Winnipeg Vs. Ottawa - Page 6

trueviking · #**101** Posted **Jan 20, 2008, 4:11 AM**

skating on the rideau canal is way better than winnipeg's crappy 3m wide bumpy, sand strewn river path....you cant even compare them....

the only thing winnipeg has going for it is stupid cold.

1ajs · #**102** Posted **Jan 20, 2008, 4:26 AM**

^ lol

Only The Lonely.. · #**103** Posted **Jan 20, 2008, 6:10 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by trueviking

skating on the rideau canal is way better than winnipeg's crappy 3m wide bumpy, sand strewn river path....you cant even compare them....

the only thing winnipeg has going for it is stupid cold.

Vike, my ears are burning. This is nothing short of sacrilege to the 'Peg.

vid · #**104** Posted **Jan 20, 2008, 7:32 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by trueviking

skating on the rideau canal is way better than winnipeg's crappy 3m wide bumpy, sand strewn river path....you cant even compare them....

the only thing winnipeg has going for it is stupid cold.

Its a good thing you said that, or we might have made the mistake of visiting that little piece of frozen hell!

Aylmer · #**105** Posted **Jan 20, 2008, 12:43 PM**

lol!

ScrappyPeg · #**106** Posted **Jan 20, 2008, 6:24 PM**

Lot's of words come out from those who live where the weather has been in the -40's range for too long!

Greco Roman · #**107** Posted **Jan 20, 2008, 8:21 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by trueviking

skating on the rideau canal is way better than winnipeg's crappy 3m wide bumpy, sand strewn river path....you cant even compare them....

the only thing winnipeg has going for it is stupid cold.

Oh, I don't know about this. I've been on the Red skating several times in the winter (although not in the last few years), and I found that for an outdoor skating area, it wasn't all that bad. They did a decent job trying to keep it smooth, and I didn't hit all that many bumps. Lets remember it's a river, not a man-made canal, so mother nature has the final say in this matter. Let's be proud of what we can accomplish to make this city world class.

Aylmer · #**108** Posted **Jan 21, 2008, 2:13 PM**

Short, but touching!

Donovanf · #**109** Posted **Jan 25, 2008, 7:13 PM**

City expects to have world's longest rink

Updated at 1:03 PM

By Dave Rogers

By Saturday, Winnipeg expects to have the world's longest skating rink, measuring more than a kilometre longer than Ottawa's Rideau Canal Skateway.
The people who run the River Trail rink in Winnipeg are so confident their rink is the longest that they obtained a form from the Guinness Book of Records to prove it.

Paul Jordan, manager of The Forks market in downtown Winnipeg, says the city's River Trail rink is already nine-kilometres long, far longer than Ottawa's 7.8-kilometre canal Skateway. Winnipeg organizers are employing a lawyer, engineer, architect and a city police officer to measure the River Trail, using GPS and a wheeled measuring device.

Jordan said Winnipeg will simply make its rink longer if it doesn't measure up. Once the city has the record it will "market the heck out of it" in a bid to attract more tourists.

Teams of eight university students armed with snow shovels worked in shifts around the clock for three weeks to clear a six-kilometre trail along the Red and Assiniboine rivers through the city core. Then the Winnipegers brought in plows, powered brushes and ice surfacing machines when the ice became thick enough.
The National Capital Commission, which opened the Rideau Canal Skateway today, isn't overly concerned about a possible new record in Winnipeg.

Ottawa's trump card is the Rideau Canal's World Heritage status

"In Ottawa, we are skating on a World Heritage Site as recognized by UNESCO," said NCC spokeswoman Kathryn Keyes of the Rideau Canal Skateway. "There is no experience like skating through the capital on a world icon."

The Ottawa Skateway was officially recognized by Guinness World Records in August 2005. It starts at the National Arts Centre and ends with a loop at Dow's Lake.

"Our world record is for the world's largest naturally frozen ice surface," said Keyes.

"The Guinness people looked at three criteria: the length, which is 7.8 kilometres, the width and the skating experience. They calculated the surface at 165,621 square metres of surface area, which is the equivalent of 90 Olympic size hockey rinks."

Canwest News Service--Ottawa Citizen

flatlander · #**110** Posted **Jan 25, 2008, 7:35 PM**

The irony is that the NCC is competing against us with our own money! The NCC gets federal tax dollars.

I guess I'm just jealous because every city should have an NCC.

