'30 Rock' mocks Canada

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 26, 2010 at 11:26 AM - 5 Comments

Broadway performer Cheyenne Jackson’s recurring role on the NBC Tina Fey comedy 30 Rock, in which he plays Danny, a Canadian singer not unlike Michael Bublé, brought to American television audiences mention of the Ottawa Senators, hockey “psych-up” songs and the Junos this week. And yes, it was all at our expense. Danny has already admitted he has trouble pronouncing “about.”

Winnipeg Free Press

New York Times

Head and neck cancers spike due to sex virus

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 26, 2010 at 11:21 AM - 1 Comment

With head and neck cancers are on the rise, boys and girls should get vaccinated against the human papillomavirus, doctors said Friday, as it’s been linked to their spread. Despite an overall slight decline in head and neck cancers, a particular form called oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) has spiked, especially in the developed world, Reuters reports. This seems to be linked to the spread of HPV, a virus that two vaccines (Cervarix and Gardasil) can protect against. HPV also causes virtually all cases of cervica cancer in the developed world. While including boys in vaccination programs is rare, scientists led by Hisham Mehanna of the Institute of Head and Neck Studies at University Hospital Coventry said it may be time to think again. Patients with HPV-related head and neck cancers are typically younger and employed; because these tumours appear to be less deadly than those caused by factors like smoking and drinking, they may live longer with physical and psychological effects of treatment.

Reuters

Southern cousin of T. rex found

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 26, 2010 at 11:18 AM - 1 Comment

Scientists have found the first proof that tyrannosaur dinosaurs roamed in the southern hemisphere, a family of dinosaurs previously only believed to have lived in the Northern continents. A hip bone found in Australia was identified as one belonging to a southern relative of T. rex, Reuters reports, coming from an animal about 3 metres long and weighing 176 pounds—much smaller than T. rex, which was 12 metres long and weighed about 4 tons. The fossil is about 110 million years old, and confirms that tyrannosaurs lived in southern continents. During the age when dinosaurs lived, continents went from one single supercontinent, to something like our present-day arrangement; this tyrannosaur lived during mid-stages of the breakup, when southern continents had split from the north, but not from each other.

BBC

Bruising politics Down East

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 26, 2010 at 10:15 AM - 1 Comment

East Coast politics is traditionally the most intense in Canada (with the possible exception of Saskatchewan’s brand). But lately the news out of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia has been even more bruising than usual. Former wunderkind Shawn Graham, New Brunswick’s Liberal premier, says he’s determined to lead his party into an election slated for next September, even though his landmark deal to sell NB Power, the province’s electrical utility, to Quebec fell through after a popular backlash against the sale. The 42-year-old Graham had to beat back questions about whether he’s about to resign. And then there’s NDP Premier Darrell Dexter in Nova Scotia, who had his Throne Speech overshadowed this week by the need to kick an MP out of his caucus in the latest development of a long-running expenses scandal. Nova Scotia has been roiling for weeks over revelations from the provincial auditor general over systematic misspending by politicians.

CBC

The Chronicle Herald

MPs attend ACTION party

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, March 26, 2010 at 10:09 AM - 6 Comments

The politicos came out for the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee (CJPAC) annual ACTION party in Toronto.  (Left to right) Bernie Farber, Nathan Jacobson and Transport Minister John Baird. Behind Farber is Jamie Ellerton, aide to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

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Baird and Toronto mayoral hopeful George Smitherman.

Continue…

Searching for the Liberal Party. Day 1.

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 26, 2010 at 9:41 AM - 100 Comments

Greetings from Montreal, where, for the next three days, we’ll be hanging around the Liberal party’s Canada 150 conference. Herein a running diary of the proceedings.

9:36am. First things first, a requisite description of the surroundings. The conference centre at the Hyatt Regency doesn’t look anything like a conference centre. It looks like a terribly hip Swedish bar. The light fixtures are these silver blobby things hanging from the ceiling and the walls at either end of the room are emitting red light. The foyer is all white light and includes an actual bar. I believe the Cardigans are playing a set here tomorrow afternoon.

