Local hard courts will be busy in the weeks ahead as high school basketball teams battle it out for a coveted spot in the provincial finals.

And for the Cochrane High Cobras senior boys team to be successful they will need serious input from two team members living under the same roof.

Head coach Jamie McLellan and his son Jared, a senior guard on the team, will be looked upon to lead a spirited Cobras team that has eyes on making a run all the way to the big prize.

“The goal is to win provincials,” Jamie said bluntly. “I think when we started the season off and I told the parents that they said ‘Yeah sure, whatever,’ but the kids have really started to believe in themselves.”

Cochrane High Cobras head coach Jamie McLellan, left, and his son Jared believe the Cobras have what it takes to contend for senior boys 3A provincial title. Photo by Patrick Price.

Basketball, and winning for that matter, have been in the McLellan blood for a long time. Jamie led Winston Churchill High School to the 4A provincial title in Grade 12 and starred as a shooting guard at the University of Lethbridge for five years. He also coached Jared’s team in Grade 9 at Calgary’s Montgomery Junior High School as the team ran all the way to the city championship.

Jared, meanwhile, is no slouch in his own right. He played on the Cobras football team, first as a receiver and then as a quarterback this season before being sidelined by multiple injuries. As well, during this year’s basketball campaign, Jared has consistently found himself atop the Cobras scoresheet.

“He’s a really good shooter,” Jamie said of his son. “Football has been good for a lot of these kids because it’s taught them to be tough and aggressive. Jared certainly has benefited from that, he’s become more aggressive. It’s a more physical game than it was 10 years ago. The refs let the kids play now.”

Jared said that if he had to choose between football and basketball he has always felt more at home on the court.

“I’ve grown up with it, played it (basketball) my whole life,” Jared said. “I am better at it too.”

Jared noted that he likes having his father as his coach because, “He pushes me more than other kids because he expects more and that helps me to become a better player.”

Having said that, Jared said he and Jamie make sure to keep their work on the court separate from their family life.

“He makes sure that everyone knows I am just another player on the team and we make sure that he is my coach on the basketball court, but when we leave there he becomes my dad again,” said Jared, who hopes to follow in Jamie’s footsteps by earning a spot on the U of L basketball roster next season.

But before any post-secondary aspirations can be realized, the father-son duo will first face a tough road to the 3A Provincial Championships in Medicine Hat March 18-20.

Jamie said that while the Rocky View basketball division is not as strong as last year — when Springbank and Chestermere finished one-two in the province — the south-central zone could be very tough, with the Cobras, Canmore and Springbank all contending. The south-central zone will be only granted two automatic berths to provincials, but teams can also qualify through one of two wild card spots.

Jamie, who is currently in his second season at the helm of the Cobras, said his team’s best asset lies in their depth.
“You look at the games we have won and invariably at least eight, nine kids are on the scoresheet and most games it’s more like 10 or 11,” he said.

The McLellan duo and the rest of the Cobras senior boys team, ranked third in Rocky View behind Springbank and the 4A squad from Airdrie’s Bert Church High School, kick off post-season play against the Bow Valley Bobcats March 3 at 7:45 p.m. at Cochrane High.

The Cochrane High senior girls team will also face Bow Valley in the opening round, with that game going at Cochrane High at 6 p.m. on March 3.

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1. Young captain leads Zone 2 hopes on ice

It started as a dream, became a goal, and ultimately turned into reality as they placed 15th Feb. 17 at the Whistler Sliding Centre.

“Our two starts definitely weren’t what we were hoping for,” Snith recalled of the Olympic runs a few days after the competition.

“We need to work on the starts and conditioning and strength. Flexibility is a really big part of it . . . if we can combine those things along with the experience we have gained I think we can excel on the World Cup circuit and at the next Games as well.”

Walker, a Bearspaw native, and Snith, who has family connections to Springbank and the Cochrane area, had already surprised everyone by qualifying for the Games. After all, the two are less than one year out of high school and rookies on the World Cup circuit.

In the weeks leading up to the Games, Snith said he and Walker were “flying by the seat of our pants” as the community turned out in droves at local events to support the young Olympians.

And the drama didn’t end for the sliding duo, who had been paired together just two years prior, when they arrived in Vancouver.

Top: Local luge competitors Tristan Walker and Justin Snith wave to the thousands in attendance at the Whistler Sliding Centre after completing their Olympic runs. The duo, who are rookies on the World Cup circuit this season, ended up 15th. Photo by Bruce Walker.

The day of the opening ceremonies, Georgian luge competitor Nodar Kumaritashvili died after a crash in training on the Olympic track. As a result, officials lowered the starts for all luge competitions and made minor modifications to the track.

Walker and Snith were forced to begin their runs at the junior start; the much-discussed home-field advantage for the Canadian luge team, which had spent countless hours training from the normal starts in Whistler, had been lost

“I think we would have had a lot better chance if we had gone from the original start,” Walker said. “I think it was a freak accident. It was really terrible what happened, the worst thing that could happen. They made the changes they had to make to the track, but I don’t think it was necessary to move the starts.”

Having said that, both Walker and Snith said they were satisfied with finishing 15th. Snith noted that all of the long hours spent training were made worthwhile when he and Walker reached the bottom of the Whistler track and were completely overwhelmed by the thousands of screaming Canadian fans in attendance.

“I am still at a loss over all of it,” Snith said. “It was truly indescribable.”

In that crowd was Walker’s father Bruce. He described the crowd’s deafening roar as “absolutely amazing.”
“From the moment they called their names, to the (start) to the time they stepped off the track it was just constant cheering and cowbells and people,” he said. “It was the biggest party ever.”

Tristan Walker and Justin Snith definitely had one of the more boisterous cheering sections at the Olympic luge competition. From left to right: Max Linnell, Lochlan Walker, Andrew Pifko, Matt Medryk, Amy Ostick, Josh Hartloper, Jessica Phillips and Asia Walker. Photo by Bruce Walker.

