By Liana Ragheb
Jodie-Lynn McLewin was the first to crawl across the finish line and claim her title as “Ottawa’s Fastest Baby” at the first annual Ottawa 67’s Baby Race last week.
“She doesn’t crawl, she creeps,” her mother Lynn explained. Jodie-Lynn’s victory came at the age of nine months and her father Mike is confident this is only her first of many races.
Both parents don’t deny that their daughter spent time in training, but when it comes to her competitive nature her mother has no doubt that “it’s in the genes.”
Last Friday’s Ottawa 67’s game packed the Civic Centre and the crowd was delighted by the unusual event. In the amusingly slow race, Hailey Merrikin came a close second and Tamasha Cathcart finished in third place. For their efforts, the winning athletes received a total of more than $700 in prizes, including gift certificates, DVDs and a barbecue.
The row of babies sat at the starting line all bundled up in their snowsuits, with their mothers standing behind them. The crowd watched as the row of fathers at the finish line frantically waved stuffed animals to make their child crawl. Two of the eight babies took the bait and headed down the ice.
The crowd cheered on the contestants during the two-minute “dash” to the finish line.
The third-place winner managed to move a few feet, while five others refused to move more than a few inches from the “starting gate.”
“They didn’t go very fast,” says hockey fan Mike Ahayward. “But it gives you something to do when you’re waiting for 15 minutes.”
The eight contestants were chosen randomly from 15 applicants.
“A big part of our games here is the entertainment value,” says Glen Gower, the Ottawa 67’s audio-visual producer. The intermission entertainment varies from music to mascots, but each adds to the overall game experience, he says.
Watching babies in the middle of a sports game is unusual to say the least, Gower admits, but says it adds to the element of the unknown by keeping the audience in anticipation. “We’re trying to be creative and original in what we can give fans.”
“It was cute,” says audience member Mario Carrozza. “It keeps the crowd entertained.”
“A lot of sports these days are about the complete entertainment package,” Gower says.
In the past, the only thing to watch during intermission was the Zamboni; only within recent years have on-ice promotions become popular, he explains.
The team was bought by Jeff Hunt in 1998. Hunt’s main concern has been to improve the overall game experience for fans, says Gower, who hopes the baby race will become an annual event.