Anyone peering up at the face of the Chief last Friday afternoon (Feb. 19) will know exactly how Squamish feels about its hometown gold medalist, Maelle Ricker.
The Chief's Grand Wall was used to proclaim local pride in Squamish's snowboarder cross Olympic champion last Friday (Feb. 19) when three climbers undertook a daring feat to hang a 40 by 50 foot banner proclaiming "Ricker Rocks!"
When Ricker won gold in snowboarder cross last week, municipal councillor Patricia Heintzman had to find a way to proclaim to the world just how proud the town was of the athlete.
An idea came to her when she remembered local climber Matt Maddaloni's similar feat last year in advertizing support for electoral reform in the BC-STV.
"We have an incredible population here of particularly climbers who are these wonderful, creative, crazy people," said Heintzman in a short video by filmmaker Ivan Hughes depicting the most recent banner hanging, which was posted on You Tube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHphpgIgZ1Q.
Heintzman sent out an emailed request to Maddaloni to repeat the arduous endeavour.
"I thought why not make a big bold statement about how proud we are that Maelle Ricker is from Squamish, she lives here and she calls this home. We just want to sing her praises," she said in the video.
Maddaloni responded by saying he could not participate since he's "hiding from the Olympics" in Costa Rica adding that he was just about to watch a delayed broadcast of the same event and was thrilled to find out who won despite the ruined surprise so he forwarded the request to his peers.
"Ya I know, crazy," wrote Maddaloni after posting a detailed account of how he achieved the previous banner hanging. "But hey wouldn't it be fun? And our town is asking, seriously!"
Three climbers, two men and a woman, volunteered. Since provincial parks don't typically allow such messages to be posted on their grounds, the climbers' identity remained elusive, but they didn't shy away from telling filmmaker Hughes why they jumped at the chance to tell Ricker how the town feels.
"We're going up the Grand Wall to hang a banner because she won gold, she's awesome," said one climber named Tony.
"I just wanted to show my support for women athletes in Canada," said the lone femal, Paula. "Maelle did an excellent job at the Oympics. Go Maelle! Thanks for the great gold medal."
Since the climbers didn't want to push their luck with BC Parks, the banner remained only for about five minutes before it was packed back up and lowered on a climber's back.