Tristan said the wild atmosphere has continued off the luge track as well, as he and Snith have journeyed to numerous other events to support their Canadian teammates.

“There are just so many people. I have never seen anything like it,” Tristan said. “My favourite part is the spontaneous outbreak of O Canada in the streets. It’s awesome.”

And their first taste of Olympic competition has only fueled the duo’s desire to continue sliding and hopefully take a run at gold at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. When their two runs were combined together, the young Canadian team ended up roughly 1.5 seconds behind the gold medalists from Austria — a lifetime in a sport like luge, where winners are often decided by thousandths of a second

“Some of the older, more legendary sliders are moving on,” Tristan said.
“I don’t think there’s a better time to be starting a doubles luge career.”

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1. From dreams to destiny
2. Former coach impressed by Heil’s Olympic performance

The defending Olympic champion in women’s moguls, Heil was widely pegged by the media as most likely to win Canada’s first-ever gold medal on home soil.

And while the Spruce Grove native fell just short, taking home a silver, her ex-coach Murray Cluff, who resides in Cochrane, was very impressed with her performance.

“What was really tough for me was that I couldn’t do anything,” recalled Cluff, who helped steer Heil to gold at the 2006 Games in Turin, Italy and watched her 2010 title defence on TV.

After placing second in her Olympic qualifying run on Cypress Mountain, Heil skied nearly flawless in the finals but American Hannah Kearney, who won gold, was simply better, Cluff said.

“It’s so tough to stay on top for five years, the year before the first Olympics and then the next quadrennial,” explained Cluff, who owns Cochrane’s Treetop Pet Resort and coaches locally. “The younger people aren’t just watching, they’re learning and trying to knock you off.”

Cluff said he spoke with Heil in the weeks leading up to the Olympics and that, while she admitted to feeling some pressure, “she was always the type of person that embraced pressure. No matter what she was facing she always excelled.”

Cluff also believes that having the spotlight focused almost solely on Heil helped Quebec’s Alexandre Bilodeau sneak in to snatch Canada’s first gold in the men’s moguls competition the next night.
On the competitive skiing circuit, Cluff often shared a room with Bilodeau and said no one is more deserving of the recognition he is receiving.

“He’s a pretty special guy,” Cluff said. “When he was talking about his brother (Frederic Bilodeau, who has cerebral palsy) being his inspiration that was from the heart that wasn’t for show. (Alex) was blessed with physical ability that his brother doesn’t have and I think that’s why he goes all out when he competes.”

Looking forward, Cluff plans to keep in close touch with Heil, whom he coached for 10 years, as the two run an introductory moguls clinic every year at Sunshine Village.

“She won the silver . . . there’s no embarassment in finishing second at the Olympics,” Cluff said. “Of course she was disappointed those first few moments but then she thought I finished second and that’s pretty special.”

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1. Walker and Snith fly to 15th-place finish in Olympic debut
2. From dreams to destiny

Local lugers Tristan Walker and Justin Snith serve as perfect examples of how age is just a number. At 18 years old, the two will compete together in the Vancouver Olympics before thousands of Canadian fans. Regardless of what happens on the world’s biggest athletic stage, Feb. 17 will be a day the two will never forget

Tristan Walker and Justin Snith were fearless daredevils growing up.

There was simply no tree too high, no jump too steep and, needless to say, there were a number of scrapes, bruises and broken bones along t he way.

So it’s no surprise to their parents that the two 18-year-olds will now compete in the Olympics in luge, where athletes fly down an ice track at speeds in excess of 140 kilometres.

“(Tristan) enjoyed being off the ground more than on the ground,” recalls his father Bruce Walker. “He used the garage door as a ride, he would stand on the back of it and someone would push the button.”

Snith’s father, Steven, has similar memories of his son.

“He was a pain in the ass,” Steven joked. “No, he was a pretty good kid. He was always doing something, playing sports, trying something new.”

Tristan, a native of Bearspaw, took his first run down a luge track when he was nine and Justin, who lives in Calgary but has family ties to Springbank and Cochrane, followed close behind at age 10.

Both were technically too young for such a high-risk sport at the time, but they both quickly fell in love with it and enrolled in introductory camps at Canada Olympic Park.

The basic fundamentals of luge are simple enough, athletes lay on their backs and rocket down a track using their calf muscles and shoulders to steer. The athlete who reaches the bottom of the track in the fastest time is declared the winner; high-level competitions are usually decided by just thousandths of a second.

Coaches were quick to recognize the potential in both Tristan and Justin and the two were selected for Canada’s junior luge program as singles sliders.

After some success as individual competitors, the young sliders were paired up in 2008 and instantly became good friends both on and off the track. Their competitive chemistry came almost instantly, Justin recalls.

“We are good friends. We do have that bond, but it also has a lot to do with the fact that we think similarly on the sled,” Justin said. “We’ll drive similar lines, we’ll try similar things. I think that really helps too.”

When competing, Tristan is on top and charged with steering the sled on the right line while Justin is tasked with rolling out of each turn smoothly to maintain the highest speed possible.

With only 20 runs under their belt as a doubles team, Tristan and Justin surprised everyone by placing second at the Canadian Championships in early 2009 in Whistler. It was at this point that the two athletes, who weren’t even old enough to vote at the time, realized a trip to the 2010 Olympics might be possible.

“We were sitting there after in the place we were staying in Whistler going ‘We’re second in Canada and there’s two doubles teams that go to the Olympics, we have a shot at this,’” Tristan recalls.

After a strong rookie season on the junior World Cup circuit that saw them win bronze at the World Championships in Nagano, Japan, Canadian coaches decided to test Tristan and Justin on the senior circuit for a few races.

It was determined that the young duo would need three top-20 finishes on the World Cup to qualify for the Vancouver Games.
“The original plan was to take us to the first three races on the senior circuit and then send us to junior for the second half of the season,” Tristan recalls. “No one expected us to qualify.”

Making the situation even tougher for the young sliders was the fact that on the senior circuit only the top-10 ranked sleds gain automatic entry into World Cup races. The other competitors, like Tristan and Justin, are forced to partake in qualifying runs at each event through the Nations Cup circuit.

