Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul Page 3

  As the days and weeks passed, we had the chance to get to know each other better. In some ways, the new friendships that grew became as valuable and as memorable as the trip itself.

  On the second to last day of the tour, we were making our way to Calais and the ferryboat that would take us back across the English Channel, on to London and finally to the airport. Throughout the trip, as we rode along in the coach, our wonderful French guide provided a colourful and interesting commentary to give us a better understanding of what we were seeing out the window.

  About two hours out of Paris, driving through the peaceful French countryside, our guide came on the microphone. His richly accented voice was serious and sombre.

  “We are presently passing through the World War I battlefields just south of Vimy Ridge. If you look to your right, just across the field there, you will see the war memorial that the people of France erected to the Canadian soldiers who fought so bravely here. Even today, some of the residents from the surrounding towns place flowers on the memorial regularly. Some lived through the fighting and have never forgotten the soldiers who took up their cause. And so, my dear Canadian friends at the back of the bus, I would like to say thank you from the people here in Vimy for the unselfish acts of your Canadian soldiers.”

  Across the grassy field, the stone monument stood erect and proud against the French sky. A Canadian flag rippled softly in the calm breeze. The passengers, each deep in their own thoughts, stared silently out the windows. Lost in the moment, I could visualize the sights and sounds of war. Suddenly, an unexpected wave of emotion swept over me. I felt immense sadness for those men who never returned home to Canadian soil, but at the same time, my heart swelled with an enormous sense of pride. Tears filled my eyes. I was embarrassed by my uncontrolled reaction. As I turned around, I realized that each of my friends had experienced the same feelings—their eyes were also wet with tears. We smiled knowingly at each other, not speaking a word.

  I had travelled all this way to appreciate what it means to be Canadian.

  Penny Fedorczenko

  Oshawa, Ontario

  The Loonie That Turned to Gold

  “Should we tell him about the Loonie?” Trent Evans asked Dan Craig. Dan was head of the Green Team, the icemakers responsible for all the hockey rinks at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.

  “You know I can’t officially know anything about that Loonie,” replied Dan. He turned to me with a huge smile and unzipped his green Salt Lake parka to proudly display his Roots Team Canada T-shirt. As he turned and left, the twinkle in his eye was unmistakable. “I have to check on the temperature of the ice,” he announced, evading my questioning eyes. Now I’m no investigative reporter, but something was clearly up.

  I was working at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, as a TV features reporter for CBC Sports. My assignment was to profile Olympians by actually trying their sport for a day—the kind of opportunity television people dream of. It allowed me to spend time with Canada’s best and brightest as they prepared for their events. From skating with Catriona Le May Doan to playing goal with the women’s hockey team, from rocketing headfirst downhill at breakneck speed (hopefully not literally) with the Skeleton Team to being a brakeman with the bobsled team, I was amazed as I played with Canada’s best. But there’s more to an Olympic performance than the athletes. There are so many exceptional people who make things work behind the scenes, and I got to meet a few of them as well.

  Back when Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers were winning all those Stanley Cups, they were known as the fastest team with the fastest ice. The crew making that ice was run by Dan Craig. Dan rose up the ranks to eventually oversee ice-making operations for the entire NHL. Taking over for him in Edmonton was the rising star of ice-makers, Trent Evans. Just like the athletes who work and train for years hoping to qualify for the Olympics, Dan, Trent and their team had become the icemakers to call if you needed the best. Here in Salt Lake, because of their green jackets, they were known as the “Green Team,” and this would be their Olympics.

  It was my day with the Green Team. We had started our “typical day in the life of an ice-maker” early that morning. With fifty-five games and even more practices in four different arenas, all needing perfect ice, the Green Team regularly put in sixteen-hour days during these games. It was hard work, but they had a lot of fun, too. While they were teaching me to drive a Zamboni, I was so busy watching all the dials and levers and gauges I forgot about the driving. Fortunately, one of them was holding a sign at the end boards that read “TURN.” After I parked the Zamboni, the guys gathered around to demonstrate how to tell if we’d done a good job. “Eat some of the snow out of the Zamboni,” they told me. “It should taste clean and melt in your mouth.” I dutifully obeyed, searching for the right taste and texture. When I saw them all laughing so hard they had to hold each other up, I realized I’d been had.

