Flower Sweepers @ Olympic Ice Rink

The bottom front page of the Wall Street Journal features interesting yet somewhat odd human interest stories. Today's story, "Eleven-Year-Old Makes Clean Sweep in Olympic Figure Skating" is about the 30 or so local Vancouver children who tried out to become official volunteer "flower sweepers". Apparently, there is a long tradition in ice skating for fans to toss stuffed animals, flowers, and other items onto the ice after their favorite skater finishes a performance. It is the job of the young volunteers to dart out onto the ice between performances and rapidly scoop up and deposit all the "gifts" into bags to give to the performers. All this in less than two minutes! (See above photo by European Press. WJS article by Media and Marketing reporter, Geoffrey A. Fowler.)

According to the WSJ, 135 children tried out to be flower sweepers. They need to be very good skaters, but also obey the rules including working as a team, don't show off, and gracefully squat down to pick up a toy -- never bend over and offend an audience! The children get to wear sequin-covered outfits.

I'm sure my skating friends Nancy and Megan are familiar with this tradition!