9:57am. Paul Martin has arrived. Let the party renewal commence. Continue…

Argentina and Britain: still at war

By Tom Henheffer - Friday, March 26, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 53 Comments

Who said the Falklands War was over? Argentina and Britain are once again bickering over the Islands, with the former alleging that the latter is trying to steal oil from the disputed territory.

The conflict comes as Desire Petroleum, a British oil company, on Monday began exploratory drilling off the coast of the Falklands, where it is believed that up to 60 billion barrels of oil and 51 trillion cubic feet of gas may be trapped under the earth’s crust. Argentina claims those reserves as its own, and has become increasingly aggressive since cancelling a deal with Britain to share the development of offshore resources as a protest against British companies’ oil and gas explorations in 2007. Argentina’s government also decreed last week that any ship crossing through its waters must have a permit to reach the Falklands.

The decision is “not only a defence of Argentine sovereignty but also of all the resources” in its waters, says presidential chief of staff Anibal Fernandez. Because Argentina considers the Falklands to be within its territory, it could potentially mean a blockade of the islands.

Continue…

Coulter, live and loud in Calgary

By Colby Cosh - Friday, March 26, 2010 at 2:00 AM - 375 Comments

At the Red and White Club on the grounds of Calgary’s McMahon Stadium tonight, more than 900 attendees gave Ann Coulter a remarkable, thunderous ovation. But they cheered, I would almost swear, with even greater volume for Ezra Levant, co-organizer of Coulter’s tour. I’m a friend of Ezra’s, but I had never seen him speak on home turf before. The love was palpable and astonishing. I suppose he is part of the city’s image, the legend it tells of itself, at this point.

And—chalk this up to bias if you like—he gives a heck of a speech. The stubbornest Stalinist alive would have been stirred by his fierce defence of strong free-speech norms as a social truce in which all have a stake. He made a particular point of noting that women, ethnic minorities, and gays and lesbians would never have attained civil rights if they had waited around for the Establishment to endow them out of the goodness of its heart. They could not have won an open power struggle; they had to engage in persuasive speech that, at first, offended contemporary sensibilities. Is it cynical and manipulative for Ezra to go into that territory? Maybe a little. But is what he says true and relevant? Indubitably.

The component of Ezra’s introduction for Coulter that rang a little false was the civic self-congratulation. “This is Calgary, not Ottawa,” he bellowed, inducing positively demented applause. “We’re interested in a diversity of ideas, debated vigorously and freely. Places like the University of Ottawa talk about diversity, but they don’t actually mean it, do they?” The fact is, Calgary’s anti-everything left managed a pretty good turnout, perhaps fifty strong, and they did no less to try to interrupt and drown out Coulter’s talk, and perhaps more on the whole, than the U of Ottawa students. But they faced a much tougher tactical situation: a free-standing, isolated venue on a hillside, virtually a fortress; crowd-control gates and wooden barricades on the exterior; and a whole squadron of bicycle and foot police, perhaps upwards of a dozen.

Uncowed, the antis attempted to rush the main doors of the building as Ezra was winding up his intro, spiderwebbing the glass with boot damage, and they battered the exterior windows of the club throughout Coulter’s main talk. Tomorrow morning’s news story may be “Calgary gets right what Ottawa could not”; I wonder, however, how things would have looked if Coulter had visited Calgary first and caught the Cowtown police less well-prepared.

(Incidentally, a pro-tip for the two guys who tried to dress as Klansmen: real KKK outfits have separate hoods. If you go for the one-piece look, you are not a scary symbol of race hatred: you are a scary symbol of the laziness of six-year-olds at Halloween.)

