Should chess be funded like other sports in Canada? | So Good News

With the world’s attention on chess, after a Canadian became the world chess champion, one of the game’s advocates explains why it deserves funding as a sport in Canada.

Chess player Michael Hickson, an associate professor of philosophy at Trent University, says it’s time for Canada to invest more in the game and include it in the school curriculum.

“Chess has a long history in Canada and the United States, and it’s not new to the industry, but it hasn’t had the impact that our other favorite sports have had,” Hickson told CTV on Monday. .

Not only will 18-year-old Sean Rodrigue-Lemieux of Montreal win the world under-18 title in September, he could become the youngest Quebecer to win the title of grandmaster, the highest title a chess player can achieve. there is.

To become a “grandmaster”, players must meet three standards, including achieving 2,500 points at some point in their career, and two “norms”, which are high-level performances set by the International Chess Federation (FIDE).

Hickson says Canadian chess organizations could learn from countries like Russia, which has government funding through the ministry of sport, or Armenia, which in 2011 introduced the game to public school curriculum.

Hickson believes that chess should be taught in schools because it promotes the development of interdisciplinary skills in children, forcing them not only to think critically, but to learn to solve problems from different perspectives.

“That’s what chess does,” he says. “It presents you with a specific problem that needs to be solved, but you’ll never solve it if you think in one discipline, you have to think from different perspectives.”

Sport Canada doesn’t consider chess a sport because it’s not a physical game, but Hickson says it’s still physically and mentally exhausting because tournaments consist of multiple games a day, each game lasting five hours.

“I’ve also played other physical sports like hockey, basketball and tennis, and I can tell you, there’s nothing quite as exhausting as a chess tournament,” he said.

While Canada has had several grandmasters in the past, there are no Canadian players among the top 100 players as of October 2022, according to FIDE. Additionally, Canada ranks 34th in the world based on the average score rating of each of the top 10 countries. players.