Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics

EDMONTON – You could say Grace Tam was born to work in sport.

"There are pictures of me at the track when I was a baby," said Tam, who started her first full-time sport position as a new MacEwan Griffins Athletic Events Coordinator this week. "So, I've grown up in sport most of my life."

Born into that life honestly as the daughter of former Saskatchewan Huskies head track coach Ivan Tam, she was on her way to becoming a track athlete until …

"I transitioned to hockey because I wanted to hang out with my friends," she said with a laugh.

"I was the black sheep in my family, I like to say. None of my family plays hockey. My family was a track family, more or less."

Her younger brother Josh Tam is in his third year of eligibility as a heptathlete for the Huskies and recently competed at the Canada Summer Games.

But hockey paid off for Grace Tam, who spent three seasons with the Saskatoon Stars (U18AAA) before heading to Carleton for her rookie U SPORTS season in 2019-20.

She transferred to the University of Alberta during the pandemic and played for the Pandas from 2020-24, graduating with a degree in Business Law and Economics.

All of those experiences are driving her passion for her new position at MacEwan where she will work with the Athletics team to make the Game Day and overall student-athlete experience the best it can be.

"I think what excites me most, I can see MacEwan was looking for a modern take on things and really looking to build out their program," said Tam. "I know that the program is a lot younger, so I felt you guys have more opportunities to feed off your athletes. 

"I've always thought of MacEwan as a modern Athletics program, which I love. I thought I could take more creative ideas towards it."

One of those could certainly be enhancing the Griffins' social media presence as she made a big difference at the U of A, particularly working on their Tik Tok platform while there.

"Apparently, according to Jen (Zandstra – MacEwan Events Lead), I'm known by the athletes as the viral girl from U of A because I did a lot of their Instagram and Tik Toks. So, I have a lot of their fun Tik Toks that have millions of views. It was really fun meeting other people on different teams.

"I really enjoyed that. It was one of my favourites – something I created that was a passion project mostly."

While at the U of A, she volunteered in a Game Day role with the Edmonton Stingers in 2022 and was on Alberta's student-athlete council, doing communications. 

Last season, she was the colour commentator for U of A hockey broadcasts, while working a part-time job for the Edmonton Oilers in their events department. 

Before applying for her current position, she also worked with Athletics Alberta this past summer, helping organize international events, taking her back to the track world.

Also a former club volleyball athlete in her youth, Tam has a wide variety of sporting experiences to bring to MacEwan.

"It's interesting being an athlete and knowing the nuances of what it means to be an athlete," she said. "I think it makes my job a little bit easier knowing what the athletes go through.

"I love working with athletes," she added. "I got one opportunity and it kind of just bounced into a lot of different opportunities. I'm a person that says yes to anything. I think that's how I got into sport, is having a lot of connections and being a yes person to anything."