Eventually She came out. I paid little attention (and some of you will be relieved to hear it) to Coulter’s litany of familiar one-liners; I’m not sure anyone paid the words much heed, including Ann Coulter herself. As the thrumming of the protest outside grew louder and began to be punctuated with blows and crashes, she made sure to keep one eye in the direction of the stairway, doubtless ready to make a hasty exit behind the curtain at any moment. The atmosphere of danger, and her consciousness of it, made her seem curiously vulnerable, even as she vaporized hostile interlocutors in the Q&A session. Coulter, if you’re wondering, and you are, is more attractive in person than on camera. She is thus something of a contrast, in this regard, to Sarah Palin. (Meow!) Dame’s not my type, but you find out the second you write about Ann Coulter that she has many open admirers, and a LOT more haters who are unadmitted admirers―unadmitted perhaps even to themselves.

She really is a gifted comic. It was unfortunate that she didn’t bring Calgary new material, but this was a case where the medium truly was the message. During the Q&A, a young female U of Calgary student stood to say that there are “Jesus Was a Muslim” signs all over campus and she isn’t sure how she should react. Coulter, with a simple “Huh” and a nonplussed look, had the room in stitches.

Still, the more interesting action was outside all night―and I don’t mean the rioting, but the small-group discussions amongst smokers, latecomers who couldn’t get in, curious U of C campus-dwellers, and stray protesters. Here, on the grass, ordinary people talked sincerely to each other without punchlines or slogans or sneering. They seemed to be a different species altogether from the formidable, mantis-like Coulter and her mesmerizing blonde mane.

In between the redactions

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 26, 2010 at 1:23 AM - 16 Comments

Sifting through Thursday’s documents, the Canadian Press leads with the account of a soldier who claimed detainee had been executed by Afghan authorities—a claim the Defence Minister’s spokesman dismisses to the Globe—but there is more.

An April 2007 report by a Foreign Affairs official who joined a Correctional Service of Canada staffer on an “exhaustive inspection” of the notorious National Directorate of Security facility in Kandahar City also cites claims of abuse. ”To our surprise, even though NDS officers accompanied us throughout the visit, two prisoners nonetheless came forward with complaints of mistreatment,” the official wrote…

A February 2008 memo prepared at National Defence Headquarters by Capt. S.M. Moore noted “significant shortcomings and areas for concern with regard to the conduct of (military police) operations in Afghanistan.” Many of the problems “are systemic” and result from a lack of oversight, it says. The memo notes a survey conducted “in theatre revealed that soldiers stated they had witnessed the abuse of detainees” – yet the information was not immediately passed on to military police.

It adds that on Feb. 15, 2008, two unknown individuals approached a female military police member when she exited the shower, grabbed her arms, pushed her against the shower wall and told her: “MPs mind your own business.”

Opening Weekend: boundary issues in 'Chloe' and 'Greenberg'

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 8:40 PM - 3 Comments

Movies, especially American movies, tend to fall into one of two increasingly disparate food groups: dumb popcorn confections that we devour as guilty pleasures, but leave us unconvinced and unsatisfied; and smart indie films that disturb, provoke or impress, but fail to entertain us with the larger-than-life experience that we crave from the big screen. Well, this week, we have two independent yet substantial films that bridge the divide between Auteurland and Hollywood. Both feature movie stars who are a pleasure to watch, and both films are simply named after their central characters, who have mental health issues—Chloe and Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg. In Atom Egoyan’s Chloe, Amanda Seyfried resembles a young Bette Davis, and proves that the star of Mamma Mia! and Big Love is growing up to be the most arresting actress of her generation. (To read my recent piece about Seyfried, which includes an interview with Egoyan, go to: Dear John I’ve Really Changed.) In Greenberg, Ben Stiller plays an eccentric anti-hero in an anti-romantic comedy, a borderline mental case. Chloe is by far the more stylized film, a noir lap dance that shimmys through a series of wild plot twists towards an unpredictable payoff. Greenberg is a deadpan, off-kilter comedy riddled with sharp, observational wit,  and it ambles along without much sense of narrative destiny. On the surface, Baumbach’s is the less conventional of the two films, while Chloe is as close as Egoyan has ever come to making an accessible drama with a slick, locomotive storyline. In this case, that’s a good thing.  I found Chloe to be the more compelling of the two movies. It’s Egoyan’s finest work since The Sweet Hereafter, and Seyfried’s performance is quietly electrifying. Continue…

