Large Canadian contingent expected

The Canadians are coming! The Canadians are coming!

And they’re coming to play softball, soccer, volleyball, and basketball and to eat pancakes and to shop and to make friends in the 22nd CANUSA Games, the longest-running recreational ties between a Canadian town and an American city.

On Thursday, Aug. 9, between 150 and 200 Canadians from Riverview, New Brunswick, will arrive in Brewer to participate in an athletic event that has fostered international friendships and sparked good, light-hearted fun since 1969. According to Ken Hanscom, the director of the Brewer Recreation and Parks Department, athletic competition will run Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 10-11, and the games will conclude Sunday, Aug. 12.

Hanscom, who graduated from Brewer High School in 1975, anticipates a large Canadian contingent, including 80 children who will travel by bus. He predicted that about 300 children from both communities would participate in the CANUSA Games, which first took place in July 1969.

“These few days in August will keep us very busy,” Hanscom said. “We’ve been planning CANUSA” since November 1989, when some Brewer residents formed a citizens’ committee “to give me some ideas on the direction as to what we’re doing,” he said.

The citizen input proved invaluable for Hanscom, who came to Brewer in July 1989 — just in time for the 21st CANUSA Games. Hanscom recalled traveling to New Brunswick in August 1989 with 120 to 130 Brewer children, including those aboard two buses. The games in Canada educated Hanscom about CANUSA — about its logistics and its purpose.

“CANUSA takes extensive planning, as I found out in 1989,” Hanscom said. “The planning’s on both ends, where the games are being held, and where the children are coming from.

“I think from seeing the games last year,” he recalled, “the children get an excellent learning situation in another country.

“I was impressed with the friendships that were made,” Hanscom stated. “It’s the spirit of the thing, the good will that’s generated. When we went there last summer, I heard talk about all the good times we had and not who won or lost.”

Last April, Hanscom received a visit from Robert Clive, director of the Riverview Parks and Recreation Department, and some of his staff. “Planning really started at that point,” Hanscom said. “That’s when we worked out what we wanted to do.”

Hanscom traveled to Riverview in July and attended a press conference that introduced this year’s CANUSA Games to people living along the Petitcodiac River. He presented to Riverview Mayor David Richardson a letter from Brewer Mayor Ronald Harriman, in which Harriman invited Riverview residents to visit Brewer during the games.

During the past few weeks, planning for the CANUSA GAMES has moved forward at a frenetic pace, with attention being given to last-minute details. From making final arrangements for use of athletic facilities to finding adequate housing for visiting Canadians, Hanscom and his staff have kept very busy.

“Obviously, with this being my first CANUSA at home, the closer we get, the more excited I become,” Hanscom said.