When the earth shook

Earlier this week, I happened to be on a massage table. Because my massage therapist also happens to be one of the most plugged-in and erudite people I know, she and I talked about the devastation in Haiti. To my surprise, she informed me that Uxbridge has become involved. She said that among a number of awareness-raising and fund-raising activities, the Rotary Club of Uxbridge has rallied to assist victims of last Tuesday’s earthquake. I wondered how our community – so far away from the disaster – could hope to deliver any tangible help.

“Well, there are 17 Rotary Club branches in Haiti,” she said. “That’s how local donors can be reassured donations will get there.”

That was some of the first reassuring news I’ve learned since the earthquake took place on Jan. 12. Almost since the next day, stories of victims enduring limb amputations without anesthesia, of marauding gangs stealing from homeless victims, and of orphans roaming the streets of Port-au-Prince, have haunted all of us outside this impoverished Caribbean nation.

It’s not nearly the same, but I remember how helpless I felt when the last big California earthquake struck in 1970. At the time, my mother and sister lived a few kilometres from the epicentre in the San Fernando Valley. For a time, there were no communications either in or out of the area. My father and I – here in Canada – had no way of knowing how they were affected. The greatest relief was that first telephone connection to know they’d experienced a lot of rocking and rolling, but the only damage sustained were cracks in the walls of the house. Unlike Haiti, in California help was moments away.

Then, this week, as Canadian officials announced that 2,000 members of the Royal 22nd Regiment (the Vandoos) were being dispatched from Valcartier, Quebec, with humanitarian aid, the Haiti earthquake touched me again.

As some of you know, I teach journalism at the downtown campus of Centennial College on Carlaw Avenue, just off the Danforth. Our communications school shares facilities with the Toronto campus of College Boréal. Most of its instruction is conducted in French. On Tuesday, I bumped into Bululu Kabatakaka, the director of the college’s cultural integration program. He told me that of its 160 students in Toronto, College Boréal has two faculty members, two support staff and a dozen students all originally from Haiti. I asked the director what he’d heard from them.

Bululu told me that one of his instructors, a 30-year-old professor of law, told him her family in Port-au-Prince had survived, but their house had not. They had nothing and were literally left to fend for themselves in the streets. A second professor of social services also had family in the capital city, but the quake had killed most of them. And then he described his twelve Haitian students.

“They’ve disappeared,” he said. “ Since the quake they haven’t come back to classes. We’ve tried to call and comfort them, but they seem to have lost all hope.”

I asked Bululu if his work or travels had ever taken him to Haiti. He said it had. Originally from the Congo, he said some of his colleagues had taken their skills and talents to Haiti to teach and guide young people there. I asked him what the country looked like before the quake. He described the palace, the large hotels, the government buildings in downtown Port-au-Prince. They he paused and said he’d heard from a friend who’d come through the quake.

“The places you visited,” his friend said, “they’re all gone. They don’t exist anymore.” And Bululu said he just sat down and cried.

Moved by the losses his college faculty and students have suffered, we quickly arranged our own fund-raiser for the next day. Our joint Centennial College/College Boréal event quickly attracted speakers, silent auction items, entertainment and yours truly (the MC) to rally ’round the Haitians in our midst. Of course, it would never bring back lost family or the cityscapes of Port-au-Prince. But it did offer everybody an outlet for grieving and tangible support for the victims in our midst.

“The disaster is closer than you think,” Bululu pointed out.

Before I left my massage therapist this week, I wondered out loud how funds given to the Rotary Club of Uxbridge might be used to assist Haitians with a million and one needs right now. She told me she understood that Uxbridge donations would go directly to those local branches in Haiti, to deliver medical assistance, to begin reconstruction of lost homes and schools and to dig new wells.

Like the disaster, relief is closer than you think.

Custodian of the Maple Leaf

It happened early last spring. With just a few days remaining before I led one of my annual tours to the battlefields of Europe, I paid a visit to the man who regularly supplies me with this country’s greatest calling card.

Bryan Petry was ready and waiting for me. At his All Seasons Display office in Markham, Ont., he had three full-sized Canadian flags I planned to use as official gifts. He had bags of Canadian flag pins we would give as souvenirs to French and Belgian acquaintances, and he had bundles of paper Canadian flags we would plant in front of Canadian military headstones at Commonwealth War Grave sites.

“Plant one for me, would you?” Bryan asked me.

