The Loonatic Fringe
By Stephen Vogler
Some folks love to revel in the superstitions and patriotic fervour surrounding the Olympics. They keep their fingers crossed to the end of the race, wave their hands in a sea of red mittens and feel the full-body rush of those good ol’ Canadian goose bumps. Others believe the Games are about nothing more than money – mostly yours and mine. They’d rather hoist a protest sign than a made-in-China Quatchi doll.
But there’s a third tribe, a little tougher to nail down, who have managed to meld the cold hard cash with the hocus-pocus. Let’s call them the Loonatic Fringe. Canadian icemaker Trent Evans started the tribe in Salt Lake City in 2002 by placing a loonie (that’s a $1 coin) under the centre ice dot as a good luck talisman for the Canadian hockey teams. Was it a coincidence that the Canadian men’s and women’s teams both took home gold? “Of course not,” say the red mitten wavers. “Who cares!” shout the protestors. Following the Games, the talismanic loonie was displayed at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto where pilgrims trekked by the thousands to let its good luck rub off on them. Score one point for the mitten wavers.
Following the auspicious debut of the Lucky Loonie at Salt Lake City, one would expect the tradition to be carried on at the Vancouver 2010 venues. Not so. Uncovering information over the holidays about loonies at the Vancouver venues was intially as challenging as breaking into the Royal Canadian Mint itself. However, a well-placed phone call to Communications Specialist John French in Whistler cracked open the vault. He quickly confirmed with Vanoc VP of Sport, Tim Gayda, that there are no lucky loonies at the Whistler Sliding Centre. A spokesperson from Vanoc’s Media Relations department in Vancouver later stated that there will be no loonies or anything of that nature added to the ice at any of the Vancouver venues. This, despite the fact that the absence of a loonie under the ice at Torino in 2006 resulted in a dismal showing for the Canadian Men’s hockey team.
Having asked only about loonies or toonies embedded in the ice itself, I decided to dig deeper. Following a local lead, I tracked down a former Sliding Centre construction employee who handed over photographic evidence of toonies placed among the piping near the finish area. “I was the one who put them there,” he said, speaking under condition of anonymity. “[When] we painted all the pipes underneath the track, I knew all the insulation was going in next, so nobody would see it. It’s still in there.” In truth, he added, “there are, like, 5 billion toonies sunken into that Sliding Centre, but the rest are buried in construction costs.” One point for the protestors.
Of course, it’s possible that masked men and women have planted loonies and toonies under the ice or infrastructure in other 2010 venues as well. In Torino in 2006, it only became known after the Canadian men won gold in curling that lucky loonies had been planted under both ends of the sheet.
When the gold medals begin to accrue this February and March, a secret tribe of loonie and toonie placers might begin to step forward to claim their esoteric role in the victories. But even in the absence of Canadian Olympic gold, a well-placed toonie never loses its good luck charm. Some day that Sliding Centre will need its pipes repainted, and when it does, some poor worker might just find himself a free bus ride home.
The Proof is in the Piping
