Deep Cove is better known for kayaking, but a pair of rowing greats stopped by on June 1 on their way to the London Olympics.
Victoria’s David Calder and Kelowna’s Scott Frandsen, the second-best men’s rowing duo in the world, were guests of Scott and Sue-Ann MacCara for a Friday night dinner party with a difference.
This one was part of a fundraising campaign for their quest for Olympic gold, and it included a cameo appearance by the recently crowned Miss Universe Canada, Sahar Biniaz, who is also a client of the North Vancouver-based Action Sports Management agency.
“During the 2010 Olympics, construction companies, we picked up the economy, we all did well out of it, we all benefited from it,” said Scott MacCara, a partner in Southwest Contracting.
“I thought, well, what a good way to give back, a timely way of giving back. Just the joy of watching our country compete and win. We benefited from it, why shouldn’t we give back?”
MacCara already sponsors Davey Barr, the recently retired Whistler ski-crosser.
Calder and Frandsen, the silver medallists from Beijing 2008, were fresh from winning silver at the Samsung World Rowing Cup in Lucerne, Switzerland, on May 27.
They hope their full-time training regimen on Elk Lake in Victoria pays off. They’re aiming to finally beat the favoured New Zealand duo of Hamish Bond and Eric Murray at the Eton College Rowing Centre on Dorney Lake, just a short walk from the River Thames.
“I’ve always wanted to stand there [on the podium] and listen to our anthem as our flag is raised for us,” Calder said. “The one, little six-minute jaunt that we just did, that’s what you’re all here supporting.”
Bull run
The high-caffeine drink Red Bull’s latest West Coast sports sponsorship brings the North Shore its highest-profile adventure race to date.
Red Bull Divide and Conquer on June 16 features 100 trios tackling a 70-kilometre route from Cleveland Dam to Ambleside Park by foot on the Grouse Grind, mountain biking Mount Fromme and whitewater paddling on the Capilano River.
The multi-day adventure-racing format took a beating from the recession, but one-day challenges, like Divide and Conquer, remain the foundation of the sport.
Nowhere else in North America boasts the accessible wilderness of the North Shore, where the winning team gets $2,100, runner-up $1,200 and third place $700.
Spy caper
As spy capers go, the Vanier Cup was definitely “outside the box.”
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) is targeting the university crowd, particularly student athletes, for recruiting, so it partnered with Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) at the 47th annual national college football championship on November 25, 2011, at BC Place Stadium. CSIS set up a tent at Terry Fox Plaza earlier in the day.
Instead of using its own red tent, it was huddled under the same white tent as CIS.
“Not only do the two organizations share a similar name, we lost prominence because we were told not to install our own tent,” said a CSIS post-mortem obtained via Access to Information.
“Therefore many people assumed we were part of the university organization.”
Two CSIS staffers were initially shut out of the game because of lack of accreditation. That eventually was solved, but it left a lingering distrust of BC Place security.
“The recruiters felt a little uncomfortable at being treated as ‘intruders’ by the BC Place security,” said the report.
“Was BC Place security not advised?”
The cost of the sponsorship, including travel expenses, was kept secret. CSIS claimed it had to protect personal and third-party information and information relating to “detecting, preventing or suppressing subversive or hostile activities.”
CSIS spent $511 million in 2009-10 and added almost 1,000 full-time equivalents over the last decade. •