  After a busy morning, we had to put the finishing touches on the E Centre, the gold medal hockey arena. We arrived at the rink just as rehearsals for the gold medal presentation ceremony were finishing. To our chagrin, the organizers were practicing as if the USA had won the gold. Maybe that’s what prompted Trent to tell me about the Loonie. We were standing behind the Zamboni, as the strains of the “Star-Spangled Banner” died out, when he began.

  The first thing ice-makers do before making any ice, Trent told me, is to mark out the surface of the rink, starting at the centre. That marker becomes the face-off circle, and everything else is measured from there. Usually they just painted a dot, but there was no paint handy, so Trent reached into his pocket, came up with a dime, and put it down to mark the exact centre. Then they began the flood. But it was actually the next day when Trent had his real flash of inspiration.

  It was a slightly beat-up 1987 Loonie, but it was all Trent had left in his pocket. He put it down on top of the dime and finished flooding the ice. As he drove the Zamboni late into the night, putting layer upon layer of ice over it, he hoped the Loonie would bring good luck to the Canadian hockey teams. He also knew that if anyone were to find out, he would not only have to remove it, he would probably be on thin ice with the Olympic organizing committee.

  A couple of days later the rink was nearly done when Trent’s worst fears were realized. The Loonie had been spotted by one of the Americans on the crew, who promptly reported it. Trent was ordered to change the marker. His good-luck talisman was finished.

  As Trent began to dig out the coin, he was upset, knowing the Canadian hockey teams could use all the good luck they could get. The women’s team had lost eight games in a row to the powerhouse Americans in pre-Olympic tournaments. The men’s team hadn’t won the gold medal since 1952. In that moment, Trent made a decision that seemed small at the time, but would change his life forever. He left the coin where it was and covered it up with a splotch of yellow paint.

  “Now,” explained Trent, “came the really hard part, keeping it a secret.” All the Green Team knew because, well, they were in on it. The two Canadian hockey teams knew as well. “And now,” he said looking at me intently, “so do you.”

  The games were about to start, and the Green Team agreed to let the CBC tell Canada about the Loonie under the ice, as long as we waited until just before the final game. So, as the games got rolling, as Jamie Salé and David Pelletier skated a gold medal performance and were awarded silver, then later gold, as Catriona dominated on the longtrack in speed skating, the Loonie story sat locked in a producer’s desk at the CBC. But every day was agonizing for Canada’s icemakers as more and more attention was directed towards centre ice at the hockey arena.

  The women’s hockey tournament really got going with country after country being eliminated until the final confrontation— Canada versus the United States. The Loonie remained buried under the ice, but the secret was slowly beginning to surface. After playing shorthanded for most of the game, the Canadian underdogs won 3–2. In the exuberance of the moment, members of the
Canadian Women’s Gold Medal team fell to their knees and kissed centre ice to thank the lucky Loonie.

  Trent panicked, thinking for sure the jig was up. There were still three days to go before the men’s final. But somehow, the secret held. The entire country watched as the Canadian Men’s Team faltered, recovered, then won a place in the finals. Once again, it would be Team Canada against the undefeated Americans.

  Was the Loonie really a good luck charm? One thing was clear, the miracles never ceased. The gold medal game was incredible! Wave after wave of the world’s best hockey players skated over centre ice in end-to-end, fast-paced hockey, just as it should be. While the world watched, Team Canada skated to a decisive 5–2 victory in front of a screaming crowd and a jubilant Wayne Gretzky. Later, captain Mario Lemieux, wrapped in a Canadian flag, called the triumphant team to centre ice for a picture that would go down in history.

