Panthers’ power running renaissance in Canada’s smallest province

By Alex Cyr

Colin MacAdam walks onto the MacAdam Field track, the province's only synthetic running surface named after his late father.

Prince Edward Island's longest-acting running coach is recognizable from a mile away. His silhouette is unmistakable, partly due to its defining features – his upright form, arms filled with track paraphernalia, and a perpetually topped bucket hat – and partly due to the context it walks in. The sight of a lonely MacAdam strutting the lanes of the field house is engraved in the mind of most passers-by of the Charlottetown-based campus, given the amount of times he has walked the bends alone, reminiscing on his days as an athlete.

Nowadays, however, his figure is rarely seen by itself.

"It gets busier here; these are exciting times," says MacAdam, now in his third year as head coach of the UPEI Panthers. "Since I was competing in the 1970s, running on P.E.I., lived and died on the Canada Games cycle. Once every four years, the track would get busy with runners, only to die again until the next Games. Now, there is excitement every year."

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