Tuesday, March 29, 2022: 2022 Traditional Games. Juneau Skating Club community performance. CBJ Parks and Recreation Department monthly update. Go Blue Day: Standing against child abuse.

The fifth annual Traditional Games will bring about a dozen teams from across Southeast Alaska to Juneau this weekend, with about 145 athletes taking part in ten different events at Thunder Mountain High School.

On this Tuesday’s Juneau Afternoon, Kyle Worl invited the community to turn out in support of the athletes in the Native Youth Olympics program. Worl coordinates the games for the Tlingit and Haida Central Council, which revived them after a 20-year hiatus. Worl believes the sport helps to create a lifelong habit of continuous self-improvement.

Worl coaches the students in all the different games, but his specialty is the knuckle hop, the event that won his father many medals. It requires the athletes to get in a push-up position and use their knuckles to support themselves, as they make short hops forward to mimic a seal’s movements on the ice. The knuckle hop can be bloody and painful, but Worl believes it helped him develop strength and endurance. Each game, he says, demands different things from different athletes. But they all require focus and dedication, skills that Worl says, will serve them well in life.

Also, on this program:

• The Juneau Skating Club showcases local talent at a community performance this Friday and Saturday.
• SAFE Child Advocacy Center launches month-long campaign against child abuse with “Go Blue Day.”
• CBJ’s Parks and Rec department wraps up the winter season and gears up for spring.

Join Rhonda McBride for Juneau Afternoon, which airs Tuesday through Friday, live at 3:00 p.m. and repeats at 7:00 p.m. on KTOO Juneau 104.3. You can also listen online at ktoo.org.

For more information about Juneau Afternoon or to schedule time on the show, email juneauafternoon@ktoo.org.

Part 1: Traditional Games teach life skills.

Guests: Kyle Worl, Traditional Games coordinator, Tlingit Haida Central Council.
After being scaled back during the height of the pandemic, the Traditional Games returns this weekend, modified somewhat for safety, but still more like what fans remember, giving them a chance to interact with the athletes and cheer them on. While the games are considered a sport, the nature of the competition is very different. For athletes, it’s more about achieving your personal best performance than it is beating your competitor.

 

 

Part 2: Juneau Skating Club performs first in-person show since 2019.

Guests: Alexandra Sargent, Juneau Skating Club show director.
For  figure skaters like Alexandra Sargent, performances are an opportunity to show what you can accomplish when you discipline your mind and body — and throw a lot of heart into the mix.

 

Part 3: CBJ Parks and Recreation transitions from winter, gears up for spring.

Guests: George Schaaf, CBJ Public Works Director
April is still a busy month on the ice with speed skating, youth hockey and free skating for all third and fourth graders, while the groundwork is being laid for this summer’s community gardens.

Part 4: April: A month to focus on the safety and well being of Southeast Alaska's children.

Guests: Rikki DuBois and Claire Norman, SAFE Child Advocacy Center.
“It shouldn’t hurt to be a child.”

That’s one Juneau group’s message to raise awareness about child abuse during National Child Abuse Prevention month in April,  which will launch with “Go Blue Day” on Friday, April 1st.  On that day, the Juneau’s SAFE Child Advocacy Center is encouraging everyone to wear blue, the official color of prevention, to call attention to the thousands of children in Alaska who face abuse and neglect.