When Olympic gold medalist Carol Huynh stood on the victory podium last month and tearfully sang out O Canada as the national flag went up, she had no idea words from the anthem would end up as the official motto of the 2010 Winter Games.
But yesterday, in a sometimes emotional ceremony to unveil "With Glowing Hearts" as the Olympic slogan, the slight but powerful wrestler from small-town B.C. said she couldn't imagine a better choice.
"Those are such special words to me," said Ms. Huynh. "It brings me back to five or six weeks ago, when I'd won that gold medal and was watching our flag rise up into the sky and singing the national anthem ... and I'm sure whoever was watching, maybe cried along with me."
Now, she said, the three-word phrase from O Canada brought everything flooding back: "All the sacrifice, all the obstacles I overcame and all the wonderful memories I have in getting to the top of the podium."
The words speak not only to athletes but to anybody "who has a passion for something, who puts so much effort into what they're doing to be successful, to be better," Ms. Huynh told an overflow crowd of Olympic officials and volunteers at the Games' organization headquarters.
VANOC believes the phrase plucked from the national anthem to verbally brand the Games is an inspirational winner, one that will both resonate with Canadians and strike a chord internationally. It follows previous Olympic mottos, some memorable, some not, such as Beijing's "One World, One Dream," Turin's "Passion Lives Here," and the "Welcome Home" that was used in Athens.
"It says over and over again that there is no such thing as quitting in a Canadian, that we try hard," said VANOC president John Furlong, who seemed to have a catch in his throat throughout his remarks. "It reminds us that Canadians dream big and have big hearts."
VANOC also pointed to the French-language motto for the 2010 Olympics, "Des Plus Brillants Exploits," as unique. The phrase, although taken from the French version of O Canada, is not a direct translation. In English, the words mean: "Our most glorious deeds."
"We wanted the motto to be equally powerful in both English and French," said Ali Gardiner, director of brand and creative services for VANOC. "We felt it was a perfectly Canadian choice, two complementary ideas speaking to the same spirit."
Geoffrey Roche, with the Toronto-based advertising agency Lowe, Roche, congratulated VANOC for its choice. "There's no question it's a smart thing, because it does come from the national anthem and it gives the country a very good feeling about itself."
Mr. Roche said he tried the phrase out on a cab driver who had been in Canada for just seven years and the driver said: "Oh yeah, yeah ...," quickly recognizing it from O Canada.
VANOC, meanwhile, says it has no intention of curbing widespread usage of the motto by Canadians or seeking to own the phrase, despite its application to trademark With Glowing Hearts.
"Restricting [the words] is exactly the opposite of what we're going to do," said executive vice-president Dave Cobb. "We want the motto to be used extensively across the country by everybody. Our hope is that people will like it, that it will resonate with Canadians and with the world."
The only caveat, he said, is that companies may not use With Glowing Hearts to create a connection to the Winter Games in order to make a profit. "Our trademark application is simply to give us some protection against the commercial use of those words, in terms of the Olympics."
For instance, he said there's nothing wrong with an existing, home-run enterprise in Stratford, Ont., that calls its fine woolens business, With Glowing Hearts. "As long as it doesn't have anything to do with the Olympics, it's okay."
But if the business suddenly slapped Olympic rings on their sweaters, that would be a problem, according to VANOC officials. Corporate sponsors will also be prohibited from using the motto to peddle their wares.
The motto emerged from a brainstorming session in Montreal last year, included among a number of suggestions written down by one of the five participating groups.
"When the words were put down on a sheet of paper, we instantly knew we had the right one," Mr. Cobb said. "They stood out so clearly above the rest."
World speed-skating champion Denny Morrison, from Fort St. John, B.C., also applauded the choice, noting that, unlike other Olympic slogans, it is not performance-based. "It's a Canadian thing."
VANOC is about to launch an intense, cross-country advertising blitz to market its new motto, using TV, the Internet and movie theatres for fast-paced commercials featuring such prominent Canadians as Steve Nash, Cindy Klassen, Sarah McLachlan and Trevor Linden.
