Dr. Murray Rodych of the Wild Rose Medical Centre in Olds served as the medical team lead for all of the Calgary venues during the Canada Winter Games.
Although the Games, which took place Feb. 15-March 3, were primarily held in Red Deer, a few of the events, such as synchronized swimming and the halfpipe sports, were held in Calgary.
"Most of the volunteers were from Red Deer and me being halfway in between, it was a little easier for me to go down and volunteer my time," Rodych said during an interview with the Albertan.
Rodych was asked to help out by Dr. Nav Rattan, the chief medical officer for the Games. He has worked with Rattan at Central Alberta Orthopedics.
"I've been doing that part time for almost four years now," Rodych said.
Fortunately, he didn't have to deal with any major injuries during the Games.
"There were a couple (of injuries). Nothing really too serious. We had to pull one athlete because of a concussion and a minor wrist injury in the halfpipe competition," he said.
"Mostly (we dealt with) people who had just kind of minor aches and sprains that I assessed. We had physiotherapists and athletic therapists and a chiropractor working with us who did the majority of the hands-on treatment."
Preparing for his role in the Games was time consuming.
"It was probably a year's worth of meetings — mostly in Calgary and Red Deer, so a little bit of a time commitment," Rodych said.
"(It was) a bit of a learning curve, but they wanted to make sure that everybody who's taking on a venue team lead role had a pretty good idea of what they were doing in case there was something more serious that happened."
But it wasn't all work and no play.
Rodych and his colleagues did have a few opportunities to watch the action from time to time.
"We were welcomed to come and watch the competition when we weren't too busy in our medical tent. So I actually watched a lot of the synchronized swimming finals and a lot of the halfpipe competition for skiers and snowboarders at COP (Canada Olympic Park)," he said.
Rodych was impressed with what he saw — especially the ski and snowboard competitions.
"Some of those athletes are pretty talented," he said.
Rodych says he'd do it again if he had a chance.
"You never know, maybe Calgary will get another Olympic bid," he said with a smile. "If they did, I'd probably get involved with that. I think that would be a lot of fun."
