July 23, 2005
From The Niagara Falls Review
By JOHN LAW Review Staff Writer
Saturday, July 23, 2005 – 02:00
Local News -
NIAGARA FALLS – Hundreds of fans helped turn Clifton Hill into Piper’s Pit Friday.
With his trademark kilt and black leather jacket, wrestling legend “Rowdy” Roddy Piper hosted a humorous edition of his famed talk show outside the WWE store, even plucking a young fan from the crowd to join him.
“I’ve done a lot of Piper’s Pits, and I thought to myself, maybe one of you folks would like to do one,” he asked the pumped up crowd.
The WWE hall of famer and his co-host, donning a Hot Rod T-shirt, traded barbs with veteran announcer Bobby “The Brain” Heenan before heading inside to sign autographs.
Piper broke into a huge smile when fans started chanting “old school!” Piper and Heenan were a huge part of wrestling’s golden era in the mid 1980s, when the World Wrestling Federation exploded in popularity.
With his tag team partner Paul Orndorf, Piper headlined the first Wrestlemania at Madison Square Garden against Hulk Hogan and Mr. T.
Even as the company’s top villain he was a fan favourite.
“Every time I got in the ring, no matter how I was feeling, I gave everything I could,” he said. “Kind of like Bob Dylan. He has got so much heart you can’t help but enjoy him. I think that’s what was my strong suit.”
Piper clowned with the crowd when they chanted “coconuts!” In his most famous Piper’s Pit segment, he smashed a coconut across the face of ‘Superfly’ Jimmy Snuka – a classic bit of villainy fans still recall fondly.
Piper’s character was the ideal foil for Hogan, helping the Hulkster become the biggest star in wrestling history. Piper guesses they battled about 150 times, but he was never pinned.
“I wouldn’t take a dive for him,” he said. “I went seventeen and a half years without him pinning my shoulders.
“But there’s a respect for each other. It’s very much like Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier … not to compare myself to those great athletes.”
Piper is no longer an active wrestler, but still makes surprise appearances on WWE television.
When asked if the business is still fun, Piper paused before replying: “Sometimes, when I don’t have to contend with the politics.”
Piper and Heenan were joined by WWE mainstay “Mean” Gene Okerlund for the autograph session.
Greeting fans at the store today will be Christian and Batista at 1 p.m., and Booker T and Rey Mysterio at 4 p.m.
Piper also has devoted fans from the cult classic movie They Live! The film’s most famous scene, when he walks into a bank and delivers the oft-quoted “bubblegum” line, was actually a wrestling improv.
“(Director) John Carpenter says, ‘Roddy, you’re walking into a bank, with sunglasses and a shotgun with bullets … but you’re not going to rob it. Say something. Action!’
“I say, ‘I’ve come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I’m all out of bubblegum.’ Great! Next! Move on! That was an old line I used to use.”
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Niagara Falls Review acticles reprinted with permission.
July 19, 2005
Printed from Niagara Falls Review
By DAN DAKIN
Tuesday, July 19, 2005 – 02:00
Local News -
NIAGARA FALLS – Niagara Falls took one step closer to becoming an international golf destination Monday.
The first phase of a $180-million resort project held its grand opening with the launch of the Grand Niagara Club, an 18-hole championship golf course designed by legendary architect Rees Jones.
Built along the Welland River in south Niagara Falls, the facility is the most luxurious in the region with the potential to host major golf tours and a $150 per round price tag.
“We always felt we wanted to go for the top of the market and Niagara was an obvious choice because we’re right in the centre of a huge population base and we’re catering to the Americans and the Canadians,” said John Sorokolit, who owns the course along with his brother Bill, father Bill Sr. and business partner Anthony Sharp.
The long-term plan will see a 308-hectare section of land bordered by the Welland River and Montrose, Biggar and Morris roads developed into a full resort with two 18-hole courses, 300 time-share condominiums, a 250-room hotel, a winery and restaurants. The second course is being designed by famous golfer Greg Norman, who came to Niagara Falls in 2003 to launch the project.
The total price tag will be nearly $180 million and is expected to be ready by 2008.
While the Jones’ course is open to the public, the Norman course will be a luxury private facility. Only 250 memberships will be available and to get one it will cost $75,000 initially with an annual fee of around $10,000.