Tristan and Justin returned to familiar ground for their debut on the senior circuit last November, placing second in qualifying and 13th overall in the World Cup at the season-opening event at Canada Olympic Park. They followed that up with a 17th-place showing in Innsbruck-Igls, Austria, and another 13th-place performance in Altenberg, Germany — where they also finished ahead of Canada’s top luge doubles team, brothers Chris and Mike Moffat, for the first time.

The duo’s unlikely quest was completed; they had qualified for the 2010 Games.

Justin, who will be Canada’s youngest luge competitor at the Games, describes the time since learning he would be competing on the world’s biggest athletic stage as a “huge whirlwind.”

“Tristan and I are just flying by the seat of our pants,” he said. “We’re just trying to enjoy the ride, hang on and see what happens. Honestly it hasn’t fully hit me yet.”

The two took some time off from the World Cup circuit in early December to train on the official Olympic track. Tristan said a realistic goal for the Olympics is a top-10 finish, something they have not accomplished to date on the World Cup circuit.

“Really my goal is to have two solid, clean runs,” Walker said, adding that if the two finished in the top 10 it would be “unreal, absolutely unreal.”

Wolfgang Staudinger, head coach of the Canadian national luge team, said a top-10 finish would be amazing for his young protégés.

“They’re extremely dedicated, they do everything for the sport,” said Staudinger, who himself earned a bronze medal in luge doubles at the 1988 Calgary Games for West Germany. “They did an awesome job during the summer getting ready for the season and they do lots of technical work. Having said that, they have a lot to improve on and now that they have raced with the big boys they know what they need to improve on and have a long road ahead of them of course.”

One clear example of this dedication came when Tristan was diagnosed with the H1N1 virus last June.

Although he was very ill, the young athlete refused to take any medication for fear of being drug tested.

“He always has to be careful, whether it’s medication or risk of injury,” Bruce said.

“He joked to me that cutting the lawn was too much of a risk because he might cut his foot or something,” Bruce added, laughing. “I told him not cutting the lawn would have a higher risk of injury.”

If all goes well and the two sliders are able to stay healthy, Staudinger said he is very excited to see what they can accomplish going forward. The veteran coach noted that luge, which made its Olympic debut at the 1964 Games in Innsbruck, Austria, has been dominated by a handful of countries over the years; however he believes Canada’s fortunes in the sport are slowly changing now that the country has two training facilities — Calgary and Whistler.

Of the 108 Olympic medals awarded in men’s and women’s individual luge, as well as doubles, all but four have gone to athletes from Germany, Austria, the Soviet Union or its successor nations and Italy.

Currently, three of the top four positions in the World Cup doubles overall standings are occupied by German pairs. Tristan and Justin sit 21st in the overall rankings, however, they skipped two events to focus on training.

Tristan said luge receives a great deal more exposure in Europe than in Canada and athletes are groomed from a very young age.
“Their ski hills actually have toboggan runs on them, so they take toboggans down the hill,” he said.

“The same way we have ski lessons in school it’s mandatory for them to try every winter sport.”

Bruce added that the most impressive part of his son’s accomplishment might be that some of the top competitors on the World Cup circuit have been sliding since before Justin and Tristan were born.

“Some of the guys they are competing against are true legends of the sport,” said Bruce, who admitted to spending many late nights watching the online feed of his son’s World Cup times while he is off competing in Europe. “I don’t know if it’s really dawned on (Tristan) what an accomplishment this is.”

And although luge has given him more than he could have ever dreamed, Tristan conceded that his sport can be very dangerous at times, something he and Justin found out the hard way earlier this season when they crashed at a World Cup stop in Winterberg, Germany.

“People always talk about football as being a game of inches, this is a game of centimetres,” Tristan explained.

To avoid injury and perform well at the Games, both Tristan and Justin agreed that consistency is key. Each doubles team will take two runs down the Whistler track Feb. 17 and the sleds will be ranked according to their combined time.

You just have to take it like any other run,” Justin said. “We have had training runs there, we know we can slide well, we know we can pull a fast start there, which has been a problem for us.”

The two Canadian sliders will also have another advantage over their international competitors at the Games, as Bruce estimates 60-70 of Tristan and Justin’s closest friends and family will be on hand to witness their Olympic debut.

“When he goes by we’ll probably only see him for about 14 seconds of the run,” Bruce said. “But there’s so many people going out there. It will be fun.”

Family and friends aside, Justin said the community support in general has been overwhelming. One recent example of this came when he and Tristan were met with overwhelming cheers from thousands of fans at the Springbank Olympic torch relay celebration in January.

“It’s constantly building,” Justin said. “I have been blown away these past couple of weeks ever since the Olympic announcement with how many well wishes I have gotten. It’s been truly surprising.”

Steven, who met his wife Andrea while the two were attending Springbank High School, said his son’s dedication to his sport of choice has been remarkable and that he deserves all the accolades he will receive in Whistler and beyond.

“I am sort of taken aback by how good of shape he’s gotten into and how much he’s really taken to it — he really enjoys it and the people he is with,” Steven said.

And while there will be millions of people watching from all over the world, Tristan said that he intends to be completely focused on the task at hand when he lines up at the top of the track in Whistler.

“You don’t even think,” he said. “You have done so many imagery runs of the track you know exactly where you are at all times.
“As soon as the visor goes down, you know everything that needs to happen in the next minute.”

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1. Walker and Snith fly to 15th-place finish in Olympic debut
2. Former coach impressed by Heil’s Olympic performance

The signs of a gifted young hockey player are all there.

A team-first mentality, the ability to compete against more experienced players and a knack for putting the puck in the net. And the best part of all is that she’s just 14 years of age.

Yes, Cochrane’s Samantha Sutherland is a coaches’ dream, just ask her current bench boss Mikko Makela.

“She’s a very good player, very skilled, everything’s good,” said Makela, current hockey director and head coach at Warner Hockey School in southern Alberta where Sutherland debuted this season. “She’s a ninth grade player who plays like an eleventh grade player.”

