Amazing Race Canada gets extreme for second season kickoff
The Amazing Race Canada is back and it’s bigger than ever. Is the second season better than the first? We’ll have to wait and see, but the series definitely got off on the right foot Tuesday night on CTV.
The producers didn’t stint on the budget going by the first episode: in addition to stunning helicopter shots of the Rockies, there were multiple challenges for the 22 contestants in an actionpacked episode that started on the Columbia Icefield in Alberta before heading west to B.C.
Frankly, they packed so much into the première — from ziplining in Calgary to skydiving in Victoria to properly serving tea at The Fairmont Empress to completing a training exercise at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt — that I can’t describe it all in this recap. (Go online to edmontonjournal.com for a full accounting of the goings-on.)
Instead, let’s do a quick rundown of the contestants and some take-aways from their initial introduction. In order of appearance, the 11 teams are: ❚ Natalie Spooner and Meaghan Mikkelson, members of Canada’s gold-medal-winning women’s hockey team. The pair cruised to the front of the pack and stayed there, winning the leg with ease. Having a gold medal doesn’t mean you have an iron-clad stomach, though, as Natalie upchucked in the plane before flinging herself out of it. Mikkelson's hometown is St. Albert, although she lives now in Calgary. ❚ Mickey Heinz and Pete Schmalz, lifelong BFFs from Muskoka with lots of “heterosexual male love” for one another. They’re the designated “dude!” team this season, but don’t let that long hair fool you: they moved up a few spots from their initial back-ofthe-pack position. ❚ The brother-and-sister team of Sukhi and Jinder Atwal from Terrace, B.C., have plenty of travel under their belts already. They stayed in the middle of the pack, and as fans of the show know, any leg you don’t lose is a good leg. ❚ While Pierre and Michel Forget, former elite skiers from Terrebonne, Que., were the last team to skydive, the twins used teamwork to move up the ladder, finishing the leg in eighth position. ❚ The East Coast’s Jen and Shawn King were last coming into the final challenge at CFB Esquimalt, but another team’s bumbling saved the married couple from elimination … this week. ❚ Toronto’s Laura Takahashi and Jackie Skinner, another married couple, finished in fifth, but didn’t get tons of airtime. A bit of misdirection on the part of producers, perhaps? ❚ Alain Chanoine and Audrey Tousignant-Maurice, a couple from Montreal, started strong and stayed that way, finishing in second place. Another team to watch. ❚ Shahla Kara and Nabeela Barday, best friends from Toronto whose hopes of winning The Amazing Race Canada went down the drain when they decided to take a penalty at CFB Esquimalt rather than finish the water-based challenge. They were the first team to go home. ❚ Not only did Rex Harrington and his partner Bob Hope stay near the front of the pack, they proved to be the most entertaining duo, what with Rex’s “Mother of Cher! I can’t seeee!” during his ride on the zip line and Bob’s playful antics at The Fairmont Empress in Victoria.
❚ Despite their athleticism, Vancouver’s Ryan Steele and Rob Goddard dropped from sixth place mid-leg to ninth place in the end. Not a good trend, boys. ❚ Mom Nicole Foster showed she is the boss of her son, Cormac, but not always in a good way: her instructions during the CFB Esquimalt challenge were dead wrong, but he carried them out with no questions asked. Still, they finished fourth.
Next week: The 10 teams travel to Tofino, B.C., where the surf is up and a contestant is down, going by the footage of a woman shouting, “Medic!” and someone being loaded into an ambulance.