His request caught me a little off guard. “Of course,” I said eventually. “Anything for my favourite custodian of the flag.”

I guess I didn’t realize how telling that moment in his office really was. Though I would see Bryan Petry a few more times later that summer and into fall, his request to be remembered during one of our cemetery visits turned out to be the last favour I was able to return to him. On Monday, Bryan died of complications caused by cancer at Toronto East General Hospital. He was 54.

Bryan and I were not close friends. In fact, he had many more tight friendships cultivated through his son’s hockey, his volunteer service with youth and adult hockey, and most particularly, his longtime association with the Islanders Oldtimers Hockey Club in Uxbridge. You won’t be surprised to learn that Bryan and I met via hockey.

One year we happened to be on the same team in Uxbridge’s Sunday night men’s recreational hockey league. He was the team rep. As usual, he quietly took on the responsibility of assembling the team in the fall, doing all the associated paperwork and then representing the team on the executive. He even took his share of jabs in the dressing room about being “a member of management.”

“Somebody’s got to do it. And I’m just as competent or incompetent as the next guy,” he would say.

But it’s mostly as an ambassador of Canada’s national emblem that I think of Bryan Petry. Do you remember that incident a few years ago, in which an Uxbridge resident had his Canadian flag torn down and stolen? Within hours of the incident, Bryan suggested he and I call and offer to replace it. I think the folks at the Legion were the only ones to make the same offer faster than Bryan did. Then, there was the Vimy flag.

During another of my annual spring visits with Bryan at his flag shop in Markham, back in 2007, I happened to mention that I needed not just any Canadian flag, but a Red Ensign. It had been the national emblem that 48 regiments of Canadian troops had carried up Vimy Ridge during the famous First World War victory in France, I told Bryan. I thought it would be a classy touch to have a replica of the Red Ensign on display at our annual Oilies Remembrance Day tournament in November 2007 (the 90th anniversary year of the historic 1917 battle).

A few days before I flew to France to attend the special observances at Vimy in April 2007, Bryan called to inform me he had two Red Ensigns for me – one for the Oilies’ tournament and another that Don Mason of the Islanders had requested. I made sure that both flags were photographed at the base of the twin towers of the monument as evidence of their journey from Uxbridge to Vimy and back. Of course, all members of both oldtimers teams were pleased to see the images. But I remember Bryan’s face especially. It lit light up brightest.

“Like gems against that Vimy marble,” he commented. “Nothing ever looked better.”

A few weeks after I’d shared the photos with my Oilies teammates and Bryan’s Islanders teammates, Bryan had another emblem to contribute. He’d created a pennant we could hang from the same pole as the Red Ensign. The pennant had an inscription embroidered into it:

“This Canadian Ensign retraced the path of the 116th (Ontario) Regiment from Uxbridge to France and the site of the First World War battle at Vimy Ridge, in which the regiment participated. It visited the Vimy Memorial on April 9, 2007, the 90th anniversary of the battle.”

I’m going to miss my annual visit with Bryan Petry this spring. I’ll miss his eagerness to share Canadian emblems in our community, across the country and beyond. And whenever I see that perfect Maple Leaf on a lapel, a backpack or a flagpole, I’ll remember the gentle patriot who helped put it there.

Ending the year with a bang

I simply went to exchange a Christmas gift. By 11 a.m. on Dec. 30, I reached the electronics store in south Whitby, Ont. But because of holiday demand, the store didn’t have much selection left. So, they gave me a credit and asked me to come back in the new year. I headed home – northbound on Thickson Road. It was just after noon. On the radio they were about to announce the roster for Team Canada, the men’s Olympic hockey team.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer said, “Steve Yzerman.”

That’s the last sound that came from my car radio. At that moment, I entered the intersection of Thickson and Rossland, east of downtown Whitby. As I did, a one-ton pickup truck suddenly came at me from the right. Before I could react, we collided and my car was spinning clockwise. I thought, “There’s going to be a second impact … a pole … another vehicle … or a least the curb.” But it never came.

Fortunately, my little old Corolla just stopped spinning on its own. And – seconds later – when I focused, I was facing the opposite direction. The truck that had hit me sat crosswise in front of me. I was covered in glass and debris from the truck’s front-end and what was left of the passenger’s side of my car. Then I consciously looked to my hands and feet. Thankfully, I could move them. A woman approached and told me my head was bleeding. And I suddenly felt pain there. A moment or two later a man with a cell phone to his ear approached from the driver’s side, opened the door and spoke with a bit of an accent.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

At first, all I cared was that I could hear him and that I could understand him. “Was the light green?” I asked.

