The Opening Ceremonies for the 2017 Canada Summer Games will take place today at Bell MTS Place in Winnipeg.

Rower Emma Gray of Winnipeg is our province's flag bearer for the Opening Ceremonies which begin at 7 p.m.

Jacob Loewen, who grew up in Blumenort and now lives and trains in Winnipeg is also on Team Manitoba's rowing team and will be attending the Opening Ceremonies tonight.

"It's pretty cool," said Loewen. "It's pretty close to sold out. It'll be a good experience."

Loewen will be competing in two events on the water at the Kenora Rowing Club next week - quadruple sculls and fours.

"We had off-water times trials on ergometer machines to make the cut to do on-water trials and then after the team was selected it was pretty well four to five hours a day of training with Sundays off for about the last month-and-a-half," said Loewen. "I'd say we've been training for the Canada Games for about a year now."

Loewen, Yanko Kalem, Andrej Kao and Tyrone Nakagawa make up the quad sculls team while Loewen, Kalem, Kao and Riley Sierhuis will compete in the fours.

"Obviously B.C. and Ontario are good," said Loewen. "They have lots of numbers. They do a lot of water sports compared to the prairie provinces. I think Team Manitoba has a decent chance. We look a lot better than we have in the past few Games. It will be a good experience. I'm going to meet lots of new people and look at it as a stepping stone towards other events."

Loewen has been on the water for just over a year.

He left the University of Winnipeg's volleyball team and gave rowing 100% of his attention back in the summer of 2016.

"Part of it was it worked for my body," said Loewen who was a left-side hitter for the Wesmen. "My knees were hurting a lot playing volleyball and rowing is a lower impact sport so it's better on my body. I do enjoy sports where I'm outside and not locked in a gym everyday."