Homer Alaska - Sports

While it might be true that if you can't stand the heat you should get out of the kitchen, up around the Arctic Circle the old saying takes a new twist.

In Grand Prairie, Alberta, top athletes from around the northern extremes of the planet will gather for the heat of competition in one of the coldest of climes.

Seventeen basketball players, wrestlers, hockey players, soccer players, coaches and chaperones from the Homer area have packed their gear and mustered their strength to head for the 2010 Arctic Winter Games March 6-13.

Each athlete takes his or her place among nearly 2,000 participants from northern and arctic countries around the world at the games. Athletes apply to be a part of an Arctic Winter Games team. However, events like the snowshoe biathlon require try-outs sent in by post and witnessed.

Homer High School will be sending its own crop of students to the Arctic Winter Games.

Donning basketball jerseys will be Miranda Beach, Kayla Hutt, Maggie Koplin, Makenzie Moore, Liz Needham and Alecia Stafford, with Coach Tim Daugharty and Chaperone Sharon Needham.

Stafford said that she was making the trip not just for the competition, but also for the chance to learn a little about other cultures, as well as other strategies to playing the game.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience to get out there and learn something culturally as well as a chance to play with all different people and see what kind of techniques are out there and how well we can adapt," said Stafford.

Janice Todd will be heading to Grand Prairie as a coach with the group for the female snowshoe biathlon along with Edward Todd as a coach for the male biathlon.

Hannah LaRue will be lacing up her skates for team hockey, along with fellow Homer Middle Schooler Quinn Daugharty, who will take on all comers in indoor soccer.

Homer's "Hurricane" Mitch Wyatt also will be headed to Grand Prairie, looking to mop the mats with international competition.

"I've wrestled people from all over the nation, and I kind of know where I stand there, but this is international, and I think it'd be totally different wrestling here and I look forward to that," said Wyatt, who finished third in the state at 152 pounds this season.

Joining him will be Victoria Locklar, Iosif Martishev, Zenon Martushev and Coach Steven Wolfe.

The Arctic Winter Games are held every other year as an event that started back in 1970, originally hosted in Yellowknife.

The games draw competitors not just from around Canada and Alaska, but from across the seas, historically including competition from Russia and northern Scandinavia.

The winter games are about providing opportunities for athletes in the north to compete with other athletes at an international level.

The Kenai Peninsula was host to the 2006 Arctic Winter Games.