“I saw it all. You had the green. You were in the right,” he said. “I’ve called 911. Help’s on the way.” And he handed me his card: Alva Wedderburn, Al’s Home Services, it said. “Hold onto that, if you need a witness or anything.” And I promised myself I’d call and thank him when I could.

I next remember sirens, a couple of them. Then someone in one of those fluorescent pullovers – a police officer – began directing traffic. And two voices – a couple of paramedics – began asking me questions: Where was there any pain? Was I able to breathe OK? They asked me my name and asked me to stay still in case I had a neck injury. It occurred to me later that they’d asked all the right questions, but they’d also treated me like a person, not just a nameless victim in a car wreck. And that never changed – from the accident scene, on the ride to Ajax Hospital and into the emergency ward.

I learned that one of them – Darcy Caffin – had been a paramedic for 16 years. He’d studied at Fanshaw College and regularly upgraded his training to stay on top of his profession. His partner – Derek Brain – reacted when I said I needed to call a veteran I’d intended to meet that afternoon. He said he had a special interest in vets. And we shared some military history. But amid the friendly conversation, they never lost sight of my well-being – checking my blood pressure and heart rate like clockwork. Whether protocol required it or not, Caffin and Brain made my case seem priority one. And they never let me out of their sight until I was safely in the hands of hospital staff. They seemed surprised when I asked for a pen to write down their names. I said I didn’t want to forget their professionalism or kindness.

“All in a day’s work,” one of them said.

A few hours, an examination and four staples in my head later, I left the hospital and visited what was left of my Corolla among wrecks in a Whitby towing company yard. I felt sad the last car my parents had ever owned and passed on to me should end up this way. Maybe my survival that day was among their last gifts to me. But then I remembered my Good Samaritan. I called Al Wedderburn back to ask why he’d stopped.

“It was nothing really,” he said. I placed his accent as Jamaican, but he said he’d been here 30 years. “Nowadays people are too busy to stop. But where I come from, if your fellow man is in distress, you lend a hand.”

By quarter-past-noon on Dec. 30, I’d been quite prepared to hate the world for what had happened. But by day’s end, I was thankful for the kindness of a stranger and two paramedics and their humanitarian gifts when I most needed them.

Gift of a song

The sounds of Christmas are everywhere in song, whether Silent Night or Little Town of Bethlehem or even the Chipmunks' Christmas Song and Deck the Halls with Boston Charlie. But I’ve got a story of a Christmas song you’ve never heard of. In fact, it’s not even about Christmas; it’s about the day before. It began one day back in 2001 when my father – Alex Barris – called me with a problem.

“I’ve written a song,” he said. “It’s called ‘It’s Christmas Eve.’”

“So what’s the problem?” I asked.

Dad said it was a piece he’d composed some years before. Not only had he written up the musical score sheets and the lyrics, but he had also published it and even recorded a rough soundtrack of his own voice singing it. His dilemma, he told me, was that he now wanted to have the song professionally recorded in a studio, with piano accompaniment and a female vocalist. Therein lay the dilemma, he said. He wanted one of our daughters to record it. But which one?

“Why not have them do it together,” I suggested, “in harmony.”

And so my father’s family Christmas project was set in motion. The girls – one professionally trained, the other naturally gifted – took time over that spring to rehearse with renowned Toronto pianist Norm Amadio. Then on a warm day in June 2001, pianist Norm, singers Quenby and Whitney, and composer/lyricist/producer Alex arrived at a sound studio in Toronto’s east-end for the recording session. The song begins:

“It’s Christmas Eve, a time to think,
And here’s a thought you can borrow:
If you believe in Christmas Eve
You’ll banish all of your sorrow.
The mistletoe, the frosty snow,
Are gifts you’ll treasure tomorrow.
So start to weave this hallowed eve, a merry Christmas Day.”

As the music and vocals were laid down that day eight years ago, the rest of us – my mother, my sister, my wife and I – looked on in awe as the magic in the studio happened. Within just a few hours, the recording session had created a most wonderful tribute to an often overlooked Christmas moment – the poignancy, calm and anticipation of the day and night before Christmas. The chorus concludes:

“It’s Christmas Eve, a magic time
A time to think about giving,
A gift of cheer to those held dear,
Who make our lives worth the living.
It’s time to praise in song and phrase
The One who’s always forgiving
The One whose birth upon this Earth
Created Christmas Day.”