The Commons: A little light reading

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 6:53 PM - 21 Comments

The Scene. Bob Rae sat with a great pile of paper on the desk in front of him. And after Michael Ignatieff and Lawrence Cannon had dealt with the question of what the government might say if the Americans were to ask about the possibility of Canadian troops staying a bit longer in Afghanistan, Ujjal Dosanjh stood to question the Conservative side about this pile of paper.

“Mr. Speaker, the government appointed Mr. Iacobucci at the last minute on a Friday morning, then took two weeks to release his terms of reference, and this morning, dumped some torture documents in the House without Mr. Iacobucci reviewing them,” Mr. Dosanjh reviewed.

Then the question. Or, more specifically, four questions, the last of which was actually two queries put together. “What was the government’s objective in hiring him? Was it just a stalling tactic? Why is Mr. Iacobucci being circumvented? Does he have a real job or is this just more cover for this government?”

The Justice Minister stood and shrugged and mumbled. “Mr. Speaker, quite the opposite,” Rob Nicholson said, though in response to which of the above questions it was unclear. “Mr. Justice Iacobucci is going to undertake an independent, comprehensive review of all the documents. The government has said that officials will make all relevant documents available, and the tabling today is part of that process.” Continue…

SOUTH PARK On the Edge

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 4:52 PM - 18 Comments

South Park has had a bunch of cultural ups and downs: every time it seems to be “out,” it comes back and becomes relevant again. (Most famously, the movie was made at a time when the show’s early fame had burned out and it seemed likely to be canceled. It came out, made lots of money, and gave the whole franchise a new reputation for cutting-edge satire, as opposed to the bad-taste absurdism it was famous for in its first year.) The last couple of seasons have, on the whole, been “out” seasons, and the rather lukewarm Tiger Woods season premiere didn’t change much. Joshua Alston in Newsweek thinks that the need to be topical and keep up with the news — the thing that separates the hastily-produced South Park from all other animated shows, with their longer lead times — has drained the comic edge out of the show.

I’d imagine that a day will come when South Park will consider a shift in its approach to line up better with audience appetites, one that emphasizes having the smartest take rather than the fastest one. Because even with its quick turnaround, by the time South Park gets to a joke, Stewart, Colbert, and Letterman, et al. have already planted flags there. And if you’re going to show up late to the party, you have to make a hell of an entrance.

I think there’s something to this, but I don’t know if it works as an absolute rule. Some of the weaker South Park episodes are the topical ones, but there are plenty of weak episodes that could have been produced at any time. (Every year the staff tries to do one “bank” show, a non-topical story that they can start early in the season and finish later, and it often winds up as a dullish episode, because Parker and Stone aren’t at their best unless they’re working on something at the very last minute.) If I see a more consistent problem with South Park of late, it’s that it’s leaning very heavily on one or two types of stories and comedy. Trey Parker does not have the most enormous range as a comedy writer-director, and there are several ideas he leans on very heavily, one of which is to have all the characters (except one or more of the kids) take something very seriously when it really doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously at all. So the season premiere had concepts like “no single man would ever want to cheat on his wife if he didn’t have a disease” and “sex addiction was created by a wizard alien” being discussed with grave seriousness, and… well, that accounts for most of the jokes.

Other South Park tropes that are used over and over: everyone acts like they’re in a disaster movie; Trey Parker devotes a scene or an entire subplot to some video game that he’s been playing; Trey Parker does an episode about some reality show he watches (Dog Whisperer, Whale Wars). As I’ve said earlier, I suspect this may just be what happens when two guys get to the point where they have no life experience any more to draw on, and spend most of their time making TV, playing video games, or reading Drudge.

