Olympic speed skater Catriona Le May Doan and Ron MacLean's wife Cari MacLean co-hosted the kick off fundraiser for the 2019 Canada Winter Games in Red Deer Friday night.
 
The Host Society held the Fire and Ice Gala at the Centrium, to a sold out crowd, in fact the event sold out during the ticket pre-sale.
 
Games Board Chair Lyn Radford says of course they wanted to raise some money to help with the costs of hosting the games, but the gala was about much more than just the cash “but a bigger thing is you want to build relationships and this gives us an opportunity to build both some personal relationships, individual relationships and some corporation relationships, so that’s what we’re doing. It also gives us the opportunity to test our hosting capabilities because there are going to be a lot of receptions, a lot of VIP events happening at games time and we need to make sure we have the right system, the right messaging”.
 
Catriona Le May Doan talked a lot about the legacy these games will leave behind “once the games are here, the venues and the standards, there will be an opportunity to host other events in those certain sports and the national federations will see the opportunity and so Red Deer can then bid. So it’s not just sort of those 2 weeks of games, it’s the legacy that comes with the games”.
 
Le May Doan says for her, the Canada Winter Games were a stepping stone in her speed skating career, and she believes in the Games, saying they played a huge part in her development as an athlete.