After roughly 50 games with Sutherland under his direction, Makela — a Finnish professional hockey player who spent six seasons in the NHL between 1985 and 1990, has already declared her the most skilled 14-year-old female hockey player in Canada.

“That’s what I believe, there are maybe other people who think a little differently about some other players, but I’m not too far I don’t think,” he said.

Sutherland made the jump to the Warner Warriors midget team directly from peewee hockey in Cochrane. Competing with her team in the Junior Women’s Hockey League — featuring elite teams from all over North America — often forces the 5’2”, 122-pound forward to line up against players as much as five years older than her.

None of it seems to have slowed down her offensive production, however, as Sutherland sits third on Warner in scoring with 21 goals and 21 assists — an even split for a player who prides herself on her playmaking skills.

“I try to always work hard every shift and try to set up good scoring chances for my team,” Sutherland said. “I try to control the play as much as I can.”

Sutherland said her first year at Warner has been better than she ever imagined.

“Being away from my family took a bit of time to adjust to but everyone involved in the program here is so nice and has been so supportive to me, they are like my second family,” she said. “Also, adjusting to playing Midget AAA was a real challenge because the play is so fast and most of the players are quite a bit older than me.”

As well, the small-town atmosphere in Warner, which at a population of slightly more than 300 people makes Cochrane seem like a metropolis, has quickly grown on Sutherland.

“Everyone in the town knows us and says hi, it makes you feel special,” she explained. “If you come to a home game on Saturday night you will see a lot of Warner pride and fans who haven’t missed a home game in six years.”

Now, Sutherland will take a brief hiatus from Warner and head north to the Lakeland Region for the Alberta Winter Games Feb. 4-7. There, she will serve as captain on a Zone 2 girls hockey team featuring seven fellow Cochranites.

It will be the young forward’s second trip to the Games as she helped Zone 2 capture silver in 2008.
Zone 2 head coach Claude Vilgrain, a former NHLer in his own right who now coaches the Calgary Bantam AAA Outlaws, said choosing Sutherland as his captain was a no-brainer.

“She has the experience, the skill level, awareness and hockey sense that is above her age level,” Vilgrain said. “She is a very smart player and very driven player as well and that helps.”

Other Cochranites on the team are Hannah Olenyk, Emily Potts, Cylenna Alexander, Andie Boeckman, Channia Alexander as well as netminders Jade Walsh and Kirsten Chamberlin. Chamberlin, specifically, was a surprising selection for the team as she is just 11 years old — the minimum age required to participate in the Games.

“We just had no choice but to pick her, she did what she had to do,” Vilgrain said of Chamberlin, who stops pucks for the division-leading Cochrane Rockies Tier 1 Peewee girls team of the Rocky Mountain Female Hockey League.

As for projections on how his team will perform, Vilgrain said they will be competitive but face stiff competition from the Calgary players on the Zone 3 team — including his own daughter Cassandra — and the Red Deer team representing Zone 4.

“Chemistry is the key,” he said. “The teams have to come out of the gate pretty quick and the ones that are able to do this will be the most successful.”
Sutherland, meanwhile, is excited for the competition to get underway.

“I just try to lead by example and try to keep the team positive and focused on playing our best,” she said. “If you are out there working hard the whole team will work hard.”

And if she has it her way, Sutherland hopes that hard work will someday lead her to Division 1 college hockey and possibly a spot on Team Canada.

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2. Father-son combo hope to steer Cobras’ provincial run
3. Twin archers take aim at Games

Cochrane archer James Webster doesn’t need a mirror to correct the finer points of his pre-shot routine, his twin brother Mark does it for him.

The two 15-year-olds, who have been perfecting their skills with a bow every day for roughly seven years, are classified as mirror-image twins, meaning they are identical, but James is right-handed and Mark is a lefty. This setup works well in archery practice because the two face each other when they line up to fire.

“It’s about having fun. We don’t care who comes first as long as the other is second,” James said. “It’s like we have our own personal coaches who watch us while we watch them . . . I think if I didn’t have my big brother to help me I wouldn’t be where I am now.”

Mark, who is one minute older, said that if he and James had it their way they would practice 12-15 hours a day or more.

Their infatuation with the sport began at a non-electric amusement park back home in England. Just eight years old at the time, both Mark and James spent most of the day firing traditional longbows at an on-site range.

“They must have stayed there for three hours. They didn’t go around the rest of the park,” recalls the twins’ father Tony Webster.

Tony signed the boys up for at a nearby club where coaches quickly determined that the two were naturals.

In September 2008, the Websters moved to Cochrane and Mark and James became members at the Cochrane Archery Centre. They practice twice a week in Calgary and daily in the basement of their house where Tony has setup a makeshift range.

“Back home the coaches had a lot longer to work with us and they taught us the basics,” Mark said. “Out here the coaches are really good, they have worked with the Koreans who are the world champions.”

Now, the twins’ seeming obsession with finding the bulls-eye has earned them tickets to the Alberta Winter Games, held Feb. 4-7 in Alberta’s Lakeland region, where they will compete in the ages 15-17 recurve bow division.

Scores earned by fellow archers from around the province are not made public so Mark said it will be very interesting to see how he stacks up to the competition.

“Consistency is the key,” Mark said. “You have to be like a robot and concentrate. If even one of your steps is off — your foot’s off, your grip is too high, where you rest the string to your chin, anything — it can throw you off.”

James added, “There’s just so many variables, there are so many things that can go wrong. That’s the fun of it, being able to perfect everything that could go wrong.”

While many archers have switched to a high-tech compound bow, James and Mark prefer the tradition recurve style because it requires more skill to perfect and is the only discipline contested at the Olympics.

“It’s a dark side because it’s ridiculously easy,” Mark said of the compound bow.

“There’s a magnified scope and you pull a trigger, you’re not shooting normally, it’s like a gun.”

Beyond the archery range, the Websters said they have enjoyed life in Cochrane a great deal; both Mark and James attend school at Cochrane High.