Still, South Park remains entertaining and has still been able to come up with bits that catch on (the “Gay Fish” song most notably). And every time they seem like they’re going too far in one direction, they bounce back; remember how the Terri Schiavo episode restored their libertarian-hipster cred at a time when the creators were under attack (after Team America) for being too standard-issue conservative, and how they turned the departure of Isaac Hayes into a plus for the show, publicity-wise. Trey Parker will never be the great satirist some commentators thought he was back in 1999, but he usually retains… not an edge, but at least a way of freshening his basically limited (but funny) bag of comedy tricks.

Maclean's Interview: Bernice Packford

By Ken MacQueen - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 4:27 PM - 43 Comments

Photographs by Brian Howell

Last month, as her 95th birthday approached, Bernice Levitz Packford, a one-time Victoria citizen of the year, wrote to her local newspaper, the Times Colonist. “I am tired and I am ready to die now,” began her letter, a carefully considered argument in favour of changing the Criminal Code to allow for doctor-assisted suicide. “I have decided, after much reflection, that I wish to end my life now before my mind and body deteriorate further so I am incapable of making that decision,” wrote Packford, who lives in her home with the help of caregivers. She concluded: “Can Parliament find the gumption to give me the right to assisted suicide? I could then have my family and friends around me to say goodbye as I die with dignity.” Packford’s letter has triggered a renewed debate on the issue, in the pages of the newspaper and on websites, both for and against assisted suicide.

Q: You started your letter with the sentence: “I’m tired and I’m ready to die now.” You must have expected you’d stir things up.
A: I never though it would create such a public response. Never.
One thing I do know is that people do not face their mortality. I know that because I wrote a letter to the editor about making a will. People do not generally make a will and they die without a will, leaving so much grief for their children. And that’s because of a refusal to face our mortality.

Q: You can’t be accused of that. Why did you write the letter?
A: I am in good health. I’m not suffering from an illness that will be eventually fatal. So my case is not covered [in the current death with dignity debate]. That’s why I wrote that letter. I’m tired and I do suffer from congestive heart failure [which robs her of energy and requires her to use a walker]. I can have a stroke. I’ve had a stroke, and I recovered from that. I’m facing imminent sickness or a stroke, which will leave me conscious and helpless. And that thought fills me with horror.

Continue…

After months of painful negotiations, a nuclear deal

By macleans.ca - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 3:48 PM - 4 Comments

If the treaty is signed next month, as planned, we will soon see U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals cut down to their lowest levels in more than 50 years. After months of painful back-and-forth negotiations, the United States and Russia have come to an agreement: they will slash their strategic warhead stockpiles by more than a quarter, and their launchers by half. Already, the plan is being hailed by Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Center, as “the first truly post-cold-war nuclear arms treaty.” Richard Burt, who helped negotiate the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) between the two countries, calls it “a major step toward achieving [the] goal of global zero.” The treaty now needs to be ratified by both countries’  legislatures. Critics, however, have raised concern about a yet-to-be-settled issue: the antimissile shield that U.S. President Barack Obama wants to build in Europe, but that Moscow remains vehemently opposed to.

New York Times

Vatican strikes back against allegations

By macleans.ca - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 3:39 PM - 12 Comments

The Vatican today denied allegations of any cover-up in the sexual scandal allegations and denounced the recent revelations as a “smear campaign” against the Pope and his aides. “This is a pretext for attacking the church,” Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins said. “There is a well-organized plan with a very clear aim,” he said. Saraiva Martins also said that while he was in favor of zero tolerance now, he could understand why some bishops covered up cases of child abuse in the past: “We should not be too scandalized if some bishops knew about it but kept it secret. This is what happens in every family, you don’t wash your dirty laundry in public,” he said. He also accused lawyers of “wanting to make a lot of money” by digging up decades-old cases and filing lawsuits.

