EDMONTON - If you haven’t planned on zipping downtown to take part in the 2010 Grey Cup Festival this November, organizers hope this might change your mind.
In the days leading up to the Grey Cup championship at Commonwealth Stadium Nov. 28, football fans are invited to get a bird’s-eye view of downtown’s Telus StreetFest by racing along a pair of parallel ziplines that cover the distance of a football field.
The Capital Power Zipline begins eight storeys off the ground and ends on top of a three-storey building, crossing 520 feet through the air.
“The Capital Power Zipline will span Sir Winston Churchill Square for the four days of the Grey Cup Festival,” said Capital Power president and CEO Brian Vaasio. “To give you an order of magnitude, this is the same as travelling from one end of a football field to the other — a tremendous experience.”
And it’s all free, while organizers are collecting donations for the Edmonton Garrison Military Family Resource Centre.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun,” said Whistler, B.C.-based Ziptrek president David Udow, who expects to have between 50 and 60 people zipped through per hour.
“We were hired by the province of B.C. to run a similar type of event in downtown Vancouver during the Olympics and we got a huge amount of media attention because we had people from all over the world able to share in this amazing experience which in some cases was: ‘Hey, this is kind of fun,’ and in some cases was: ‘This is the absolute scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life.’ ”
To ensure safety, the zipline will be supervised by the Canadian Armed Forces.
“We are definitely looking forward to the Grey Cup festivities coming up this November in Edmonton,” said Land Force Western Area community operations officer Major John Shorten.
Also announced Wednesday at a press conference at Commonwealth, the Telus StreetFest will cover three blocks downtown along 99th Street, offering an entertainment stage and food vendors.
gerry.moddejonge@sunmedia.ca
