It’s All in the Family for Athletes & Spectators at Games

February 24, 2010

by Crai S. Bower

When I was playing hockey in high school, my mom would ring a large cowbell at all of my games. I wasn’t surprised to hear that familiar clang during my college career, when she would leave work at noon, drive to New England for my game and then drive home, usually going straight to work the next day. The sacrifice parents make for their children’s athletics is well documented, but I remain impressed by the parental role for world class athletes, like the families of Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse, who took the gold medal in Two Women Bobsleigh tonight at the Olympic Sliding Centre in Whistler. Their collective look of satisfied exhaustion suggested they’d just attended their daughter’s wedding. The Olympics also provide an opportunity for multigenerational spectators to explore together, like the three generations of Victoria, B.C. women (pictured) I met two days ago on the Aquabus coming from Granville Island to Yaletown. The youngest daughter, in town to volunteer at the wildly popular Royal Canadian Mint, was directing the tour, about which her grandmother had this to say to her granddaughter, “It’s so wonderful to experience the Olympics through your eyes.” Surely the parents and grandparents of the Olympic athletes must be thinking the same thought, as they wear their silly hats and ring their cowbells.