MSNBC

Tories dump detainee documents

By macleans.ca - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 2:26 PM - 7 Comments

The Conservative government has made two boxes full of heavily censored documents relating to the Afghan detainee scandal available to opposition MPs. While the Commons Speaker’s office scrambles to photocopy the papers for distribution, many politicians are already criticizing the move. “I have to say it’s a sad day when members of Parliament request information and they are treated in such a contemptuous fashion by the government,” said NDP Leader Jack Layton, while Bloc MPs have mocked some entirely blacked out pages and NDP defence critic Jack Harris called the action an insulting “political stunt.” Opposition parties have been fighting for months to get uncensored copies of the documents, which the government has withheld for security reasons, and are now threatening to launch contempt proceedings if the Tories don’t comply. Speaker Peter Milliken has heard the opposition’s arguments, and says he will give the government time to respond before making a ruling on whether the information needs to be released.

Canada.com

"[People were] begging him while the executions were going on. It's a horrible thing to talk about."

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 1:58 PM - 5 Comments

My story about Bill Horace, a Toronto man who has been accused by multiple witnesses and sources of war crimes and crimes against humanity, has been posted on our website.

Hey look: Reporter at work

By Paul Wells - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 1:57 PM - 0 Comments

This story by Michael Petrou is nowhere mentioned on the crowded cover of our current print edition (a state of affairs I find disappointing) and, a week after its publication, has received no attention from any of the dozens of news organizations currently frothing at the mouth over, say, Ann Coulter. We like to complain in this country that there is too little original reporting about important matters deserving wider public attention, but then when significant original reporting happens we pay it too little heed.

Here’s Mike’s lede:

A former commander in a rebel Liberian army who has been accused by multiple witnesses and former associates of war crimes and crimes against humanity is living freely in Toronto.

The rest of the story levels grave accusations of the most heinous crimes against Bill Horace, who is walking around Toronto today. These include murder, torture, rape, crucifixion and beheading, by Horace or by fighters under his direct command. To say the least, Mike doesn’t level these accusations lightly. He spent a year nailing this story down, hiring an investigator in Liberia, gathering written and oral testimony from a multitude of eyewitnesses. Here in the Ottawa bureau, we got used to coming into the office at any hour of the day or night and hearing Petrou, behind the closed door of his office, shouting over a shaky telephone line to somebody on the other side of an ocean as he tried to nail down some element of this story.

Now you should read it.

Due course

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 1:36 PM - 7 Comments

A week ago, when Derek Lee, Jack Harris and Claude Bachand raised their questions of privilege, Tom Lukiwski advised the House that “the government will want to respond in greater detail to these points.” Mr. Lukiwski apparently again promised today a “more fulsome response” to come.

A check with the Speaker’s office yesterday to determine when that response was expected was referred to the government House Leader’s office. A check with the House Leader’s office today was referred to the Justice Minister’s office. The response from the Justice Minister’s office is as follows.

The Government will be responding in due course.

A Perfect Finish

By Jason Kirby - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press

Jasey-Jay Anderson likes adversity. The highly decorated snowboarder from Mont-Tremblant, Que., thrives on it. So he couldn’t have picked a better day to hurl himself down Cypress Mountain for the parallel giant slalom. The venue that VANOC officials have referred to as their “special child” started throwing a tantrum the day before, during the women’s event, and it was still raging by the time the men showed up for their turn Saturday. Icy rain came from all directions, while a thick blanket of fog descended on the 530-m long course. Most athletes had brought several jackets and pairs of goggles with them to change into, but it didn’t seem to matter. As American snowboarder Chris Klug quipped, “I feel like I’m going salmon fishing more than snowboarding out here.” This wasn’t just a competition between 30 snowboarders from North America, Europe and Japan, but a battle between the boarders and Mother Nature herself.

