give people hope. It informed them. It piqued the interest of collaboration and maybe how to do things differently. And it identified where they can go for support.”

“Of the tour, Bilsky said, I love how informative it is, and how we can trust these highly skilled people to come in and give us information that’s current. And now comes the work in Yukonizing some of that information and making sure that that it doesn’t get lost and that we can help our groups to keep sport alive here in the territory.”

Bilsky mentioned that she is really looking forward to seeing the report that comes out of the Hope on the Horizon tour. She hopes to gauge where Yukon is at compared to other organizations, especially those in the N.W.T, Nunavut, P.E.I. and Newfoundland and Labrador. Bilsky pointed out those jurisdictions are of similar size and have similar challenges, so she is interested in what those regions’ organizations would have to say.

Yukon was stop number six on the tour. They are scheduled to go to Nunavut in two weeks and finish in New Brunswick.

Manitoba and Saskatchewan are planned stops in 2024, along with at least one other event in Ontario, and there could be more.

A report will be coming after the tour is complete.

Meanwhile, Bell-Laroche and Indig do have a podcast called Sportopia.

“They have interviewed some of the key sport leaders from some of the jurisdictions that they have already visited,” said Bilsky. “So I’ll be listening to those and seeing if there’s any any alignments that we can then focus on here.”

Bilsky added “At the end of the weekend, all the support groups said we need to get together more often. This makes us feel less alone. It keeps us current and bouncing ideas off other Yukon sport leaders was one of the most valuable things for them. It made them feel a bit more inspired and gave them new ideas and they were also able to share things that work well for them.

“That’s something we would like to do, even if it’s just smaller gatherings of sport leaders more often. If that can help keep them in the game, then that’s absolutely something Sport Yukon can take on.”

The Star will have more on Hope on the Horizon later this week.