Nearly 250 nursing students from nine schools across the province converged on Sudbury this weekend for Nursing Games 2016.
The weekend-long annual event was being hosted by Laurentian University for the first time in the its history. A unique social event, the Nursing Games featured fundraising, nursing skills challenges, sports, cocktail hours, meals, a career fair, and guest speakers over the course of three days.
“It's a great opportunity to do some networking and also to relax and wind down a bit with exams coming up,” said Micaila Mahoney-Ashberry, fourth-year nursing student and event coordinator.
“There's a full year of planning that goes into this weekend, we've been working towards this since we were selected as the host after last year's Nursing Games.”
The task of playing host was a challenge that Mahoney-Ashberry and third-year nursing student Vanessa Warren took on with open arms and they were thankful for all of the support that they received from the community.
“It's a challenge to host this in Sudbury, the (Laurentian) campus is kind of out of the way from everything,” said Warren.
“The Radisson Hotel was great with getting accommodations for all of the students and we were able to set up a shuttle system to get everyone back and forth to the school. At a lot of other schools that have hosted this you're able to walk everywhere but it's a bit more challenging here.”
While the weekend was focused on fun and winding down, there is still a lot of school pride to go around, and during the sports component on Saturday afternoon, the school chants from inside the Laurentian gym were loud and enthusiastic.
“Schools are marked on skills, participation, spirit, and lab simulations,” said Mahoney-Ashberry. “We try to keep the weekend as nursing-oriented as possible.”
The weekend was open to students from every year of nursing programs, with different opportunities for all students.
“Just from walking around and talking to the students they're all having a great time and they all seem to be really impressed,” said Warren.
The organizers also hosted a porketta bingo night and silent auction on Friday evening with all proceeds going to Best Buddies.
The winners from the weekend are as follows:
- Sports:Nipissing & Laurentian University
- Academics: Sim - Queens/St. Lawrence College. Overall - University of Toronto
- Spirit:McMaster
- Overall winner: Nipissing University
- Next year's host:Nipissing University