Whomever and whatever the adversary, Anderson emerged the clear winner. After taking part in three previous Olympic Games without reaching the podium, he rode the mountain to a gold before a diehard crowd of cheering supporters on home snow—make that slush. It was a sweet victory after a tough day of racing. “I love being in that situation where I have to rise above the challenge, dig as deep as I can and see what’s there,” he said after his race, his snowboard wrapped in a Canadian flag. “There’s no better feeling than challenges like today. You’re swimming all day, you can’t see anything, you just gotta rise above all that and do the best you can.”

Anderson definitely had to dig deep. He’d started the day on shaky ground. After his first qualifying run he was way down in 20th place. But he quickly recovered and earned a place among the 16 athletes who advanced through to the main competition. So too did fellow Canadians Michael Lambert and Matthew Morison. Canada’s whole snowboard team was expected to do well. But when Lambert and Morison were knocked out in the early heats, suddenly all of Canada’s hopes came down to Anderson, a 34-year-old father of two and blueberry farmer who goes by the nickname Old Man.

Continue…

Strike of the Cobras

By Chris Sorensen, Jason Kirby and Ken Macqueen - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Yang Lei/ Zuma/ Keystone

It probably wasn’t the way Charles Hamelin envisioned redeeming himself at the Olympics—not exactly, anyway—but as he and his teammates know all too well, there is no such thing as a predictable outcome in short-track speed skating. Sure, Hamelin was ranked first in the world in the 500-m. And, yes, he was expected to get on the podium after disappointing performances in the 1,500-m and the 1,000-m races. But nobody could have guessed how the final few seconds of his first golden performance at the Games would transpire.

Two wipeouts on the final stretch of the last lap left Hamelin staggering across the finish line in first place—a moment he would later describe as “the greatest day of my life.” But it wasn’t immediately apparent to the boisterous crowd at the Pacific Coliseum what, exactly, had just happened. That confusion was written all over the face of Hamelin’s girlfriend and fellow Olympic short-track medal winner, Marianne St-Gelais, who was watching the race from the stands. She was jumping up and down one moment, dumbfounded the next, and then screaming with excitement as she climbed over the railing to embrace Hamelin after he was declared the gold-medal winner. Such is the sport of short-track skating, where disqualifications, crashes and come-from-behind wins are the norm as skaters whip around a rink on a blade’s edge.

Until that moment, St-Gelais, a rising star, had done much of the heavy lifting for Canada’s short-track team. She won a silver medal in the women’s 500-m race. Then she, along with Tania Vicent, Jessica Gregg and Kalyna Roberge, won a silver in the women’s 3,000-m relay.

Continue…

Wild times

By Anne Kingston - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

You know you’re in the middle of a wild and crazy national party when female models are lining up to have the Canadian flag painted on their naked bodies in public, their modesty (or what’s left of it) preserved by strategically placed red stripes. That was the scene, or a tiny part of it, last Saturday night inside the private Budweiser-Lululemon-sponsored bash at Club Bud, in the Commodore Ballroom on Granville Street. Just getting close to the place, past the cheering revellers, was an Olympian challenge.

Inside, past the red carpet, where Australian half-pipe gold medallist Torah Bright posed for photographers, the mood was equally buoyant. The 18,000-foot space was transformed into a pulsating three-level ice palace where DJs spun, go-go girls (and boys) gyrated in scant Lululemon-wear, a fluorescent Chinese dragon snaked its way through the room, and Budweiser (the only brew on tap, natch) flowed. Anheuser-Busch, which owns the Labatt and Budweiser brands, had set up versions of Club Bud at the Torino and Beijing Olympics, to huge success. In Vancouver, the parties went on until 4 a.m., and drew Michael Bublé, American figure skater Johnny Weir, U.S. long-track skater Shani Davis, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, Mad Men’s Jon Hamm and snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler. Saturday night’s guest list included a who’s who of Canadian medallists including Cheryl Bernard, Charles and François Hamelin, Alexandre Bilodeau, Scott Moir, Tessa Virtue, and Brian Orser, plus a smattering of CSI stars.