“We went to a few schools and they didn’t feel right but we went there and it was perfect,” James said of his school. “There’s no other place we want to be.”

The twins said they view the Alberta Games as a building block to bigger things in the future, as both have dreams of representing Canada in archery at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

“We live in Canada and we want to shoot for Canada,” James said.

And, staying true to their brotherly bond, neither Mark nor James was willing to declare himself better than the other.

In Britain, James was club champion, but Mark was more consistent week-to week.

“It really depends on the week,” Mark said.

“There’s no real way to determine who is better,” James added.

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It was the greatest night of Mason Raymond’s young life, and the best part of all was that his family and friends were on hand to witness the whole thing.

The 24-year-old emerging NHL star, who grew up on a ranch just outside of Cochrane, scored three goals in succession in the first two periods Dec. 27 as his Vancouver Canucks thumped the host Calgary Flames 5-1 in front of a packed house at the Saddledome.

It was the first career hat trick for the speedy left-winger and earned him the game’s first star recognition.

“Obviously it was great,” said a reserved Raymond in the locker room after the game. “I grew up watching the Flames and was a big fan . . . this area has been good to me over the years.

“Obviously the Calgary-area is very passionate about their hockey and Cochrane was a great place for me to grow up. Some good players have come out of there, I still consider it home and a place I come back to all the time and enjoy.”

Vancouver forward Mason Raymond celebrates his third goal of the night as the Cochrane hockey product tallied his first-ever hat trick in a 5-1 win against Calgary Flames Dec. 27. Raymond was named first star in the effort and now has a career-high 29 points (17 goals, 12 assists) for Vancouver this season. Photos by Jeremy Nolais.

More photos from the game: Photo Gallery

For Raymond’s father, Terry, who watched his son play the game of his life from the Saddledome stands along with wife Carol, daughter Nadine, and numerous other family and friends, it was an emotion-filled night that he will never forget.
“Well I didn’t cry,” Terry said, chuckling. “I always believed in him. You just never know how big the heart in the dog is.”

Terry, who still lives in the Cochrane area, has been Mason’s biggest source of encouragement over the years, offering him guidance and building outdoor rinks for his son to practice on as a youngster.

The proud father recalls watching with great excitement as his son erupted on the Alberta hockey scene with the Camrose Kodiaks in 2005, scoring a league-high 41 goals and adding an identical number of assists in his second season with the team to lead them to the Alberta Junior Hockey League championship.

Later on that year, the Canucks drafted Mason in the second round, 51st overall.

It was at this point that the Cochrane farm boy’s dreams of playing in the NHL became a viable reality.

“I think you always believe you can make it,” Mason said. “You get your chances and opportunities, but when I got drafted that was really the turning point.”

After successful stints with the NCAA’s University of Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs and the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League, Raymond finally earned his NHL stripes in the Canucks season-opener against the San Jose Sharks in October 2007, picking up an assist in the process on a goal by Brendan Morrison.

But the battle wasn’t over for Mason, as he suffered a knee injury during a game in March 2008 that sidelined him for the rest of the season.

Finally, after being scratched from the lineup numerous times during the regular season, Mason got his shot in last year’s playoffs when fellow Vancouver forward Pavol Demitra went down with a knee injury in the second round against the Chicago Blackhawks. Paired with Canucks stars Mats Sundin and Ryan Kesler, Mason took full advantage of his opportunity, scoring two goals and adding an assist before the Canucks fell to the ‘Hawks in six games.

It’s been a long road indeed, but looking back Mason doesn’t seem to have many regrets.

“It’s all been stepping stones to where I’m at now,” he said bluntly.

Where he’s at now is a consistent second-line forward for the Canucks who has appeared in every game for the team this season and already logged a career-high 29 points (17 goals,12 assists) with a lot of season still left.

Terry says his son has gained a new level of confidence this season and he foresees even greater things from him in the years ahead.

“He hasn’t exceeded my expectations, I expect a lot more from him yet,” Terry said. “He has got a long ways to go yet with his development in terms of where he wants to be.”

Mason’s father isn’t the only one who has taken notice of the Cochranite’s drastic improvement, just ask Canucks superstar Daniel Sedin.

“He’s such a skilled player, and a smart player, and he’s figured it out himself,” Sedin said. “We have been there too, myself and Henrik (his twin brother and fellow Canucks forward), sometimes you have just got to relax, get back to the basics and have fun.

“Mason’s been working really hard these past few years and now he is getting some really nice goals and some points too. He’s really deserving of his success.”

Success like his hat trick Dec. 27. In the opening period, Mason got behind the Calgary defence and chipped a shot from Mikael Samuelsson past Flames goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff. On the same shift, Mason flipped a puck in from about centre ice that fell onto Kiprusoff’s left arm and then trickled into the net.

In the second period, Vancouver defenceman Alexander Edler fed a beautiful, cross-ice pass to Mason, who was on the doorstep to bury it home and complete the hat trick. The Canucks bench exploded with excitement and the young forward was mauled by his linemates.

“It was really special to do it tonight, in front of friends and family,” Mason said.

Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault said the team has been extremely pleased with the input from Mason, who now ranks third on the team in overall points.

“Mason’s been real good at home and this was a real good road game for him,” Vigneault said. “A lot of our group has talked about playing better on the road . . . we made some mistakes, but our goaltending was really good and shut the door.”

The Canucks now move on to face the Blues in St. Louis on New Year’s Eve.

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Technology evolves at lightning speed and in a world where presently you can talk via webcam to a friend halfway around the world or draw millions of viewers to a video shot on a cellphone no bigger than your palm, it is often impossible to predict where we will go next. As renowned communications scholar Marshall McLuhan once put it, “Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media than by the content of the communication.”

Darren Krause, editor of Metro Calgary, has attracted more than 350 followers to his Twitter account, which he uses to generate story ideas, interact with readers and find sources.

