Hometown Games

By Jon Tattrie - The Weekly News
In front of a cheering crowd waving flags from around the world, the Olympic cauldron was lit in Cole Harbour last week - the Astral Drive Elementary School Olympic cauldron, that is.
A few days after the big Games got underway in Vancouver, Astral Drive held the opening ceremonies for its own version of the Olympic Games.
The entire school population of 475 students, plus teachers and parents, gathered outside the school Monday morning.
Students waved flags from all of the Winter Olympic countries and watched in silence as the Olympic flag was raised.
In Vancouver, hockey player Wayne Gretzky lit the cauldron after a brief delay. At Astral Drive, it was hockey player Brett Crossley, a Grade 6 student, who lit the cauldron after a brief delay.
He led a small group walking down the hill to the flag with an authentic Olympic torch, on loan from Alan Murnaghan, a local man who had participated in the cross-Canada torch relay.
Crossley climbed a ladder and held the flame high as his classmates clapped and hollered. He dipped the fire into the cauldron to officially open the school's Games.
"It was nice. It was a great feeling," he said afterward. "We were going to just use a fake torch, but when I realized we were using the real thing, it was a real honour to actually be carrying that."
Crossley, 12, plays hockey with the Cole Harbour Red Wings and was preparing to head to Quebec for a tournament the next day.
"I'm hoping everybody participates (in the Games)," he said. The school is running a series of indoor versions of the winter sports, including curling, hockey, cross-country skiing and less athletic pursuits like friendship-pin trading.
It's the seventh time the school has run Winter Olympics parallel to the real Games. It started with the 1988 Calgary Games, the last time they were held in Canada.
Susan Steele, Astral Drive's physical education teacher, was leading for the first time, having inherited the job from her predecessor, the retired phys. ed. teacher Paul Barry who started the Games.
"He's left quite a legacy," she said. "We're trying to incorporate the values of the Olympics: friendship, integrity, determination. We're learning about the Olympic spirit and the sports themselves, because a healthy, active life is very important."
The students will also learn about their adopted Olympic countries.
She and her students were especially proud of the choreographed "mob dance" the 475 students did to the Black-Eyed Peas song I Gotta Feeling. They'd been working on it for weeks. "They were really excited," Steele said.
Barry presided over the opening ceremonies. He had a vision for raising an Olympic flag, but ran into trademark problems: you can't buy the white flag with five rings anywhere due to copyright rules. No problem: Barry called up a friend on the International Olympic Committee and told him what they were doing.
"He actually talked to Switzerland and gave us permission. When they heard what we were doing, they said that's perfectly in line with the Olympic ideals," Barry said. So he and his wife quickly made their own flag. "It's a beauty," he said, admiring it flapping above the assembled students.
The Astral Drive Elementary School Olympics run until Feb. 25, when they will hold a closing ceremony.
jon@jontattrie.ca