Leave it to the beer guys to know how to throw an Olympic party. There was branding, for sure, but no speeches, no goody bags filled with promotional swag, no waiters delivering trays of the ubiquitous 2010 Olympics cocktail munchie: medium-rare roast beef in a Yorkshire pudding crust.

Continue…

The Insider Olympics

By Anne Kingston - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Brian Howell

One of the wonders of the Olympics is its ability to bring people from all over the world together to celebrate in convivial competition. Actually being part of that seething throng of humanity is another matter: crowds at Vancouver’s fenced-in Olympic venues move with the velocity of mud, lineups are plentiful and tickets to events not priced out of reach by scalpers are scarce. The Canada Line built for the Games has proven brilliantly efficient, if you can squeeze on it. And thanks to the security fences that circle Olympic venues, early attempts to have your picture taken in front of the Olympic cauldron will contain at least 40 per cent chain link.

That’s unless you happen to be part of that set of people one was constantly seeing around the Games—stepping off tour buses clad in matching jackets, being ushered to boxes at hockey games. While hundreds of people queued up patiently at the Hudson’s Bay Company Superstore to stock up on red mittens, people with more famous faces were picking through the racks of freebies in the company’s airy “gift” room at the swank Loden hotel. John Hamm, Sandra Oh, Rachel Bilson and the Gretzky family all dropped by the penthouse and left wearing the gear (a swag suite rule), juggling as many bulging yellow Bay bags as they can carry. The giveaways were good for business: the Bay blanket coat by Smythe that Bilson was seen wearing during the Games sold out in the stores.

Special treatment wasn’t limited to movie stars. Corporate clients of Jet Set Sports, the American company with the lock on providing high-end Olympic hospitality, could likewise avoid the hour-long lineups outside the Russian pavilion in Science World, and sail into a private VIP room where talk was focused on Sochi 2014. (The only thing more prestigious than being on the ground floor of the 2010 Winter Games is being inside the next one.) Or they could travel to speed-skating events on a chartered Olympic bus, with retired American speed-skating champion Bonnie Blair providing the inside dish.

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Patching it up for gold

By Nicholas Köhler - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 2 Comments

Photograph by Jeff McIntosh/ Canadian Press

On television, it was the medal race a lot of people missed: all across the nation, channels were tuned to Team Canada’s rout of the Russians. But up at the Whistler Sliding Centre, one of our women’s bobsled pilots was contending for gold, while another was about to prove that on this controversial sliding track, with its sharp twists and treacherous slopes, anything can happen.

The race’s outcome—Canada 1 pilot Kaillie Humphries, backed by brakeman Heather Moyse, broke the track record in three of four heats to win gold; Canada 2’s Helen Upperton, with Shelley-Ann Brown, secured silver—lent the Canadian podium spots the weight of parable, a story of the fragility of friendship and its occasionally remarkable strength. In the case of 24-year-old Humphries, the gold proved too that you can break just about every bone in your body, go on to have your heart broken by sport, and then come back to reverse it all.

That story starts with the difficult relationship Olympic bobsled pilots, in particular on the women’s side, frequently have with the athletes who back them. The women get just a single shot at the podium (men have both a two- and four-man option) and each pilot gets two brakemen: a main and an alternate. Only one is selected to compete (coaches choose in consultation with the driver)—a circumstance that leads to crushed hopes and frequently shattered friendships.

Thanks to that dynamic, the four women who stepped onto that Olympic podium were all linked; more, the bonds between them were in various states of health and disrepair. Canada 1 pilot Humphries had once been fellow driver Upperton’s brakeman, but had been dropped prior to the Turin Games in 2006 in favour of Moyse. “Yes, Helen and I have a history. And yes, we are competitors,” Humphries told a reporter in December. “But we’re on the same team and we do respect each other.”

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