More than just a song, my dad and our girls had concocted for the rest of us a permanent record, literally, of a family’s tribute to a most special time of year. In the months that followed the recording, we tried to get some of the big names in the Canadian recording industry to pay attention to this little demo CD. Some agreed to take a listen. None was interested enough to record it. Not long after, my father was crippled by a number of strokes and health setbacks that took him from us in 2004.

Every year, when the holidays roll around, we reflect on Christmases past, celebrations to remember and gifts that stand out. A few years ago, I noted, for example, that the National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York (established in 1998), issued its list of all-time most memorable toy gifts – including such items as alphabet blocks, Barbie dolls, crayons, yo-yos, Frisbees, Silly Putty, jump ropes, Hula Hoops, checkers, red wagons, Erector Sets and View-Masters.

Of course, being an American museum, they just didn’t get it when it comes to a kid’s first hockey skates. When I was a boy, my most memorable Christmas gift came right out of a Roch Carrier short story. The folks gave me a peewee-sized set of pants, suspenders, socks, shoulder, shin and elbow pads and CCM skates – my very first set of hockey equipment – complete with Hesspler green flash hockey stick, gloves and helmet (I think I was among the first on my team to wear that Butch Goring style three-piece head gear). That Christmas morning I shed my pajamas right there in the living room, suited up in my hockey gear and stayed in it 0’til Christmas dinner.

For me, however, all that pales next to the gift of a song from the heart of a father, delivered by the voices of his granddaughters, to the rest of his adoring family.

A taste of concern

Monday night was bittersweet. Through the evening, a lot of friends and neighbours shared food and drink in anticipation of holiday festivities, just days away. But in the middle of a special wine and food tasting at the Tin Mill, a local eatery in Uxbridge, Ont., I listened to a friend of mine grieve. He couldn’t fathom that just eight weeks ago, his son Christopher was as alive as ever.

“I wake up each day thinking he’ll be there,” Warren Skinner told me. “It’s absolutely surreal.”

Christopher, Warren and Ellen Skinner’s 27-year-old son, died on Adelaide Street in Toronto on Oct. 18. He’d been celebrating his sister Taryn’s birthday in the city’s entertainment district. He’d begun to walk home about 3 a.m. As best authorities could determine, it appeared that Christopher and occupants of a dark-coloured SUV had a confrontation. The police said his attackers beat Chris to the ground, then drove over him and sped away. That cowardly act snuffed out an extraordinary young man’s life and devastated his family.

In the days that followed, this town held its breath. Homicide officers with the Toronto Police Service announced they had security video footage from the area. It showed the SUV speeding away. A few days later, as a thousand gathered in Toronto for a candlelight vigil, everybody expected it would only be a matter of time before police made arrests. Then, in response to deafening silence and frustration, TPS announced a $50,000 reward for information. The Skinners offered a further $25,000, hoping someone might step forward.

Well, no witnesses have stepped forward yet. But this town certainly has.

No more so than Monday night, when co-restaurateurs Don Andrews and Conrad Lepine presented a unique fundraiser at the Tin Mill. The two hospitality veterans called upon friends and business associates alike to step up the plate – as it were – to share an evening of wine and food tasting in aid of the Skinners’ reward fund. Sysco Foods, Len Graphics, Stage One, both newspapers and the Tin Mill staff all offered supplies and services. Conrad told me he’s conducted business with such wine and spirits suppliers as Kittling Ridge, Willow Springs, Ocala, Profile Wine Group, The Vine and Corby Distilleries for so long, he felt sure he could depend on them to contribute to the tasting. They responded right away.

“We wanted to raise a good deal of money in a hurry,” Don Andrews told me. “This seemed the best way to do it.”

Though we didn’t expect them, Ellen and Warren Skinner and other members of the family arrived at the Tin Mill to join in. For many of us, it was the first time since Christopher’s funeral, that this community had had a chance to express its concern. I can’t remember hugs and conversation with such heartfelt, genuine emotion. A woman new to town couldn’t believe so many – nearly 200 people – would show that kind of support. I suggested it wasn’t unusual considering how closely the Skinners and this town are tied together.

