A February 4 trip to the WFCU Centre to watch the Windsor Spitfires in action proved educational for a class of kinesiology students well before the opening face-off.

The 64 students in Jess Dixon’s first-year Principles of Sport Management course toured the facility prior to the game, led through its backstage areas by Nathan Sellon, the OHL team’s coordinator of fan development.

Following the tour, the group heard from Chris Paquette, event and operations manager for Spectra Venue Management, which oversees the centre; and two UWindsor human kinetics graduates: Mike Noetzel, Spectra’s general manager of events; and Felicia Krautner, the Spits’ coordinator of community relations and game operations. Krautner started volunteering for the franchise in her first year of university study.

The connection between the Faculty of Human Kinetics and the Windsor Spitfires provides volunteer and co-op work opportunities for students—current student-intern Jason Tedball discussed his experiences as part of the program.

It was the fifth year Dr. Dixon has taken his class to a Spitfires game.

“The purpose of the field trip is to expose first-year sport management students to what it is like to work in the sport industry and to build their professional network within the field,” he says. “It’s particularly special when we can get some of our alumni to share their career paths with the students as well.”

To cap the evening, Windsor defeated the Sudbury Wolves by a score of 6-1.