Christine Grimard
Northern News Services
Published Monday, September 10, 2007

FORT NORMAN - Tulita's annual handgames tournament held Aug. 31 to Sept. 3 brought teams from as far as the Yukon and Alberta into the community, playing for $50,000 in prizes.

A team from Meander River, Alberta, emerged the winners taking home $15,000 for first place.

This was the first time Meander River won under team captain Sidney Chambaud, who said this is the third time he's come up for the tournament.

"Really, everybody who attended won," said Chambaud about coming up to Tulita for the tournament. "It's all the love of the game."

Chambaud said his team has been travelling most of the summer to various handgames tournaments, trying to bring along their Dene drummers so they can participate in the handgames and the drum dances.

"Mostly we travel just to see friends, relatives and people," he said.

According to Chambaud there is no real strategy to winning and the key is to support each other and communicate.

Other teams came in from Ross River and Watson Lake, Yukon, and from all over the NWT with teams from Behchoko, Gameti, Whati, Wrigley, Deline, Colville Lake, Fort Good Hope, and Norman Wells.

In all, 24 teams attended the games bringing 186 players, along with their supporters. This led to a lot of work for Jimmy Mendo, who organized the tournament. Cooks Shirley Benard and Elsie Naedzo had the important task of feeding 400 people over the weekend.

The Tulita tournament this year was named after Victor Menacho, who passed away a few years ago. As Menacho was an active handgames participant, Tulita Chief Frank Andrew said it was suggested to him last year they name the tournament after him.

"He always liked to have fun," said Andrew. "He liked to play games, drum dance, square dance."

Andrew said he got a lot of good feedback after the weekend from people saying the tournament kept getting bigger and better.

Behchoko's youth team emerged a big winner of the weekend, led by Terrance Liske they won $10,000 in third place and George Mackenzie's team won $7,000 for fourth place.

The youth victory was big news in Behchoko, said Tony Rabesca who coordinated the three teams from the community.

"The community has been talking about how the youth have changed, how they've grown on their own," said Rabesca.

The youth ages 15-18 have been practicing on their own in the evenings, said Rabesca, and decided this year to put together their own team.

"They've been very active in handgames, it gives them some skills," he said.

While Mendo said the highlight of the weekend were definitely the games, the crowd also enjoyed entertainment by Alberta singer Sandy Carifelle who helped host the talent show along with emcee George Tucarro and Tulita's own Paul Andrew.

A crowd favourite, according to Mendo, was Johnny Vital who took home $1,500 by winning first place in the 50+ jigging contest.