The most inspiring face of the 2010 Winter Olympics will be missing from the World Figure Skating Championships this year.

Joannie Rochette, who had the world on her side as she competed just days after her mother died suddenly in Vancouver of a heart attack, has decided to opt out of the World Championships, where she won the silver medal last year.

Rochette said grieving over her mother’s passing has left her without enough time to prepare mentally and physically for the competition, which is being held in Turin, Italy.

“That means I’m not prepared either emotionally or physically to skate well at these championships and challenge for the podium,” Rochette said in a statement Monday, publishing by CTV.ca. “Whenever I compete I want to give my best to the fans and to respect my competitive nature of the sport.

“I just would not be able to do that for either the fans or myself next week.”

Rochette had wanted to perform in a made-for-TV figure skating special, but the International Skating Union would sanction her for performing in an exhibition instead of the World Championships, according to her agent.

For the full story, click here.

Only in Canada.

It’s been over a week, but the ripple effect of Canada’s winter Olympic gold-medal victory over the United States in Men’s Hockey still has people buzzing, and today one of the more entertaining stories surfaced.

The president of Air Canada said a plane that was bound from Vancouver to Montreal sat on the tarmac the afternoon of the big game because several passengers refused to get on board — they were watching the game on TV screens in the airport.

He didn’t say how long the flight was delayed. Get the full story at CBC.ca.

Apolo Anton Ohno, who broke the U.S. Olympic record for Winter Olympic medals in Vancouver last month and won a little TV dance competition called “Dancing With the Stars” in 2007 apparently doesn’t think much of Canadian Pam Anderson’s chances on the upcoming season of the show.

Talking to Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show,” Ohno was asked to handicap the season.

“Between, what is it, Pam Anderson and Evan Lysacek?” Ohno told Leno, according to People.com. “Pam Anderson, she’s a little top-heavy. I think Evan is going to do very well. Plus, he’s an Olympic medalist!”

After having hosted two Olympic Games (the Summer version in Montreal in 1976, and the Winter Games in Calgary in 1988), Canadians had enough. They set out to make their mark on their home soil when the Winter Games came to Vancouver. They took the surprising, unprescedented, and — some thought — unnecessarily obnoxious step of starting a movement to “Own the Podium.”

There was a bit of disappointment when women’s skiing sensation Jenn Heil came away with a silver in the earliest days of the Games, but she promised Canada’s long-awaited gold medal on home soil would come.

Boy, did it ever, eh?

Alexandre Bilodeau kicked things off with a gold in the men’s moguls, and it was a full-fleged gold rush after that. Not content with just the one gold on home soil, Canada’s Olympians came through with 14 of them, setting a record for the most gold medals in any Winter Olympic Games.

It was made that much sweeter on Sunday night, when the gold medal run was capped by Canada’s victory over the United States in men’s hockey, avenging a loss earlier in the tournament with an overtime goal from Sidney Crosby. The win became the most watched television event in Canada’s history, with half of the country’s population watching the entire game, and 80 percent of the nation watching at least a part of it.

All told, Canada came in third in the overall medal count, behind the Americans and Germans. But Canada’s 14 golds topped Germany’s 10 by a wide margin, and the U.S. and Norway followed with nine each.

It only makes sense that as the Olympic flame is extinguished these historic
Winter Olympics in Vancouver should be commemorated by naming the entire Canadian Olympic contingent — specifically its gold medal winners — our Canadian of the Week.

Here’s a list of the gold-medal winners:

Alexandre Bilodeau: Freestyle Skiing, Men’s Moguls

Maelle Ricker: Ladies’ Snowboard Cross

Christine Nesbitt: Ladies’ 1000m Speed Skating

Jon Montgomery: Men’s Skeleton

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir: Ice Dancing

Ashleigh McIvor: Freestyle Skiing, Ladies’ Ski Cross

Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse, Women’s Bobsled

Women’s Ice Hockey Team

Charles Hamelin: Men’s 500m Short Track Speed Skating

Men’s 5000m Short Track Speed Skating Men’s Relay — Charles Hamelin, Francois Hamelin, Olivier Jean, Francois-Louis Trembelay

Speed Skating: Men’s Team Pursuit — Mathieu Giroux, Lucas Makowsky, and Denny Morrison

Jasey Jay Anderson: Snowboard, Men’s Parallel Giant Slalom

Men’s Curling Team

Men’s Ice Hockey Team

Hot on the heels of the 2010 Winter Olympics, where curling once again captured our imaginations, even if some of weren’t entirely clear on what was going on, a bunch of nude and semi-nude female curlers are being included in a calendar intended to raise money for the athletes.

While the 36-month calendar is filled with photos of nice-looking ladies, the big question on everyone’s mind seems to be whether 44-year-old Cheryl Bernard of the Canadian Olympic Team will be featured.