“Greg Norman is a legend in the golf world and people have been asking about that course since we announced it,” said Sorokolit.
The phase that opened Monday was the course designed by Jones, who is considered to be among the top three designers in North America.
When the project was first announced two years ago, the property was a mix of farmland, forest and open fields. However, after resculpting the land by moving 600,000 square metres of earth and creating 12 hectares of lakes, the course now looks like it has been around for years
Even Jones said he was somewhat surprised with how well the transformation ended up.
“Sometimes, I’m sort of amazed,” Jones said with a laugh Monday after playing the course for the first time a day earlier. “We knew how to tackle a site like this because we’ve had a lot of relatively flat sites before.”
The cost of the project so far is around $26 million and that doesn’t include construction of a clubhouse, which will be built next spring.
By the time that opens, a round of golf at the Grand Niagara Club will cost around $165 with a cart, but Sorokolit said the course is worthy of that kind of price tag.
“In my opinion, this is probably the best public golf course in Ontario, and if you look at the top courses like Angus Glen, Lionhead, Taboo, Eagle’s Nest, they’re all around $175,” he said, adding there will be a local discount to encourage city residents to play the course as well. For now, there’s an introductory rate of $127 including a cart.
Niagara Falls will see another high-end course open in two weeks when John Daly comes to town to unveil Thundering Waters south of McLeod Road, but Sorokolit said he doesn’t look at that course, or any others around, as competition.
“Our goal has always been to be at the top end of the market and I think it’s important that if Niagara is going to become a true golf destination, we need four or five platinum-level courses,” he said. “We welcome more courses in this area because I think it will help the area as a whole.”
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Niagara Falls Review acticles reprinted with permission by the authority of Joe Wallace, Managing Editor of the Niagara Falls Review.
July 18, 2005
Printed from Niagara Falls Review
By COREY LAROCQUE
Monday, July 18, 2005 – 02:00
Local News -
NIAGARA FALLS – The Prince of the Air has a new jewel in his crown.
Wirewalker Jay Cochrane, who cancelled his high-wire act between the Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort and the Skylon Tower three times, finally put on the show Saturday afternoon.
“There’s only one way it goes. Either it goes good or it goes bad,” Cochrane said in an interview later.
It took him about 35 minutes to walk from the top of the Fallsview Casino’s hotel tower to the roof of the Skylon Tower’s observation deck. It’s 540 metres from start to finish, making it a North American record for high-wire performances.
“I just figure a guy like that can’t have too much in his head,” said Rufus Hill, a vacationer from Texas, one of hundreds in the Skylon Tower watching the show. “I want to know where he practises. What makes him think he can go up there?”
At 3 p.m., Cochrane was milling about on the roof of the casino’s green “onion-dome” rooftop. He had been there before. On July 1 and 4, he called off the show because the equipment wasn’t ready. On July 9, he backed down because of high winds.
Spotty weather all day Saturday made it seem there would be another cancellation. Cochrane was at the top of the casino well before 3 p.m., monitoring the situation.
At 3:35 p.m., he stepped out from the platform, sporting his now-familiar blue and white suit, white shoes and carrying his white balancing pole.
From his perch overlooking Niagara Falls, Cochrane’s show is visible to thousands of people. There was a buzz among spectators on the Skylon’s observation deck. They knew it was the first time Cochrane, who normally does a shorter distance between the rooftops of the casino and Hilton hotel, was trying this stretch. They chattered about the fact he had cancelled his previous walks.
“I was nervous, but he did a great job. I didn’t know if he was going to fall or not,” said Olivia Boraggina, a girl from Temperance, Mich., who watched from the Skylon Tower with her family.
There’s a noticeable sagging in the cable because of the distance between the two buildings. And the height difference between the Skylon Tower and casino means Cochrane was walking uphill for the second half of his show. He started at the casino 120 metres above the ground and finished at the Skylon’s roof, 180 metres high.
“The wire moved a tremendous amount,” he said.
Asked if there’s much difference between the Skylon walk and the walk to the Hilton, he said, “Yes. Three times.”
Strains of a soundtrack of dramatic music playing at ground level drifted up to the Skylon, including composer Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, though Cochrane’s feat proved he’s anything but.