Of Christopher, I have a number of vivid memories. I recall fondly the times when he and our daughter Whitney appeared with Uxbridge Youth Choir and the Port Perry High School music ensemble “Jazzmerize.” The Skinners and the Barrises often shared duties chauffeuring the two to and from early morning rehearsals or evening performances. It meant the world to them to have those moments on stage doing what they loved. They had no idea how much it meant to us – their parents.
“Christopher was so vital,” Ellen Skinner said to me Monday night.

As I listened to Warren describe the last eight weeks, I watched a man tormented and distraught by the events of Oct. 18. At one point in our conversation he showed me the contents of his pocket – principal among the cards and slips of paper were a couple of snapshots of Christopher. He said he looked at them often. He told me an extraordinary story about the impact of Christopher’s funeral on one of his working colleagues – a judge in Newmarket. The woman had come away from the service so moved that she said she wished she had known Christopher and finally she told Warren, “I’ve decided to be a better person.”

Like the extraordinary evening Don and Conrad arranged, I’m sure my experience Monday night was but a sample of the genuine outpouring of support for Ellen and Warren Skinner. The evening raised a lot of money. It sparked some laughter, plenty of reminiscences and continued concern that neither the Skinners’ job nor our job is complete – until the fund and the case are successfully closed. As things wound down at the Tin Mill Monday night, I asked Warren finally why he and Ellen had chosen to come.

“We had to,” he said. “We had to embrace this moment.”

So did we all.

The face that chose me

The day I first saw it, I had no idea how much impact it would have on my life or the lives of several others.

I came across the photograph back in March. I had opened a copy of the Globe and Mail and spotted the image right away. I suddenly realized the picture might provide the exact image I’d been searching for. It showed a contemporary Canadian soldier in Afghanistan. He seemed to be seated inside a troop transport. He looked exhausted, done in. I checked the caption under the shot. It said:

“Master Corporal Chris Jebeaupre rests after a mission in the Taliban stronghold of Zhari district.”

All last winter I had searched for an image to place on the cover of my new book, a book I hoped might change attitudes about the way we view Canadian veterans. I wanted the image to say several things. It had to depict a veteran; clearly this man was a veteran, not of long past wars, but of a current war. It had to be an honest reflection of the aftermath of a wartime event; the Reuters news agency photographer, Stefano Rellandini, seemed to have caught this Canadian soldier in a state of exhaustion. Perhaps even loss. So I called Reuters seeking permission to use the shot on the cover of my book.

“You’ll have to call New York,” the woman at the Toronto Reuters office told me.

Once I’d made contact, I asked Reuters to forward the photo to my publisher’s cover designer to incorporate the image around the title of my new book, “Breaking the Silence.” From the first draft of his treatment, I knew that my instincts to get this photograph were right. The image of Master Cpl. JeBeaupre seemed perfect.

Early this fall, the production of my book and its dust jacket came off the printing presses and by October I held the first copy in my hands. Suddenly it hit me. We had paid for clearance to use the photograph. The production designer had incorporated it perfectly into the jacket. But we had never bothered to contact the Canadian veteran whose face would appear on thousands of books.

“I don’t want this guy to hear about being on the cover of a nationally published book by accident,” I told my publisher. “I want him to hear it from us.”

Thus began my search for the veteran on my book jacket. I tried to find him through the Canadian Forces database. I called friends of mine in the military. I went as far up the Department of National Defence ladder as a civilian can go to find him. Nothing.

“Is it possible his name is not Jebeaupre, but deBeaupre?” I asked a military officer.

That was it exactly. And the Canadian Forces system immediately traced the soldier. By coincidence, he had just returned from his overseas deployment in Afghanistan and been posted to CFB Gagetown, N.B. It took a while, but eventually I convinced a duty officer there to receive a copy of the book and pass it along to deBeaupre himself. In about a week, I received word the soldier had received it. He contacted me by voice-mail and said he was honoured to be part of a book that recognized Canadian veterans.

By mid-October, I was on the road, on television and radio and online talking about the content of the book. In just over five weeks I have been interviewed or delivered talks, presentations and keynotes 85 times. Then, last Wednesday evening, as I was about to speak one more time, a woman in the audience caught my attention. I introduced myself. And so did she.

“I’m Sandy deBeaupre,” she said, “Chris deBeaupre’s mother.”

