Competitors talk ahead of first season of reality series ‘Amazing Race Canada’
Posted July 11, 2013 12:26 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO – The first nerve-shredding trial that “The Amazing Race Canada” forced its contestants to endure didn’t involve a breathless trek across unfamiliar terrain, a terrifying physical challenge or a morale-melting series of plane-train-and-automobile travel hiccups.
In fact, it was a day before the cross-country challenge was to commence and the nine teams of two set to compete were undergoing a more insidious form of psychological torture: they were asked to sit silently in a big, dull room by the airport surrounded by their competitors. Conversation between teams was strictly forbidden, so all the “Amazing Race” hopefuls could do was eyeball the field and try to analyze the competition.
So even while temporarily grounded, the wheels were certainly turning for these nervous contestants.
“We’ve been creating so many ranks and … the rankings are based on absolutely nothing,” said 32-year-old London, Ont., police officer Jet Black, a hulking, square-jawed character with a sly sense of humour. “The rankings just keep flip-flopping. People are plummeting down, people are skyrocketing — for no reason.”
“Someone will do one good thing and we’ll be like: ‘Hey, they’re the best.’ And then an hour later I’m like: ‘I hate them, they’re dead to us,'” agreed his partner Dave Schram, a 29-year-old marketing expert.
“I saw a girl at breakfast (who) didn’t like her bagel,” Black added. “I was like, I can’t trust her now. I don’t know what she’s thinking. Everything I know is wrong!”
Well, all the teams have come such a long way since then — literally and figuratively, of course.
The first season of CTV’s splashy reality import launches on Monday night after wrapping filming last month. Over the course of the 22-day shoot, the teams shot in 78 locations, hopped aboard more than 595 total domestic Air Canada flights, visited seven provinces and three territories and employed 12 different forms of transportation, including snowshoes and a golf cart.
On the line? The winner receives a year of free Air Canada flights, a pair of Chevrolet Corvette Stingrays and $250,000 in cash.
Even more is on the line for broadcaster CTV, of course, given the estimable investment that made this latest reality port possible — executive producer and Insight Productions CEO John Brunton calls it “the biggest show that we’ve ever mounted of this kind.”
On the bright side — as is often the case with reality shows — almost all the cleverly cast teams feature a razor-sharp human-interest hook.
There’s a pair of identical twins, Treena Ley and Tennille Dorrington, no-nonsense Hamilton-based 36-year-olds whose clashes are apparently epic. There are a couple of gay cowboys from Alberta, 47-year-old Jamie Cumberland and 38-year-old single dad Pierre Cadieux (who take pains to clarify that they are friends, not a couple). There’s the celebrity pair of Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod, the fitness-obsessed fifty-somethings behind the long-running and widely loved “Body Break” TV fitness vignettes.
Other teams include a pair of married, quick-witted Montreal doctors (Brett Burstein and Holly Agostino, both 33), quarrelling Ottawa sisters separated by a 10-year age difference (bikini model Celina Mziray, 30, and 21-year-old actress Vanessa Morgan) and a dating pair of salt-of-the-earth outdoor adventurers (Kristen Idiens, 32, and 26-year-old Darren Trapp, both from Fairmont Hot Springs, B.C.)
“You look at the other at the other teams and assess them and their capabilities, every team here (is) special,” Johnson said. “Every team has a story.”
Some stories are more harrowing than the others.
Jody Mitic, 36, teamed with his brother, Cory. Jody was a sniper for the Canadian Forces. In January 2007, he was leading a team in Afghanistan when he stepped on an anti-personnel landmine stacked on top of an 82-millimetre Russian mortar round. He lost his right foot on the scene and doctors later had to amputate his left leg under the knee as well.
The Ottawa-based motivational speaker ran a half-marathon in 2009 and has met myriad other physical challenges head-on: snowboarding, cross-fit, scuba diving.
“This is just like, for me, why can’t I do this?” he said. “I want to represent other injured and ill people from Afghanistan from the forces. I want to represent veterans and I want to represent other disabled Canadians.”
Similarly inspiring is the father-son duo of Tim Hague Sr. and Tim Hague Jr., from Winnipeg. The elder Tim, a 48-year-old registered nurse, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease three years ago. It’s clear from looking at the svelte pair that the condition has been no impediment to his physical fitness, and the resolutely positive father of four insists that the mental toughness Parkinson’s has engendered in him will only be an asset.
“What (the other teams) don’t know is I have Parkinson’s on my side,” he said. “I’ve had two years of having to control this stupid thing and what people don’t understand is the endurance that builds. You learn to sit through meetings and control yourself. You learn to sit through events like this and not shake all over the place. You calm yourself and you stay focused on the task at hand. Because Parkinson’s is like this annoying three-year-old that’s got you by the shirt collar and is constantly tugging you. And it doesn’t stop.
“So you learn to focus,” he added. “The cramps or anything else that comes along with it, you deal with it. I doubt it if most of these folks have had to learn that kind of patience. And we are patient. We are going to kick its ass on a daily basis.”
An inherent part of the appeal of the American version of “The Amazing Race” — long a ratings titan, particularly in Canada — lies in its global nature. Viewers are treated to HD panoramas of the world’s most beautiful far-flung vistas, meanwhile delighting as fish-flopping-out-of-water contestants are forced to clumsily hurtle over linguistic and cultural barriers.
But “The Amazing Race Canada,” hosted by Olympic hero Jon Montgomery, will be strictly focused within the Canadian borders, erasing some of the globe-trotting appeal of the original. Still, Brunton says this country is heterogeneous enough in landscape and language to provide a sufficiently thrilling setting for the show.
“Canada’s an amazingly diverse place. You go to neighbourhoods in Canada where you won’t hear anyone speak English,” said the reality TV guru, who has steered “Canadian Idol,” “Big Brother Canada” and “Top Chef Canada.”
“You can go into Chinatown in Toronto or you can go into Koreatown in Toronto or you can go into Little Vietnam in Toronto and you can get immersed in the middle of a culture in this city and not have a clue what people are saying and not have a clue what people are doing…. You get into rural Newfoundland and you have a hard time understanding what people are saying…. You get into rural Quebec and their particular way of speaking, you see French-speaking people that … go, ‘What the heck did they just say?'”