Yvonne Visser's Travel Diary
February 2, 2006
Canada's Olympic hockey team leaving its lucky charm
behind
by Scott Brown, Nanaimo Daily News
Nanaimo's Tuele will not be going to Turin
Nanaimo's Olympic contingent is being reduced from three to two.
Skier Allison Forsyth and massage therapist Yvonne Visser are still going
but Bill Tuele, a staple with Team Canada's hockey team as public relations
director for more than 20 years, has been told by Hockey Canada that he will
not be part of the delegation heading to Turin next week.
Tuele, who handled the media liaison chores with Canada's hockey team during
the 2002 Salt Lake Games, the 1994 World Championship and three Canada Cups,
says the International Olympic Committee has set a strict limit on the number
of support staff each country can bring.
Apparently, the hockey team, with its five coaches, full training staff with
two massage therapists and small army of executives and administrators, has
exceeded its limit.
"It's disappointing," said Tuele. "This was going to be my
(PR) swan song, my last kick at the bucket."
Tuele spent 24 years as public relations director with the Edmonton Oilers
before moving to Nanaimo two years ago.
He still works part-time with the Oilers as a pro scout.
Much like the "lucky loonie" of Salt Lake fame, Tuele has been
seen as a Canadian good luck charm because Canada managed won gold at every
major competition he's been a part of and faltered at the one (1998 Nagano
Olympics) where he was excluded.
Tuele just hopes that whoever Hockey Canada puts in charge of the media chore
in Turin is up for the challenge that lays ahead of them.
"My concern is from a professional standpoint because it can be a logistical
nightmare looking after 300 to 400 hockey reporters (at the Olympics),"
said Tuele, a former sports reporter himself.
"And unlike sports reporters in Nanaimo, the ones in Europe all have
doctorates in journalism. It's hilarious, they give you cards and every one
of them is a doctor.
"Sports reporters with PhDs, what has the world come to?"
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