Women's 5,000-metre speedskating gold medalist Clara Hughes shows off her gold medal and a small Maple Leaf pin that had been placed in the ice of the Lingotto Skating Oval as a good luck charm. (CP PHOTO/Paul Chiasson)

Lucky maple leaf pin placed in oval's ice

Updated Sat. Feb. 25 2006 11:37 PM ET

Canadian Press

TURIN, Italy -- A new twist on the lucky loonie helped propel Canada to the podium at Oval Lingotto.

Canadian icemaker Mark Messer, borrowing on the legend of Canada's lucky loonie, buried a solid gold maple leaf near the finish line in the oval ice at the Turin Olympics, and watched as Canadians raced to eight medals in long-track speedskating.

Canadians have been strategically hiding the dollar coins at various sporting venues since icemaker Trent Evans buried a loonie at centre ice at the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics, and Canada's men's and women's hockey teams went on to win gold.

After consulting with a team psychologist, Messer snuck into the Oval Lingotto in the middle of the night to bury the maple leaf.

"There was a little bit of subterfuge here, I had to do it at night with nobody else around," said Messer. "There are a couple of mementoes buried in the ice, the maple leaf is what the team knew about, hopefully it inspired them."

The maple leaf was dug up and presented to Clara Hughes after the Winnipeg skater raced to gold in Saturday's women's 5,000 metres.

Messer is the icemaker at Calgary's Olympic Oval, considered the fastest speedskating venue in the world, and was hired by the Turin organizing committee for his ice expertise. Why not help the Canadian skaters at the same time?

"We knew about the loonie from the last time and what it brought for Canadian hockey, so we buried a solid gold maple leaf in the ice for the speedskaters here. . . hopefully it helped," Messer said.

The loonie has also made an appearance in Turin, a Canadian icemaker burying a pair of the coins in the championship ice sheet at curling, where Brad Gushue's rink won gold for Canada.

Before heading to Turin, Canada's athletes received a special Olympic loonie from the Canadian Mint, as they did for the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.

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