Silken's Blog

Autograph signing - "A Day in the Life" at the Olympics for an Olympian!

We went to Cananda House and my son William and I held the Stanley Cup. Then we found the Canadian Mint and I was given a private audience with the Olympic medals. Each medal is unique, every single one has a different design. Can you imagine? They are absolutely huge and my sons dared to tell me these medals were way better than mine. Errr. Actually he is right, these are the most beautiful Olympic medals I have ever seen. Each meadal is truly a piece of art.

As if this wasn't great enough for one morning - the COC found a couple curling tickets and William and I are off to the Gold Medal match. I am getting the Coles Notes of curling right now as I ride the bus to the venue. Go Canada. --Silken

Silken & Michelle Stilwell

A gold medal should go to Jane Roos and the Canadian Athletes Now Fund. Over the past thirteen years this woman and the fund that she named, have raised millions of dollars that go directly to our Olympic athletes. Thirteen members of Canada's Women's Gold medal hockey team received grants from this fund to help with their living and training expenses. What most Canadians don't realize is that most Olympic athletes live like students, from cheque to cheque, struggling to pay both their grocery bill and their housing bill.

Shaw has given two floors of their downtown building to hosting atheltes and their families. What a wonderful avenue to Olympic athletes to meet with their brothers and sisters, family and friends outside the Olympic Village, but in a private space. Sprott Investments gives $100,000 to the CAN fund for each gold medal, so including an initial investment of $240,000 over 1 million dollars has been given to help the next lot of athletes training for the Olympic Games. Impressive.

The vision and will of one woman and her small team of volunteers has brought this fund to a place of being a major factor in helping Canadian athletes win gold. Jane and her Olympian husband Conrad deserve a gold medal in philanthropy for their efforts.

By the way, CAN athletes Now House is a fun and funky place with free daycare, live music and a Wii Fit that my son played on for a solid hour. So much for boring receptions William. - Silken

CAN Fund Presentation

Back on the Ferry to Vancouver again today and the Olympic fever just seems to be growing. Doesn't hurt that our women won FOUR MEDALS yesterday. Spectacular and reminds me about how fortunate we are to live in a country that presents so many opportunities for women in sport. This in fact was the topic of conversation with two women and their four girls today, as my son and I sat on the ferry to Vancouver. They were concerned that Women's hockey wouldn't last in the Olympic Games. Wow, that would be a shame.

It seems to me that almost every sport has had the same challenge. When women first start playing, everybody complains it is not as competitive as the men's events and so on and so on. I heard it in rowing way back in 1988 . In that first Olympic Games I rowed in, the Women only rowed 1000m because there was fear that the women wouldn't be able to physically handle the race, that the length of time it would take for the women to get down the course would create problems in the race schedule, that the race itself would be boring to watch. All of these reasons seem ridiculous now, and yet there are still male athletes who believe their events are more competitive than women's. No matter what advances we see in our sport their remains a lingering attitidue that the men's events are premeir.

In certain events and sports there are far more men competing. This has a lot to do with the attitudes towards women around the globe. Sport is a place of empowerment for women, it gives women confidence, self-esteem and helps them believe anything is possible. There are many countries around the globe that would do anything to squash this kind of thinking. And then there are the muscles---when women pull on an oar, and sprint into a bobsleigh, and hurl themselves down mountains, they gain muscles, often big ones, which are seen in many cultures around the globe as unattractive. My mother had the same fear when she saw my sister and I squating weight by the hundreds in our makeshift gym in the furnace room. Girls, she ranted one day, you will lose your figure! Attitudes towards women's involvment in sport have a profound impact in girls participation in sport. If everything in a country's social fabric says that women shouldn't compete, that it is not attractive to be strong, that it is unfeminine to want to win: these countries will not produce female athletes competing at these games.

It was not long ago, that some of these same attitudes existed in Canada. As we watch the women win gold in hockey today (a little cocky but not much), let's celebrate how far women have come in our country and encourage and support other countries in supporting their women athletes so every girl can play!  --Silken