Prince Albert students take home top prize in Sask. Polytech business case competition

WATCH: High school students from northern Saskatchewan were in the hot seat Wednesday, pitching their business ideas.

A business case competition hosted by Saskatchewan Polytechnic’s Prince Albert campus and the Saskatchewan Rush gave northern high school students a chance to practise their creativity.

A team of four Prince Albert students walked out with the first-place prize for their youth engagement ideas after attending the competition for their entrepreneurship class.

“None of us, I mean, speak for all of us, but I don’t think we walked in here thinking we were gonna get first place, said Myla Masko, a Grade 11 student on the winning team. “It was pretty cool.”

The four winners received tuition credits and box seats at a Rush game, part of $32,000 worth of prizes awarded at the case competition, where students were tasked with presenting new engagement ideas for the Saskatchewan Rush.

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Masko’s teammate, grade 12 student Reign Blanchard, said the team came up with ideas based on what they had seen work in the past.

“I’m in sports myself, and I watch a lot of sports, so I just kind of took ideas of what other sports teams did and what they didn’t have, and just kind of threw it out there,” explained Blanchard.

Saskatchewan Rush vice president of business operations Tyler Wawryk said he was impressed with the presentations.

“I have all the presentations on a flash drive, and I’m gonna take them back to my team. And there’s definitely some ideas that I think we will implement in some way, shape or form, both in the short and long term.”

This was the Prince Albert campus’ first year hosting the competition and drew out students from across north Saskatchewan. Sask. Polytech business instructor Josh Glew said the organizers wanted to bring the opportunity to northern students.

“For us in the north here in Prince Albert, domestic recruitment includes a lot of communities that aren’t local, right. So, we’re trying to recruit from, you know, communities that are 400km to the north.”

The Moose Jaw campus hosted an identical competition on the same day for high school students in south Saskatchewan.