Twitter photo

For local media outlets like Metro Calgary, the key to successfully integrating social media into a business model is simply reacting and building upon the latest trend, according to editor Darren Krause. For example, his publication is heavily involved in Calgary’s Twitter community — where estimated figures put the number of users locally in the tens of thousands — using the tool for everything from generating story ideas and finding sources to interacting with concerned readers. But that’s simply the preferred approach for today, and Krause is well aware the Metro’s social media strategy could change in a heartbeat.

“We have yet to discover what the next best social media tool will be — so it’s difficult to say what the relationship with it will be from a media perspective going forward,” Krause said. “What I can say with some amount of certainty is that traditional media’s relationship with social media will continue to expand and new avenues to collaborate with and engage readers will definitely be uncovered.”

And while Metro Calgary’s Twitter account (@metrocalgary) has more then 850 followers, Krause has taken the tool one step farther and created his own account (@Darren_Krause) that allows him to both conduct business and also show a bit of his personality. He says the greater a publication’s exposure, the more likely they are to succeed in the social media realm.

Content overload

“Social media in itself is an exercise in repetition and oversaturation,” Krause said. “For example you see the same thing ‘retweeted’ (a term used when one Twitter user reposts content published by another in hopes of generating further response) on Twitter dozens of times even though most people have seen at least one of the tweets already.”

And the fight to gain exposure on Twitter and other online forums is not just coming from larger scale publications like Metro. Local bloggers like Michael Morrison, creator of Mike’s Bloggity Blog, can be found interacting on various social media sites every hour of every day in hopes of attracting newcomers and communicating with established followers.

“I don’t think people anticipate how much time it takes to do this,” said Morrison, who started the Canadian entertainment blog in 2006 and has spent an average of three hours working on it each day since on top of his regular full-time job. “The key is to constantly have fresh content up for returning visitors and that takes a lot of time every day.”

Morrison has also begun his own trials with new social media practices, including conducting a “Twitterview” with Canadian artist Jann Arden earlier this year and using Facebook to garner votes for national media awards. For all of his efforts, the New Brunswick native’s site has earned the title of Canada’s No. 1 entertainment blog twice at the Canadian Blog Awards and now averages roughly 15,000 page views each month.

“It’s been increasing every month,” Morrison said of his web traffic. “I always said, because it’s so time consuming, that if I ever noticed it fall off even slightly that I would finish it off but over the past three years that hasn’t happened once.

Mike Morrison, creator of Mike’s Bloggity Blog, does not hide from public view, appearing on television routinely and writing for National Post blog The Ampersand.

“Initially it was just a way for me to keep writing and stay in touch with my friends and family. I never intended it be so successful.”

Turning hype into dollars

Morrison admits that his blog has yet to bring in any significant revenue but says plans are underway to capitalize on the commitment of his dedicated readers.

“I am still learning all of the technical aspects of a blog. I have felt for the last six months that I probably could be making money out of this. I just have no idea how to start,” Morrison said, noting that the site is currently undergoing a professional redesign in hopes of drawing interest from advertisers.

If upstart bloggers in town like Morrison are able to start cashing in on their perceived success it would likely come at the expense of larger publications like Metro, the Calgary Sun and the Calgary Herald; however, Herald columnist Robert Remington doesn’t seem too worried.

“Unlike many casual bloggers, we are schooled in legal issues related to copyright infringement, youth law, libel, defamation, contempt of court, etcetera,” said Remington, who has been with the Herald since 2003. “And unlike many bloggers who cowardly hide behind a cloak of anonymity, we put our names out there so people know who we are.”

Credibility debate

The issue raised by Remington concerns the credibility of blogs, and Morrison admits that he constantly fights to maintain the reputation of his work.

“I don’t think necessarily if I broke a story that people would believe it right away the same way they would with the Herald or the Sun,” Morrison said, noting that he often has to provide a written letter of intent and references before being granted accreditation to cover events. “I think as more of the older reporters get out of the business that blogs will continue to grow and gain more credibility.”

As well, Morrison does not hide behind his words. in fact, he does quite the opposite. His blog writing has garnered attention from publications like the National Post, which now enlists him to write an online entertainment blog called The Ampersand, and Entertainment Weekly. Morrison also appears as a regular on Breakfast Television, a morning show put on by Calgary’s CityTV, where he weighs in on the latest news concerning Canada’s entertainment industry. He has never faced a lawsuit for something printed on Mike’s Bloggity Blog and believes the fairness and accuracy of his work will continue opening doors in the future.

“I think my blog, based on the feedback that I have gotten, is more what people are thinking but don’t necessarily say,” Morrison said. “I think I have the luxury of being able to write whatever I want without an editor or anything like that.”

Remington, meanwhile, remains skeptical that the blogging community can have any significant impact on traditional media outlets, noting that the Herald is constantly evolving with technology and now provides readers with dozens of blogs of its own, covering everything from tips for new parents to the latest happenings in the world of curling. The columnist himself also updates his own blog, robertremington.wordpress.com from time to time.

“As for traditional journalism being replaced by social media, I have this to say: some guy at home in his bathrobe isn’t going to spend $15,000 on a lawyer for the right to attend a refugee deportation hearing or to get access to exhibits in a young offender trial,” Remington said. “Traditional media organizations do that on a matter of journalistic principle. If there comes day when they can’t afford to do that because the economic model is broken — and it’s happening now — it’s the public that will ultimately suffer.

“It’s the dedicated full-time journalists that are doing the heavy lifting, like knocking on the doors of suspect gang members and tracking down accused Ponzi scheme scammers in Central America. That’s something society isn’t getting from the vast majority of bloggers and tweeters.”

Adding to Remington’s feelings on the matter, Metro’s Krause finds the notion of any downfall in his industry as a result of social media amusing, saying if the media does fail, “It will be the fault of the media companies themselves — not because of the advent of the Internet and social media.”

Instead, Krause reiterated that publications like his must strive to keep up with the latest online trends and react accordingly, something he believes is not necessarily being done well at this point.

