Medicine Hat Tigers participate in a team building exercise with Avalon Equine (photo courtesy Bob Schneider)

By Teagan Rasche

Tigers and horses: a unique team building exercise

Nov 9, 2021 | 6:57 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – The Irvine Rodeo Grounds is probably the last place you’d expect to see the Medicine Hat Tigers.

But there they were on Tuesday night, trading in their skates for boots.

“It gives our players something different,” head coach Willie Desjardins said. “They really look forward to times being away from the rink where they can just be normal, where there’s not hockey, it’s just normal and they just get to do things together as a group.”

Early in the season, Desjardins wanted to find a fresh way to get his players working together as a team. He got in touch with Avalon Equine, who has plenty of experience working with sports teams, according to owner and operator Linda Kraft.

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“Players are given objectively driven exercises to work together as a team to overcome some obstacles and sometimes they get some takeaways they can even use in their day-to-day lives,” Kraft said.

Players were started off with writing exercises, observing the horses’ personalities and body language, as well as guessing their ages and genders.

“Just like horses, people and teammates, there’s different herd dynamics that exist and the players observed and were able to see the horses and draw certain parallels to teammates,” Kraft said.

Once the observations were done, the Tigers were placed in groups and led the horses through a variety of obstacles.

Defenseman Rhett Parsons has some experiences with horses growing up in a small farming community, but had never done anything like this.

“It’s a great team-building activity to get out here,” Parsons said. “I know a lot of people don’t get to be around horses in their life so yeah it’s good to get out here.”

Desjardins wanted his team to leave a closer unit, but also stressed the importance of giving the young group a chance to have some fun.

“If you work as a group, everything is easier and everyone is different,” Desjardins said. “Every animal is different, every player is different and I think they will see that as they go through it. I don’t know if there’s any big takeaways as long as they enjoy themselves and have fun.”

“I think everyone enjoys it,” Parsons said. “It’s something new, getting out with these horses and getting to interact with them. I know it’s my first time doing something new so I enjoy it.”

And that’s what the players did. Apprehensive at the start, but working together and laughing by the end.