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TORONTO — Canadian pharmaceuticals magnate Eugene Melnyk pulls out what he calls the most expensive bookmark in the world: a ticket to the gold-medal game in men's hockey at the Turin Olympics last year.
When the Canadian team floundered in Italy, he didn't use the ticket. But he's kept it, a reminder of Olympic sport gone wrong.
Now Melnyk is trying to make Olympic sport for Canadians go right, by donating $1-million to a new Patrons of Sport program. The billionaire owner of pharmaceutical giant Biovail is joining forces with the Canadian Athletes Now (CAN) Fund, and asking Canadians to help join in — even if they pledge only $10.
Melnyk, the owner of the Ottawa Senators and a junior hockey team, said he wouldn't let his hockey players work without a coach, or the best equipment.
"I'm smack in the middle of the sporting world, so I'll bet that 99 per cent of Canadians don't know that our athletes need funding," he said.
The CAN Fund is led by Jane Roos, a former athlete who has been raising money for the past 10 years for athletes.
After the fund gained charitable status in 2003, it raised $2.2-million in six months. The fund also aided 11 of Canada's 12 medalists at the Athens Games, Roos said.
Melnyk said he will meet with Senators executives next week to come up with a plan for the campaign. "I've heard many gut-wrenching stories from athletes and their families having to mortgage their homes and stay at youth hostels in order to compete overseas, to asking their friends and family to finance their training," Melnyk said.
Yesterday, 38 athletes showed up at a news conference to stand behind Melnyk. You didn't have to look far to find disturbing stories.
Laser sailor Bernard Luttmer of Toronto has asked for Roos's help twice in his career. So has Tornado sailor Oskar Johansson of Oakville, Ont. Both competed at sailing events while going to Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., and lived on a shoestring budget.
Luttmer said they were so broke, they started their own tutorial business at Queen's. "I gave up asking for money," he said. "We had asked all our friends and family for the 2000 Olympics. But we didn't make it. It's hard to go back after you don't make it and ask for more money."
While competing for Queen's University, the two Canadian sailors ran up against well-funded competitors from wealthy U.S. colleges, such as Harvard, MIT, and the U.S. Naval Academy.
Those schools would sometimes open up their gymnasiums so the Canadians could throw an old mat on the floor and sleep there, because they couldn't afford hotels.
The U.S. Naval Academy had such lush food budgets, they took pity on the Canadians and give them extra lunches for their ride home.
Despite all of this, the Queen's sailing team became No.1 on the continent, the first time a Canadian school had reached that status. They were competing against 230 U.S. schools.
Both sailors made it to the Athens Olympics and are now trying to qualify for Beijing. Johansson and his Tornado partner, Kevin Stittle, won a World Cup event in Hyčres, France last April, the first time in 20 years that any Canadian two-handed boat had won there.
Luttmer said help from the fund was "huge." He hopes to put any money he receives to coaching. Athletes may apply to the fund twice a year for a grant of $6,000, and the fund distributes the money according to world ranking and financial need.
As for Melnyk, he says he has something in common with these struggling athletes. "We all believe in the power of dreaming big," he said.