“Most media companies have yet to realize and embrace the uniqueness of each platform — be it print or online — and how both can be used to complement and enhance one another rather than be carbon copies of each other,” Krause said. “Will Twitter and Facebook fade out? Perhaps, but they will no doubt be replaced by something else. Individual social media platforms may ebb and flow but social media is here to stay. It will continue to evolve and innovate as technology and creativity integrate.

“The beauty of social media and the Internet is ability for individuals and organizations like ours to create, collaborate and innovate — and engage our readers in the process.”
Part 1:Social media’s ‘evolution’

Part 2: The race for Calgary online supremacy

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Phillipo learned her lesson after last semester when she failed to buy a fall parking pass in July before they sold out in a record time of four days. Instead, the second-year psychology student acquired a fall pass for the S-10 lot located across the street from campus inside Currie Barracks.

“S-10 isn’t a bad parking place except for the fact that it is unpaved, there are no lines on the ground, people park where they feel like, there is no organization, people park too close and I have dents in my door that were not there before,” said Phillipo, who travels to campus from the southeast community of Forest Heights. “My car has since been keyed while parking there and I have almost been hit twice while trying to cross the street at the crosswalk.” Fed up, Phillipo made a conscientious effort to gain an on-campus pass for the winter semester.

According to Mount Royal’s parking and transportation services manager Stefan Durston, 1,300 open-lot passes were available for daytime parking this winter semester at $180 apiece to service Mount Royal’s ballooning student population of nearly 13,000 — the majority of whom attend daytime classes on campus.An email sent out by Mount Royal’s parking office the week prior to the sale stated that passes would become available at 8 a.m.; however, Phillipo quickly learned that the sale had started early. She logged on and got through on her first try at 7:57 a.m.

“I was on the phone with my boyfriend who said it was already open so I went and checked and sure enough it was open,” Phillipo said. “When he tried to open the paying page, it was overloaded, but I tried after him and got through, so I typed all my information in and it went through.”

Moments later, Phillipo received an email to her myMRU account that confirmed her order, pending approval of her mother’s credit card which she had used for the transaction.

“This led me to believe that everything was fine and I didn’t think twice about it,” she said.

But the Mount Royal student learned two days later via a second email that she wasn’t exactly out of the woods.

“I got an email saying: ‘This email is to inform you that your credit card transaction to purchase a parking pass on Nov. 2 was not approved. Please visit us at the parking office located in the Faculty of Arts building by Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2009 to discuss your parking options for the winter semester 2010. After that date, a permit will not be available to you.’”

Phillipo quickly made sure there was enough money in her debit account and headed down to the parking office. The person behind the desk informed her that she likely typed in the wrong credit card number and now only S-10 passes remained available for purchase.

Angry, Phillipo asked for the numbers that she had entered during the transaction and phoned her mother to verify them. “I called my mom and read the number to her,” Phillipo recalled. “She said that those were the correct numbers and expiry date.”

Upon further inquiry, Phillipo says her mother learned from the credit card company that no attempt had been made to complete a transaction that morning.

“I was pissed,” Phillipo said. “If it had been that I made a typo then that would have been my fault and I would have to deal with my mistake, but it wasn’t a typo, and it wasn’t a maxed-out card.”

As it turns out Phillipo wasn’t alone in her struggles. Durston says that more than 100 transactions made that morning were declined. “In most cases it was a simple mistake, they put in the wrong credit card number or something like that,” he said.

Realizing the problem, the parking office held back enough S-10 passes to cover the declined transactions and sent out emails to the affected students. Durston says there was simply no way to hold open-lot passes because they had all been sold before 10 a.m. that morning.

“The fact of the matter is, they didn’t pay us for an open lot pass: they attempted to,” he said. “Personally, I think S-10 is actually better than the open lots. A lot of times you will get to the open lots and spend 15 minutes driving around looking for a parking spot whereas with S-10 you generally can just drive right into a space.”

Attempting to connect with fellow Mount Royal students who shared in her frustration, Phillipo decided to create a Facebook group called “I F***cking Hate Mount Royal Parking.” So far, the group has attracted 55 members, many of whom have their own horror stories to share. “I had to give my car to parents because I couldn’t get a pass and I live in residence,” wrote one member.

Despite the Facebook group and the transaction issues dealt with by Phillipo and others, Durston says the sale of winter parking passes actually went very smoothly in his eyes and only a few people were “unable to control their emotions.”

“Kids are kids, sometimes they don’t think things through,” he added.

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A worship and knowledge of the industry, some experience in the retail industry and a broad network of contacts, led Jev to start Calgary Fashion in 2007.

A little more than two years later, Jev watched in awe as the number of daily page views on her site, CalgaryFashion.ca, climbed to an average of 6,000 during her coverage of the first Alberta Fashion Week held Oct. 4-10.

“It’s crazy!” Jev said. “We are at the stage right now where we can only go higher and higher and can’t go back.”

The 24-year-old former Calgary Journal writer turned fashionista never dreamed she could morph her love of all things hats, scarves, boots and pleats into a business, but she’s well on her way.
Jev initially used the free service BlogSpot for her site. Over the past two years she has brought seven fellow fashion enthusiasts, including reporters, photographers, webdesigners and videographers, on board. Jev estimates that she herself spends 60-70 hours each week working on the site.

The group’s hard work is seems to be paying off, a quick Google search for “Calgary fashion” puts Jev’s site at No. 1 in returned results.

In recent months, Calgary Fashion has begun fielding calls from advertisers eager to market on the site.

Beyond this, Jev said Calgary Fashion’s exposure has allowed the brand to diversify beyond the mould of a traditional media group.

“Calgary Fashion is unique because not only are we a media group, we are a consulting agency,” Jev said, noting that recently she has begun promoting local designer Caitlin Power.
“I think nowadays you can’t rely on advertising alone to make the big millions.”

Jev is still developing a revenue base. She admits that retaining a personal salary has been a struggle, and notes that Calgary Fashion contributors work on a volunteer basis.

However, she says the contacts her staff make working in the field have led to many employment opportunities.

