Did Loonies Help Win Ice Gold?

Written by: Ian Stalker
Published in: Canadian Travel Press - March 2010

Is all fair in love, and war....and the Olympics?

Well, Gary Powell, Vice-President of Halifax-based Ambassatours Gray Line, apparently thinks so.

The company supplied 13 of the motorcoaches that carried athletes during the Vancouver Olympics, including the ones that carrierd the men's and women's hockey teams to their gold medal-winning final matches.

And Powell, in the BC city for the Games, quietly slipped a "shiny loonie" under mats in each vehicle as a good luck gesture before the teams took to the ice, a move that rekindles memories of the loonie secreted in the ice during the Salt Lake City Olympics and which some credited with Canadian hockey medal gold in 2002.

"That was what was in the back of my mind when I did it," Powell says. "Not to duplicate what someone else had done, but they were very special Olympic loonies and I knew we would have the two Canadian hockey teams on the same motorcoaches for their full stay in Vancouver while attending the Olympics. Seemed like a great idea to bring whatever luck to them that I could."

The loonies were placed under the mats on Feb. 13 before either team played its first game.

Only a few people were told about Powell's gesture before the gold medal games were decided and all were approving.

Powell, who notes that his fellow Nova Scotian Sidney Crosby scored the winning goal in the men's game, took pictures of the coins on the buses, which will be a "real memento to place on our website."

But, in this era of science, is Powell truly convinced the loonies were a deciding factor?

"I'd like to think it helped, but at the end of the day, you would have to be pretty superstitious to really believe that is why they won," he acknowledges. "They were talented players that came together as teams at the right time. The saw gold and they played to the best of their abilities to end up with the result we got. Call it loonie luck or team talent. Your choice."