Hayden dreams big, succeeds.
MetroValley Newspaper Group
 
Reaching the pinnacle of your sport is a tremendous moment of satisfaction and fulfillment for any athlete.

But as World Champion swimmer Brent Hayden will be quick to tell you, it’s even sweeter when no one else sees it coming. None of the pundits in the swimming media had the 23-year-old pegged for a podium finish in the 100-metre freestyle at the recent World Aquatic Championships in Melbourne, Australia. But that only served to motivate the Mission-born swimmer, who turned in a stunning gold medal performance.

“I’ll read the magazines and the newspapers and see what all the predictions are for the races, and I wasn’t in any of the predictions [for the World Championships],” said Hayden, who made an appearance in his hometown on Tuesday night to show off his medal at Sport B.C.’s Community Sport Hero awards presentation.

Hayden may not have been a medal favourite heading into the World Championships, but he had an inkling that it could be his breakthrough meet. Winning the 100 m freestyle title at the Pan Pacific Championships in August of 2006 was a major confidence-booster, and had Hayden dreaming big.

In the aftermath, Hayden went from underdog to golden boy overnight. His historic triumph was heralded in every major daily newspaper in Canada, and his shining moment was a staple on sports highlight shows. Such is life when you’re the first Canadian to win gold in the pool at the World Championships since Victor Davis in 1986.

The media requests are still flooding in almost a month later, and Hayden is off to Los Angeles this weekend for a photo shoot with Speedo, one of his sponsors.
“I think that people in Canada got kind of pumped and a little bit proud of something Canadian that doesn’t require ice skates,” Hayden’s father Chuck said, noting that the family’s home phone rang nonstop for 18 hours when news of Brent’s big win hit the airwaves.

Hayden’s career is cresting at just the right time, with the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing fast approaching.

“I was definitely using the Worlds as a stepping stone to see where I was going into Beijing, and I think I’m pretty much in the best position I can be in going into it,” he said. “With this gold medal, I’ll have a little bit more self-motivation to get back into training and go even harder. It was fun to win it—I wouldn’t mind winning it again.”

Canadians owning podium as 2010 approaches Dominance by Howard, Scott sends ‘a message’.
The Globe and Mail

With the 2010 Winter Olympics on the horizon, Canadian curlers are beginning to flex their muscles.

Not only are Glenn Howard and Kelly Scott the Canadian and world champions, the two skips have vaulted Canada to the top of the World Curling Federation’s rankings.

After Scott’s run to victory at the world women’s championship in Japan last month, Canada improved to 1,020 points in the women’s standings. Sweden is second with 1,012.
Howard, who dominated the men’s world championships in Edmonton, increased Canada’s point total on the men’s side to 1,200. The next highest finisher is Scotland/Britain, with 782 points.

“To be honest with you, I think we made a bit of a statement this year with Kelly coming back and doing what she did and we obviously had one of the best weeks ever,” Howard said. “Maybe it shows that Canada is right back up there at the top. I still think we’ve got the best curlers in the world but obviously you’ve got to go out and prove it.”

It was the first time since 2000 that both the men and women were crowned world champions. “We want to send a message leading up to the next Olympics,” Scott added.

Prior to the gold medal won by Brad Gushue last year at the Olympics in Turin, Italy,
Canadian curlers had not done as well at the Games as many fans would have expected.
Other than Sandra Schmirler winning gold in 1998, there were silver medals for Mike Harris and Kevin Martin and a bronze- medal finish for Kelley Law. Shannon Kleibrink also won bronze in 2006.

The Canadian Curling Association has been tracking how well teams here are performing against potential adversaries in the United States, Europe and Asia heading into 2010.
National team coach Jim Waite unveiled his data in a presentation to the Own the Podium program. It breaks down how well Canada has done internationally in the last year.

The men’s results are especially impressive. Canadian men have won 91 per cent of their games against possible Olympic opponents. Howard had a record of 26-1.
“They want to know are we No. 1 in the world? What’s our record and that’s why we track this,” Waite said.

 “The second time around [at the worlds] for Kelly Scott was huge,” Waite said.
“Take a look at that Howard team. Richard [Hart] had been to the Olympics, Glenn had been to two world championships and the front ends have won two world juniors. So experience was huge on that team.”

The Long Goodbye; Figure-skating legend Brian Orser performs for the last time.
Times Colonist (Victoria)
 
It was Orser, Browning, Stojko in almost hypnotic succession during a heady decade-and-a-half for Canadian men’s figure skating.