With the Horseshoe Falls visible behind and below him, Cochrane plodded along to Somewhere Over the Rainbow (“way up high”).
There was no rainbow Saturday, however. The sky was grey. It had rained about an hour before his show, then there was a heavy downpour an hour afterward.
Later, he said he figured he had a 90-minute window between storms.
“If I quit my day job, I’ll be a weatherman. And I’ll be a good one,” he said.
As Cochrane inched closer to the Skylon Tower, spectators got a better look at the performer who began as a dot on the horizon. As approached, they were guessing his age and commenting on his shock of blond hair.
The 61-year-old performer has turned the art of wirewalking into a day at the office. He bristles at the suggestion he’s a daredevil and prefers to be characterized as a professional performer.
“A daredevil – maybe he makes it, maybe he doesn’t. He doesn’t know when to say, ‘Not today,’” Cochrane said.
Cochrane is scheduled to do 178 performances.
If weather conditions force him to do fewer than that, they will all be safe ones. Because he raises money for a charity that helps sick children, he will never do a show that risks traumatizing an audience, he said.
On Saturday, there was no trademark salute to the audience like he does on the shorter casino-to-Hilton walks. But as he neared the end of the Saturday’s show, he looked up and flashed a quick grin at the crowd on the Skylon Tower’s observation deck. Applause erupted as he reached the relative safety of the Skylon’s roof at 4:10 p.m.
Cochrane performs Sunday to Friday, crossing Fallsview Boulevard between the casino and the Hilton hotel twice a day at 2 and 8 p.m. With the Skylon walk now under his belt, he is scheduled to do the longer walk every Saturday at 3:30 p.m., until Labour Day. He uses his performances to raise money for the Tender Wishes Foundation, encouraging his audience to make donations after the show.
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Niagara Falls Review acticles reprinted with permission by the authority of Joe Wallace, Managing Editor of the Niagara Falls Review.
July 7, 2005
Printed from Niagara Falls Review
By JENNIFER PELLEGRINI
Thursday, July 07, 2005 – 02:00
Local News -
NIAGARA FALLS – The fourth beluga whale born at Marineland’s Arctic Cove arrived in the usual fashion Sunday – in the wee, small hours of the morning.
By noon, the 12-hour-old calf – a “little” girl, tipping the scales at 150 pounds – was feeding heartily from mom Priscilla, and making contact with others in her pod at the popular aquatic attraction.
“This is our fourth successful birth at Marineland,” marketing manager Ann Marie Rondinelli said Wednesday. “A new birth is always good news.”
Animal trainers had been watching 13-year-old Priscilla for weeks, waiting for the first-time mother to give birth. With a 14- to 16-month gestation period, nobody knew exactly when she was due until the contractions started coming.
At that point, staff began watching Priscilla around-the-clock, making sure the birth went according to plan, said Tom Western, senior marine mammal trainer.
“The first 48 hours are always crucial, and it’s worrying if a calf doesn’t start nursing within 24 hours,” Rondinelli said. “But this little one was ahead of the game.”
Despite her strong start, the newborn calf remains under the watchful eye of animal trainers, who are also keeping close watch on belugas Denise and Xena, who are due any day.
While the new baby adjusts and the two mothers-to-be wait for their calves to arrive, the adult male belugas have been moved to another tank.
Just who fathered the as-yet unnamed calf is a mystery, as is the paternity of Denise and Xena’s bundles of joy, or the three due next year.
“None of the guys are owning up to it,” Rondinelli joked.
Kidding aside, Rondinelli said the new beluga, which brings Arctic Cove’s number to 21, has been a big hit with the crowds.
“Normally people come through here, but they don’t stay down here too long,” Rondinelli said of the underwater viewing area at Arctic Cove.
“But right now, people are enjoying watching the new baby.”
Indeed, there was plenty of gasping and pointing, particularly when the new baby latched onto mom for a quick snack while they entertained the crowds.
Four-year-old Sarah Howitt, visiting Niagara Falls with her family from Vancouver Island, has seen plenty of whales on the West Coast, but hadn’t seen a three-day-old beluga up close before.
“It’s really cute,” she said.
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Niagara Falls Review acticles reprinted with permission by the authority of Joe Wallace, Managing Editor of the Niagara Falls Review.