  While the team was celebrating in the locker room, Trent Evans ran onto the ice and dug out his coins. The dime he slipped into his pocket. The lucky Loonie he presented to the members of Team Canada 2002. Later that day, Gretzky held it up at a post-win news conference, proclaiming it to the world as a symbol of Canadian victory.

  The last time I saw Trent was on the front page of the newspaper. He was touching that 1987 Loonie one more time. But this time it was in its new home at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. The Loonie rests in a case and is prominently displayed between pictures of the two gold medal teams. There is a hole in the glass so visitors who are touched by the Loonie can reach through and touch it themselves. Trent looked so proud and more than a little surprised. I’m sure he had no idea his good luck charm would end up in the Hall of Fame. I also remember thinking how amazing it was that one person’s inspired moment could become a national symbol signifying the Olympic spirit.

  It became the Loonie that turned to gold!

  Peter Jordan

  CBC, Winnipeg, Manitoba

  Reprinted by permission of Lo Linkert.

  The Unity Rally—

  Canada’s Woodstock

  All those Canadians [who went to the rallies] can look at their children and say to them the next time the Canadian flag flies, they own a piece of it. They made a difference.

  Jean Charest

  It was October 1995, right before the Québec Referendum, and the future of our country hung in the balance. Like millions of Canadians, I sat at home watching TV to see what would happen. The news had more suspense than the 1972 Canada–Russia hockey series. We’re up, we’re down, were up, we’re down—we’re a country, we’re not. Québecers had been invited to vote either “Oui” to separate from Canada, or “Non.” Then, as the “Non” side began to lead, I began to cheer—just as if Canada had scored. Like many Canadians when the polls started showing Québec might actually go this time, I found myself scared that my country was about to disappear and frustrated because there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.

  Then my friend Donna called to tell me that a big Unity Rally would be held on Friday, October 27, in Montreal, and Canada’s airlines were offering a seat sale so anyone could go. Five minutes later, without any sort of plan, I dropped everything and booked a flight to Montreal. Thousands of other Canadians spontaneously did the same. Like them, I suspect, I had a million good reasons not to fly to Montreal that day. But I also suspected that all of those reasons would have sounded pretty hollow the following Tuesday if the people of Québec had voted “Oui” and I had stayed home.

  When I told people I was going on the “save the country express,” I expected to be teased. After all, it’s pretty hokey to fly 3,000 miles just to wave a flag and sing the national anthem. But to my surprise, even my most cynical friends thanked me and said they wished they were going. My dad asked me to hug a Québecer for him.

  In the departure lounge at the Vancouver Airport, I wondered how many of us were heading to Montreal in a heartfelt attempt to show the people of la belle province, that despite what they may have heard, we really did care about what they decided.

  Standing in line, I found a man I knew from work right behind me. “Why are you going to Montreal?” I asked.

  “To say no,” said Chris, who was bringing his son and daughter along to do the same.

  Once onboard, the woman next to me told me she and her husband had been watching TV wishing they could go, but couldn’t afford the airfare. Then some politician came on and said the rally was a stupid idea, and who cares what English Canadians have to say. A minute later she was on the phone to a travel agent. The woman explained she was a Franco-Ontarian, and even though she and her husband were broke, they agreed that when they were ninety, she’d be able to tell her grandchildren that she did her best to help keep Canada together.

  Then there was the schoolteacher from Bonneville, a small town in Alberta. He was carrying a big flag signed by every single kid in Bonneville.

  A flight attendant told me about half the 170 passengers on this regular business flight to Toronto were headed to the Unity Rally. This was not one of the special Unity charters; there were no organized groups on board. No one I met had spoken to anyone except maybe their significant other before deciding to do their bit to help save their country.

  Once in Montreal I spotted Much Music vee-jay Terry David Mulligan, who was covering the event for Much Music. At that moment, I realized this was Canada’s Woodstock. I half expected the organizers to broadcast warnings that “there’s some bad maple syrup out there!”