There was a rumor that an unidentified woman on the cover of a previous version (her back is to the camera) was Bernard, but Bernard has reportedly denied it’s her, and she now tells People.com that she won’t be stripping for the camera anytime soon.

“I think it’s okay for women to pose if they want to, but it’s not my thing,” she tells the site. “But it is nice to be recognized for what you do in your sport and for our fitness level, but I don’t pay attention to the other stuff.”

She went on to say that posing nude is “not … necessary in my life. It’s not on my Bucket List.”

UPDATE: For those seeking photos and ordering information, you can find some of the pics here, and you can order the calendar here from the photographer’s Web site.

It is difficult to fathom the weight on Joannie Rochette’s shoulders as she prepared to compete in figure skating at the 2010 Winter Olympics just two days after her mother Therese died of a sudden heart attack in Vancouver.

With her entire nation and the world watching, the 24-year-old Montreal native has gone about her Olympic dream, no doubt in loving tribute to her mother, and has said she will not do interviews until she’s done competing. But Skate Canada Chief Executive William Thompson said, “It is providing her with stability in a very uncertain time of her life. The Olympic Games has always been her dream and her mum always supported that dream.”

Dan Jansen recalled on NBC’s coverage that he learned of his sister’s passing the day he was set to compete in speedskating. Emphasizing that everyone grieves in their own way, Jansen remembered falling on the ice twice in his races that day, but hoped that Joannie Rochette would have a better experience as she prepared to compete in figure skating just two days after her mother’s sudden death.

Jansen said he sent Joannie an e-mail to explain what he’d been through and gave her some words of encouragement to help her get through, and he advised her to skate with her mother in her heart.

Joannie’s father, Normand, sat emotionally in the crowd as his daughter warmed up. she teared up as the crowd cheered when her name was announced.

Joannie turned in a riveting and brave performance that earned her a personal best score from the judges, but Tuesday night wasn’t about numbers or judges.

She sobbed in her coach’s arms as she left the ice and her father stood and cheered along with the rest of the packed arena.

In the face of tragedy came great triumph, and that kind of emotion and perseverance is what the Olympic Games are all about.

Well done, Joannie.

The Great White North was ready for a party as its national hockey team faced off with its American rival on Olympic ice Sunday.

Alas, the Americans came through with an unlikely victory — and much of Canada watched it unfold before its eyes.

CTV says 10.6 million Canadians watched the contest, making it the most watched sports event in Canadian television history. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100222/entertainment/oly_tv_ratings

Here’s a little perspective for Americans, who may be thinking about the fact that 106 million people watched the Super Bowl a few weeks ago: Canada only had about 33 million people. That means about one-third of the nation was watching a qualifying round hockey game.

But what a disappointment it turned out to be.

The Canadians will have to work for another shot at the Stars & Stripes as they’ll now need to win a qualification match to get into the tournament bracket.

It seems to be the most downplayed reunion in recent memory, but J.D. Fortune will be performing with INXS when it takes the stage at the 2010 Olympics Victory Ceremony on Wednesday at BC Place in Vancouver.

The singer confirmed the news on his Web site, and the band made mention on it on its Facebook page, writing, “We have sold out our show at the Vancouver Winter Olympics on Feb. 24th and are excited to be playing for the Canadian fans. JD Fortune will do a special guest appearance at the show.”

Back in December, when the list of performers was first announced, we here at COTW speculated that Fortune would perform with the band, given the Canadian-heavy lineup for the Olympics concerts and the fact that without Ontario native Fortune, INXS is purely Australian band.

The band is set to tour the world this year, but it still isn’t clear whether Fortune will be on board, given all this “special guest appearance” business.

A fun piece from the New York Times today looks at the interesting split between right-handed and left-handed shooters in hockey.

Canadians, it seems, tend to shoot left-handed with a split of as much as 70 to 30 percent. About 60 percent of American hockey players shoot right-handed, however, and this all comes despite the fact that there is little difference (outside of the world of hockey) between the percentage of people who are right- and left-handed in the two nations.

It’s a good read. Check it out here.

It seems that when it comes to Fox news, NBC reports, but can’t decide.

In a flub that might have slipped past many Americans, NBC’s “Today” show confused two of Canada’s most iconic figures in the run-up to the opening ceremonies.

When the question of who might light the Olympic cauldron came up, co-anchor Meredith Vieira suggested that it could be Betty Fox, the mother of the late Terry Fox — an amputee who set out to run across Canada (and made it half way) to raise cancer awareness.

The trouble is that Vieira called Betty’s son “Michael Fox,” possibly confusing Terry with the actor we all know and love, Michael J. Fox.

That’s understandable enough, but the graphics person was a bit too quick on the switch by removing the correct photo of Terry Fox on the screen and replacing it with Michael J. Fox.

Check it out…