Short-track speed skaters reeling in valuable time at Olympic venue

Coliseum ice getting a good workout in advance of next month’s Games trials
By Gary Kingston, Vancouver SunJuly 2, 2009

VANCOUVER — Canada’s short-track speed skaters are hoping the frozen water at Pacific Coliseum is far more hospitable in seven months time than the deep blue stuff off the Olympic host city last weekend.

In Vancouver for a training camp the last two weeks, a dozen skaters, most of them from Quebec, chartered a couple of boats last Sunday for a highly anticipated salmon fishing expedition.

Except for a three-pounder landed by Olivier Jean — “a charity fish,” cracked men’s head coach Derrick Campbell — they were skunked after five hours of trolling, as Jean described it, “in front of Stanley Park.”
“It was a really disappointing day,” said the Montreal skater, who does a lot of pike, bass and walleye fishing back home and who was salmon fishing for the first time. “We only had one bite. Five hours, one bite.”
He says the charter operators were apologetic.

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