  The Woodstock image was confirmed when I saw a vendor selling souvenir T-shirts depicting a happy face with long hair, dark glasses, a bandanna covered with peace symbols, and the slogan: “Keep Canada Together.”

  The next morning, Donna and I headed out early to Place du Canada to beat the crowds. The rally was to start at noon, but when we arrived at 10:30 the streets were already packed. Still, we managed to get a great spot right next to the speaker’s platform. At 11:05 I heard the first of the numerous spontaneous renditions of “O Canada” that would sweep the crowd that day. Each was endowed with the same depth of feeling as when we sang it back in the original ’72 Canada Cup series against the Russians.

  At about 11:15, a tiny old woman started forcing her way to the front of the crowd. She quickly attached herself to my left arm to keep from falling over, and held on tightly for most of the next two hours. She was from Richelieu, a half-hour outside Montreal, and I later learned her name was Marie-Josephte. She tugged on my arm occasionally to point out local celebrities like Jean Charest’s kids, and a local Montreal M.P.

  As she filled me in on local colour, a man on the other side of the railing began tossing flags to the crowd—real, full-sized flags. The next thing I knew I had this Québec flag in my hands. Not sure what to do with it, I slung it over my shoulder and suddenly there I was, wearing a Vancouver Canucks jersey (which I’d worn to show where I was from) with a fleur de lis cape. My transformation to Captain Canuck was complete when Donna stuck a paper Canadian flag in my ponytail holder. Then Marie-Josephte pulled on my arm and handed me a small Québec flag, indicating I should put it in my hair too.

  Under normal circumstance I would have felt ridiculous— but there was nothing about this event even remotely related to “normal.” I was surrounded by people of all ages who had drawn maple leafs and fleurs de lis on their faces, plastered their skin with “Non” stickers and dressed themselves in various combinations of Canadian flags. Meanwhile, the biggest flag I had ever seen was moving through the Rally like a living creature. In this crowd—I was positively inconspicuous.

  When Jean Charest began speaking, Marie-Josephte started tugging frantically on my arm again. When I turned, she pushed my other arm toward a man in a snazzy business suit. As I said, “Hi, I’m from Vancouver,” I realized I was shaking hands with Frank McKenna.

  “I’m out from New Brunswick,” he said. “Glad to have you here.” Marie-Josephte tugged again, then beamed and shouted: “You came all the way from Van
couver. Now you will be on TV with the premier of New Brunswick!”

  I tried to be cynical and witty or at least hip and ironic about my feelings as I looked out at the mass of people, but the truth is, like Woodstock, it really was a love-in. We came for the people of Québec to tell them we care, but we also came for ourselves, because for one brief moment it felt like we might be able to make a difference.

  As the crowd began dispersing, Marie-Josephte pushed a slip of paper into my hand. It had her address on it. She thanked me for coming and told me to write her. Then she grasped my hand and we hugged each other.

  After she left, Donna and I walked away in our Canucks jerseys—or at least tried to. Every few minutes we were stopped by someone asking if we were really from Vancouver, and then after a moment in which they appeared to get lumps in their throats, they’d thank us for making the effort, thank us for helping. Then we’d wish them well on Monday—Referendum Day. “You came from Vancouver,” they’d say—some with English accents, some with French, “Thank you so much.”

  I was told later that the TV newscasts focused on the speeches—but the truth is—no one cared about the speeches. As powerful as their words may have been, they weren’t as poignant as the man holding the municipal flag of the city of Yellowknife, the woman with the cardboard sign that read “Edmonton, Alberta loves Québec,” or all the people from across the country who, like myself, had never waved a flag in their lives and were now proudly holding a fleur de lis and a maple leaf to show their support for a united Canada.

  The only statement that really mattered was that people had come from all over Canada to participate in something no one could have imagined, a powerful and spontaneous outpouring of genuine Canadian patriotism. No one who was there will ever forget it. The biggest cheer came when a speaker announced the crowd was estimated at 150,000. I strongly suspect if the politicians hadn’t interrupted, we would have just sung “O Canada” all afternoon.