Anticipation builds for torch relay

Judy MacDonald, with Academic Computing Services, and Cindy Miller, who works at the Kellogg Library, will participate in the torch relay in the Antigonish area. (Nick Pearce Photo)

It’s getting closer—the Olympic torch is now being carried across Newfoundland and will land in Nova Scotia on Monday, Nov. 16, Day 18 of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Torch Relay.

You’d be hard pressed to find anyone more excited than Dalhousie staffers (and married couple) Cindy Miller and Judy MacDonald, who will run along with family and friends in Antigonish on Tuesday, November 17, and Cia Tweel, who is primed for her run on Quinpool Road in Halifax a day later.

Ms. Miller, a document delivery clerk at Dalhousie’s Kellogg Library, is thrilled to take part and will run as part of a team headed by her 83-year-old father, Keith Miller.

The opportunity to hoist the torch came as a bonus to her father winning a Local Hockey Leader award through RBC Insurance, sponsor of the torch relay. All the leaders were given a team spot in the torch relay, entitling their team of up to 20 individuals to collectively carry the Olympic Flame for one kilometer. Her father, a familiar face at East Hants arena for decades, was honored for his selfless dedication to generations of hockey players in Lantz, N.S.

Fitness instructor Cia Tweel models her torch relay track suit, mittens and hat in front of the Forrest Building (J.P. Tweel Photo)

“We’re all just so proud of him,” says Ms. Miller, who nominated her father for the award and is herself a longtime hockey volunteer. “And we feel so lucky to be able to do this altogether.”

Cia Tweel, on the other hand, was one of thousands of Canadians who applied to carry the torch, and was delighted to be among the hundreds who were successful in having their names chosen. As a torch bearer, she had to give a pledge sharing her vision of “how to make Canada better” and, as a longtime fitness instructor and personal trainer, resolved to make “Canadians fitter and happier.”

“It feels pretty special,” says Ms. Tweel, the field-work secretary with the School of Occupational Therapy. “I keep pinching myself—‘Oh my God, I’m going to do this!’”

The torch relay began its trek in Victoria on Friday, Oct. 30. Over 106 days, it will make stops in every province and territory leading up to the lighting of the cauldron at BC Place.

The Games will be held from Feb. 12 to 28 in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., followed by the Paralympics from March 12 to 21.