“We find avenues that do pay,” Jev said. “It’s very hard to stay motivated and not burn out when working on just one thing. If you allow them (the staff) to spread out and try new things it keeps their creativity up, keeps them going.”

Jev says her business model represents a new way for smaller media brands to compete with bigger groups that have more staff and an already-established base of loyal consumers.

“Things are changing now, indeed, companies like the Calgary Herald and CBC are our competition because any event we go to cover we are generally trying to do a better job than anybody out there,” she says.

Upstarts gain leg up using social media

The young entrepreneur believes many of the larger media entities in town are dropping the ball when it comes to communicating with consumers through social media.

“I think with a paper like the Calgary Herald, it’s such a huge entity that they forget to connect with the public at times,” Jev said.

The Herald currently has just 140 fans on its general Facebook page, however, nearly 3,000 people follow the publication on Twitter.

Jev attributes much of her success to constant promotion through social media forums, namely Facebook.

“By creating a Facebook group and communicating to people I knew through that. . . that’s when I saw the interest really grow,” she said.

At last check, Jev now has more than 1,400 fans on Calgary Fashion’s Facebook page. She also has roughly 150 followers on the site’s official Twitter account (@Calgary_Fashion) and nearly 450 on her personal account (@Kimleestar), which she also uses for promotion.

“It’s really just is about your drive and ability to push things on people,” Jev says. “Even though I am not always online, I probably mention CalgaryFashion.ca about 30 times a day.”

Estimates put the number of Twitter accounts in the tens of thousands for “yyc,” a hashtag based on Calgary’s airport code that users add to their Twitter micro-posts, or “tweets,” to indicate to others where they are communicating from. Meanwhile, the creators of Facebook claim to have more than 300 million users worldwide, who spend a total of roughly six billion minutes on the site every day.

Requests for Calgary-specific statistics for Facebook were denied by of their representatives.
Roger Kondrat, founder of Calgary-based West17Media, which specializes in helping businesses integrate social media into their marketing strategy, said social media offers countless advantages for upstart organizations like Calgary Fashion.

“Smaller organizations thrive on customer service and retention because finding customers and convincing them of their credibility as an enterprise is a greater challenge than their larger peers,” he said.

“Social media is another layer on the Internet that is often referred to as the ’social web’ and this layer allows for even deeper relationships to form between customer and business.”

Part-time podcasting consultant Daryl Pamplin can attest to the benefits of marketing a business through social media. He frequently uses Twitter and other forums to advertise training seminars hosted through his Calgary-based company, Run Amuk Media.

“It’s mainly smaller marketers and companies interested in it (podcasting training),” said Pamplin, who has helped produce roughly 200 podcasts for local groups like Calgary Addiction Centre and also taught classes on the medium for Chinook Learning Services.

“I have also seen a bit of an increase in the number of amateur podcasters popping up in Calgary,” he said.

Podcasts are a series of audio or video files that are distributed and gain popularity online.
Pamplin initially delved into the world of podcasting and social media in 2004, when Facebook friends and “tweeting” were foreign concepts to most.

He says the key to using social media effectively is fostering an environment of natural dialogue with fellow users.

“Everyone has a different way of using social media and interacting with their friends. . .,” said Pamplin, who has made roughly 21,000 posts on Twitter under his alias @darylcognito and attracted more than 600 followers. “Twitter and Facebook are not about the market and the celebrities, they are about the users.”

The big dogs aren’t lying down either

This graph shows the total web hits over the past 12 months for five major websites in Calgary. The Calgary Herald site (blue line) surpassed the University of Calgary’s site last March, according to the graph.

Graphic: Compete.com

David Blackwell, the Calgary Herald’s director of online content, said integrating social media into the publication’s promotional strategy has played a major role in transforming CalgaryHerald.com into “likely” the No. 1 website in Calgary in terms of online traffic.

Although, Blackwell admitted there is no way to obtain definitive proof that the Herald’s site is visited more than any other in town, because competitors likely use varying methods and criteria when analyzing their traffic. He offered some encouraging statistics from web analytics tracker Compete.com.

The U.S.-based ranking company does not track every website in Calgary — notably missing is CBC Calgary’s site.  However, it does put the Herald ahead of key competitors such as the Calgary Sun, CTV Calgary and Global Calgary. In fact, Compete says the Herald has seen a more than 2,000% increase in web traffic over the past 12 months and last May it topped the University of Calgary website (ucalgary.ca), which previously was the tracker’s No. 1-ranked locally based site.

Blackwell noted in an e-mailed statement to the Calgary Journal that the key to the Herald online is “doing what we’ve been doing: breaking news, business and sports stories before anyone else does online or on-air. Providing more details on more stories more quickly than other news services is a key part of what we do.

“Another growing part is engaging, and listening to, our audience via blogs, story comments, polls and other tools.”

The Herald’s not the only traditional media outlet hoping to reach out to readers. Metro Calgary, for example, has begun using Twitter for things like generating story ideas, finding sources and keeping readers updated minute-by-minute on breaking stories, according to editor Darren Krause.

“We want to engage Calgarians in the news decision-making, the news collection and the news delivery,” said Krause, who posts a call for story ideas from his Twitter followers on slower news days. “I believe having readers help determine the local editorial direction with an ongoing dialogue, through something like Twitter, helps build a partnership and an ownership in their daily newspaper.”

Despite this new initiative by major media players in town to engage the audience, Krause isn’t necessarily convinced that the emergence of social media has made Calgary’s media climate more competitive, but rather thinks it has changed the playing field.

“I think there’s always been a healthy amount of competition between the mainstream media outlets — whether that’s online or in print,” he said. “We’ve seen web redesigns by all three daily print media outlets over the past year or so, but I believe it has been in response to reader needs as opposed to competitive forces.

“But, of course, I also acknowledge that responding to reader feedback itself lends to a competitive atmosphere in itself.”

Part 1:
Social media’s ‘evolution’

Part 3: Where will the information superhighway lead next? — Industry professionals from all corners weigh in on where technology will take the media next.

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