After a Canadian grew to become a chess world champion at a time when the world’s consideration is drawn to chess by headline-grabbing dishonest scandals, one advocate for the sport explains why it deserves funding as a sport in Canada.
Michael Hickson, an avid chess participant and affiliate professor of philosophy at Trent University, says it’s time for Canada to take a position extra in the sport and contemplate making it a part of college curriculums.
“Chess has had a long history in Canada and the United States, it’s not like it’s new to this area, but it hasn’t had quite the exposure that some of our other favourite sports have had,” Hickson instructed CTV’s Your Morning on Monday.
Eighteen-year previous Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux of Montreal, not solely received the under-18 world champion title in September, however he may additionally turn into the youngest Quebecer in historical past to earn the title of “grandmaster,” the very best title a chess participant may have.
To turn into a “grandmaster,” gamers should attain three requirements together with receiving a ranking of two,500 factors in some unspecified time in the future in their profession, and two “norms” that are high-levels of efficiency ranked by the International Chess Federation (FIDE).
Hickson says Canada can study from such international locations as Russia, the place chess organizations obtain authorities funding by way of the ministry of sport, or Armenia, which made studying to play the sport a part of the general public college curriculum in 2011.
Hickson believes chess ought to be taught in college, as it could foster growth of youngsters’s interdisciplinary expertise, forcing them to not solely suppose critically however study to unravel issues by trying from totally different views.
“That’s what chess does,” he mentioned. “It presents you with a concrete problem that needs to be solved, but you’ll never solve it if you think from one discipline, you have to think from all different perspectives.”
Sport Canada doesn’t contemplate chess a sport as a result of it’s not a bodily sport, nevertheless Hickson says it could nonetheless be extraordinarily bodily and mentally exhausting as tournaments include a number of video games in a day, with every sport lasting so long as 5 hours.
“I’ve also played other physical sports like hockey, basketball and tennis and I can tell you there is no exhaustion like the exhaustion from a chess tournament,” he mentioned.
While Canada has had a number of grandmasters in the previous, in response to the FIDE there are presently no Canadian gamers ranked in the highest 100 gamers for October 2022. Additionally, Canada is ranked 34 in the world primarily based on the common rating scores of every international locations high 10 gamers.