I don’t know whether it was out of respect or surprise, but I directed a lot of my presentation to her that evening. I spoke about one of my book’s themes – the code of silence that veterans use on sons and daughters who ask “What did you do in the war, Dad?” I suggested that sometimes it is we who impose the silence on veterans out of reverence for their loss on Remembrance Days. And I explained that sometimes veterans don’t have to be elderly to have suffered trauma, pain and loss; I described my conversations with Canadian veterans back from Afghanistan. And I acknowledged that Sandy deBeaupre’s son Chris – depicted on my book jacket – might well be one of those silently suffering veterans. Sandy nodded in understanding.

“You may not realize it,” she said, “but that photograph on your book was taken just after Chris had lost four of his comrades that very day.”

The face I had tripped over, chosen for my cover and hoped would represent the face of the veteran experience, had indeed lost a lot that day.

Making the point

There’s a standard post-game joke that circulates in most recreational hockey or oldtimers’ dressing rooms. Especially if the butt of the joke has made a ridiculously bad pass, missed an obvious goal or (in the case of a goalie) blown an easy save during the game. It doesn’t take long – within minutes of the end of the scrimmage – and it usually follows a short period of silence as players catch their breaths on the dressing room benches. Then, it comes with the predictability of a sunrise.

“So what happened?” the jokester begins. “Did you trip on your toe picks?”

In case you didn’t get the reference, toe picks are the jagged edges common to the leading edge of most figure skaters’ skates. The point is that the hockey player involved in the gaffe, looked so hopelessly inept during the play, that the worst comparison the jokester could imagine would be the hockey player being only good enough to try figure skating or ice dancing.

In truth, those picks are more than practical for figures skaters; they’re essential. My sense of them is that toe picks give height and strength to their take-offs. They ground their dizzying spins. And they deliver precision and accent to their classical or modern dance moves. They’re as vital as a puck is to hockey.

If there was any doubt about either the value of toe picks or the quality of skating inherent in figure skating, watch any of this country’s legends in the sport: figure skaters such as Barbara Ann Scott or Toller Cranston and ice-dance pairs such Barbara Underhill and Paul Martini or Shae-Lynne Bourne and Victor Kraatz. No self-respecting hockey player would ever suggest – even for a second – that these extraordinary skaters were less agile, less talented, or less athletic than an Henri Richard, Gordie Howe, Wayne Gretzky or Sidney Crosby. And if it wasn’t obvious before, the point was delivered definitively this week as CBC TV’s “Battle of the Blades” competition concluded.

I hadn’t planned to watch Monday night’s broadcast, but tripped into it with my TV remote and found myself mesmerized by the skaters and the “reality” TV dimension that I generally find a bore. I found myself wanting to see the three final pairs profiled, wanting to experience the build-up and final decision. What’s more, I guess I wanted to watch the apparent merger of ballet on skates – figure skating – with Canada’s national winter sport – ice hockey.

And like the 2 million or so who tuned in, I was not disappointed. The hour-long broadcast was better than any Ice Capades show I’d ever attended as a kid. It was more informative than most national or Olympic competitions I’ve witnessed. And it answered a question we have all asked at one time or another: Can/would a hockey player ever succeed as a figure skater?

Craig Simpson, who won the first “Battle of the Blades” championship with partner Jamie Salé Monday night, proved he could make the transition from rockered skates to toe picks. And then some. The former Edmonton Oiler learned dance moves, executed partner throws and he was the first of the show’s male competitors to complete a free-skate jump.

And he did it all in a spandex costume, not a hockey jersey, shoulder pads, hockey pants and a helmet. Where twice he has left NHL hockey arenas with the Stanley Cup hoisted over his head, the other night he and Salé left Maple Leaf Gardens, a temple of hockey excellence, with the first ever figure-skating “Battle of the Blades” trophy in their hands.

It could be argued that in smaller communities across Canada, aspiring to greatness in the sport/art of the figure skating is not as high a priority as becoming the next hockey phenomenon. Even in sophisticated neighbourhoods such as ours, figure skating is often ranked as an also-ran at the arena. There are those who consider playing hockey after a figure-skating practice a disadvantage because of all the gouges in the ice surface; the same might be said of the reverse, I might add.

When it comes to athleticism on skates, hockey has always been the meat and potatoes in small-town Canada. But thanks to Salé and Simpson, that may suddenly have changed.

What’s more I think the brave statement they’ve made in the past weeks of “Battle of the Blades” video-taping, may have dispensed “toe pick” jokes in Canadian hockey dressing rooms … forever.