The man who started it, ends it tonight when Orser’s long goodbye concludes at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre. After 19 years with HSBC Stars on Ice, former world champion Orser will give his final performance as a full-time touring skater when the show concludes its 2007 Canadian tour.

Orser’s career curtain-dropper could not come at a more fitting locale because he has had several brilliant moments on Blanshard Street, none more memorable than when he scored 6.0’s across the board at the old Memorial Arena during the 1988 Canadian Olympic trials. That launched him toward Calgary and the iconic Battle of the Brians against American Brian Boitano at the 1988 Winter Olympics.

“It’s starting to hit home that this is finally it . . . you could sense the feeling building on the bus into town after the ferry ride,” said Orser, after arriving in Victoria yesterday following Wednesday night’s well-received performance before a large crowd at GM Place in Vancouver.

Figure skating in Canada has recently endured a dramatically lesser profile than in the halcyon days of Orser-Browning-Stojko. But the 45-year-old Orser sees a rebound effect happening thanks to new stars such as Rochette and 2006 Turin Winter Olympics bronze-medallist Buttle.

“There’s no doubt interest peaked in the mid-1990s with Kurt and Elvis but we have an appealing new group emerging,” said Orser. “It’s taken the Canadian public a while to get to know these people but you sense fans now recognize and know skaters such as Jeffrey [Buttle] and Joannie [Rochette]. I notice that from the warm audience applause they receive across the country when they are announced during our shows.”

Orser will go into full-time coaching after tonight with 16-year-old, Yu-Na Kim of South Korea, who won bronze at the 2007 world championships after making such a stunningly graceful impression last fall in this building at the 2006 Skate Canada held at SOFMC.

It will all come to an emotional crescendo when Orser bows out at the end of the show skating to Neil Diamond’s Happy Endings/The Story of My Life.

It has been quite a remarkable life story on ice. We’ve seen glimpses of that life unfold on Blanshard Street over the years, most notably in 1988 en route to Calgary, and it sort of feels appropriate that Orser’s touring career should conclude here.

Calgary’s ambitious Centre for Sports Excellence project has been boosted by the hiring of Dan Moro from the 2010 Vancouver Olympics organizing team.

Moro will serve as vice-president of facility development for the Calgary Olympic Development Association to get the organization moving on the planned $276-million expansion of the centre, which already has produced World Cup medal winners in sliding sports through year-round training sessions at its refrigerated ice house.

Still to come are a multiple-rink ice complex, a huge athletics field house and sports school and residences for athletes.

“CODA’s plan for these facilities and programs will help bring home more medals for Canada than ever before in 2010 and beyond,” Moro said in a statement issued yesterday by CODA. “The centre will also serve as a recreational resource for Albertans, which will promote a healthier lifestyle, while helping to bolster tourism to Western Canada.”

Moro has vast experience in elite international sport organization. It’s his second tour of duty at CODA. Previously, he directed the International Centre of Excellence program for Hockey Canada for more than a decade before running the hockey venues and tournament for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. He went to the Vancouver Olympic Games organizing committee, known as VANOC, in 2005 and was also a consultant to Italy’s Olympic organizers for their Olympic and Paralympic hockey and curling programs last year.

The project, conceived five years ago, is designed to keep Calgary’s Olympic ethos vital and its facilities relevant almost 20 years after the 1988 Winter Games in the city. There was some concern that Vancouver’s installations would make some of Calgary’s facilities obsolete.

“But some of Vancouver’s facilities aren’t meant to be permanent, and we had a conversation with [VANOC chief] John Furlong that our effort would be complementary, not competitive with each other,” said Bob Nicolay, president and chief executive officer of CODA.

CODA designed the project to be built in stages. Nicolay recently was in Eastern Canada to beat the drums for corporate and government contributions to move on with the next phase of the centre. The Alberta government jump-started development of the athletics and ice complex with $69-million - a quarter of the total cost to fully rejuvenate the Olympic legacy site and advance the centre. The plan is similar to sport institutes the Americans, Germans, Austrians and Australians have, Nicolay said.

Earlier this year, a new snow-sport venue opened at Canada Olympic Park for freestyle and alpine skiers, which was constructed within the existing ski jump bowl. It’s billed as the first facility in the world to combine ski jumping, freestyle aerials and moguls, and alpine slalom. A 22-foot half-pipe also was added last winter, a scoop that replicates the venue to be created in Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics.