Olympic Spirit 4 - Lucky Loonie!

When he was a baby, Jan Hudec’s parents made a decision. They ordered a kit, a kit to make a Fireball. That’s not cinnamon whiskey. That’s a 2-person dinghy, and Jan Sr. built it in secret in his mother’s garage. They practised on a lake. Then they left communist Czechoslovakia to go on vacation in Yugoslavia, where they were allowed to travel then. Two days before they were to return, they put the boat in the water and set off across the Adriatic Sea to freedom. The trip was risky, but so was remaining in Czechoslovakia. They bailed the boat out the whole way and they barely made the beach, but with a little luck and a lot of toughness, they made it to Italy, and freedom.

From Italy, they made their way to Canada, the country Hudec skied for in the Super-G at the Sochi Olympics. He wanted a little Canadian luck on his side. After a couple of warm-up runs, he “as sneakily as possible… in Russia” buried a Loonie at the finish line, “hoping not to get dragged off by the security guards.” This is a Canadian tradition that started with the Loonie buried at center ice at the Salt Lake City Olympics for the hockey teams, and soon crossed over to skiing when officials buried a Loonie at the finish line at the Lake Louise World Cup.

More importantly, he has his parents’ toughness. He has been plagued by injury for years, and still competes. He has had seven knee surgeries. One knee surgery, and I’d be whining about it the rest of my life. Seven, and he still skis. Back problems left him bedridden just last month. “His back is really, really gimpy, and he took a bunch of days off and he missed some races, and his knees are a mess — other than that, he’s great,” said Steve Podborski, Canada’s chef de mission in Sochi and former alpine competitor. But Hudec toughed it out and competed in the Olympics this week.

His teammate Erik Guay, fellow member of the “Canadian Cowboys," was honest, “I don’t know if I would have bet on him, pre-race.” Dude, did you not hear about the dinghy? And the Loonie? Hudec not only competed, he nailed the Bronze, giving Canada its first medal in alpine skiing since Lillehammer. Lil-le-ham-mer. The drought has plagued Alpine Canada for so long, the VP of sports himself took on the task of digging out the lucky Loonie (it took about 45 minutes to find it). Maybe he was worried that Hudec's back couldn't take on one more task after the competition. Hudec credits the Loonie, but told the press, “Worst-case scenario if it’s not good luck, it will be worth more than a dollar now."