Four students from the Estevan Comprehensive High School are in Edmonton participating the National Skills Competition. 

"Skills Canada is an Olympic style event for trades and technologies," explained Machining teacher, Mark Kroeker. "There are over 40 different skilled trades and technologies, everything from the industrial types like machining and welding right through to job skill interview, drafting, cooking, baking, all kinds of different things."

"It's really hard to put into words. It's a world-class event."

He added that approximately 20,000 people have passed through the venue between the students, visitors, and vendors. 

"It's really something to see, that's for sure."

"It definitely is a really good thing for our country to see all these young people. There are over 500 competitors from across Canada everywhere from Newfoundland to BC and the Northwest Territories represented here in all these different trades and it's quite amazing to see what the future of this country holds."

The top two competitors in each trade will get to go on to Worlds which will be held in Kazan, Russia on August 22-27, 2019.  

The competition ran on Monday and Tuesday and on both days, students put in around eight hours of work. 

"It's a really, really long two days. The students have worked really hard to get to this point. We train them as best we can but there's no substitute for the actual event."

"So it's a very long and rigorous competition time."

"Students are very hard on themselves and they always feel that they haven't done well. It really does bring the best out of every student."

Closing Ceremonies will be held at noon today. 

"This is my first time at Nationals personally, and my competitor's as well. We are told that the Opening Ceremonies are nothing in comparison to the Closing Ceremonies. The Closing Ceremonies is where they hand out all the medals and it's really where it gets intense and quite exciting. We're really looking forward to it."

"I think the students are looking forward to having all the pressure taken off. At that point, all the pressure is over, the competition is over and it's just all fun."

Last night Team Saskatchewan rented a restaurant to host the entire team to celebrate and unwind after a long, hard competition.