Only The Lonely.. · #**111** Posted **Jan 26, 2008, 12:28 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by flatlander

The irony is that the NCC is competing against us with our own money! The NCC gets federal tax dollars.

I guess I'm just jealous because every city should have an NCC.

Amen! I'm sick of hearing about what a robost economy Ottawa has. It'd be great if we had a federal agency whose sole mandate was civic development and beautification.

Only The Lonely.. · #**112** Posted **Jan 27, 2008, 4:38 PM**

This brought a smile to my face.

Quote:

So now we're sneaky jerks
Name-calling escalates as city topples Ottawa's claim to longest skating rink

Sun Jan 27 2008

By Bill Redekop

Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press

Owen Znibarec, 5, stops to paint a fish on the ice courtesy of Art City, an arts-based drop-in centre on Broadway.
So now we've gone from dweebs in snowsuits to sneaky jerks, eh? On the very day Winnipeg laid claim to having the world's longest skating rink, the cold war brewing between our city and Ottawa escalated.

Janine Flood, out for a skate Saturday on Ottawa's Rideau Canal Skateway, called Winnipeggers "sneaky jerks" for trying to usurp the Rideau Canal's Guinness World Record for having the world's longest rink.

Saturday, Winnipeg's skating trail measured 8.54 kilometres. Ottawa's Rideau Canal skating trail measures 7.8 kms -- if it ever manages to fully open.

"We did it," said Paul Jordan, The Forks chief operating officer. "We beat Ottawa by three-quarters of a kilometre."

But Flood was not impressed.

"Does Winnipeg have a Winterlude?" asked the former Winnipegger who should know better. "We have a national event that takes place on our canal. I guess it's OK to be factually correct if they have the longer rink, but are people going to travel there just to say they skated on it?"

Flood also said Ottawa should warn people there have been floods in Winnipeg's past. "One minute you're on the ice, the next you're in the water," she said with a chuckle.

Jordan said he stopped clearing Winnipeg's trail when he did because "we just wanted to beat Ottawa. With more money we could keep on going."

An Ottawa Citizen columnist had called Jordan a "dweeb in a snowsuit," in a friendly dissing match between the two cities. That just made Jordan more determined to dethrone Canada's capital city.

The skating trail extends as far west on the Assiniboine River as Omand's Creek. On the Red River, it runs from Whittier Park in St. Boniface to the Norwood Bridge.

"We could go all the way to Portage la Prairie. We could go wherever we want," Jordan said, if Ottawa tries to retake the mantle as longest skate trail.

The official measure required a team that included a lawyer, a landscape architect and two civil technologists. The measurement required both a surveyor's GPS receiver and a machine called a DigiWheel that rolls along the trail and measures its length like an odometer.

The official opening of the world's longest skating trail is Monday at 10:30 a.m. starting at Omand's Creek Park. Access to the river is at the corner of Raglan Road and Wolseley Avenue. Organizers are hoping hundreds of Manitobans turn out.

The river portion of The Forks was packed Saturday. Within a five-minute span, a visitor could see youths playing a game of old-fashioned shinny hockey, four people riding by on horseback, two people skijoring -- being pulled on skis by a tandem of harnessed dogs -- and two other people on skates being pulled by dogs, a couple walking a dog with booties on its paws, a CN freight train crossing the railway bridge, and children painting the river ice in bright paints.

Art City, an arts-based drop-in centre on Broadway, ran a program where kids could paint the river ice surface. The River Pond Classic of non-contact shinny hockey is also being held this weekend at The Forks.

The trail is regularly groomed with a small tractor with a rotating bristle brush in front to clear snow. A Zamboni floods the surface of the trail. Assiniboine Credit Union is the trail's sponsor.

The Forks will be having its record verified by Guinness World Record authorities next month. The process usually take four to six weeks.

Meanwhile, Ottawa can take solace from the fact it is still the largest skating rink.

Even with the 3.7 kilometres the National Capital Commission -- which is responsible for the skateway -- has opened so far, the Ottawa rink has 62,000 square metres of skating surface, said spokeswoman Kathryn Keyes.

If the Winnipeg rink is nine kilometres long with a maximum width of four metres, its total surface area would only be 36,000 metres squared, making Ottawa's skating area considerably wider.

And when the entire canal is open, it offers 165,621 square metres of skating surface.

-- with files from Canwest News Service