HELENA – Two Carroll College Talking Saints teams headed north across the border and came back with two awards, after competing in the Diefenbaker Cup at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon on February 15-16, 2025.
The first-year team of Leah Melvin of Kimberly, Idaho, and Aurora Salinas of Butte, were the top ranked team in prelims, and advanced to the championship round in novice, falling to the University of Alberta. Melvin received a 4th place speaker award.
“It was overall a fun time! I liked the variety of topics, and we got some motion types we haven’t seen for a while in the US,” said Melvin. “The debate style is definitely different and that was a bit hard to adjust to. But in the end, it was a great experience. We met quite a few super nice Canadians from both USask and UCalgary!”
The friendship has grown stronger every year and lots of Carroll iPhones have Canadian numbers saved now.
“The University of Saskatchewan debaters have become close friends with our Carroll debaters over the past five years,” said coach Brent Northup. “They even moved their tournament date so that we could attend. They always welcome us warmly. One reason we switched to British Parliamentary-style debate was because Canada is a BP debate country – as is most of the world. It’s also fun to watch pucks fly. The Canadians do love hockey! The team went to a college game the night before the tournament began.”
Carroll was the first and only American college to win the Diefenbaker Cup. In 2000, Kris Goss (2002) and Carolyn Parrish (2003) had their names engraved on the Cup, beginning a friendship between Western Canada and Carroll that is still going strong.
“It’s challenging to debate in Canada because some topics are Canada-specific,” said Northup. “We do our best to prepare for obvious possibilities about US-Canadian relations and universal health care, but sometimes we’re debating without many quills in our quiver. That’s rough, but it’s a reminder we aren’t the center of the world. Kris Goss was the spark plug to take us across the border. Pretty cool, eh?”