Canada Post honours ski team with express envelopes

Canada Post has paid tribute to members of the Canadian Freestyle Ski team with special prepaid express mail envelopes available at post offices across Canada. The campaign comes as part of its five-year-old partnership with the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association, through which the postal operator has provided training funds to assist more than 2,000 freestyle skiers in Canada.

Athletes from Canada’s 2010-2011 Freestyle Ski team will be featured on both Priority Next A.M. and Xpresspost envelopes.

Last year, the team’s 18 athletes helped propel Canada to the top of the Olympics medal table, with gold medals won by Alexandre Bilodeau in the men’s moguls event and by Ashleigh McIvor in the women’s ski cross, as well as a silver medal for Jennifer Heil in the women’s moguls event.

Bilodeau will be one of the athletes featured on Canada Post’s Regional Xpresspost Next Day prepaid envelope, while Heil will be among team members featured on the National Xpresspost Next Day prepaid envelope.

Louis O’Brien, Canada Post’s Chief Customer Officer, said the team’s performance at Vancouver was “world class”.

O’Brien said: “We’re proud of our partnership with the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association and honoured to recognize the outstanding commitment and dedication of the team with these Xpresspost and Priority Next A.M.Prepaid envelopes. We wish the team all the best on the world scene this season.”

Canada Post teamed up with the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association in November 2006, becoming title sponsor of the Canadian Freestyle Ski team while committing $1 million a year over six years to support training and competitive commitments of the national team.

The partnership seen as giving Canada Post “tremendous visibility” also includes sponsoring international, North American and national freestyle skiing events held in Canada.

Commenting on the new envelopes campaign, Canadian Freestyle Ski Association chief executive Peter Judge said: “These envelopes give Canadians an opportunity to show their support for members of Canadian Freestyle Ski team.”

Stamps

Separately today, Canada Post announced that it is to honour journalist and civil rights campaigner Carrie Best and baseball legend Fergie Jenkins with commemorative stamps.

Best was a human rights columnist for the Pictou Advocate and founder of Nova Scotia newspaper The Clarion known for her fearlessly determined activism.

Jenkins was a pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers and Boston Red Sox who is the only Canadian honoured in America’s National Baseball Hall of Fame. In 2000, he established his charitable foundation, The Fergie Jenkins Foundation.

“Carrie Best was a tenacious crusader who fought not only for her own rights, but also for the rights of other women and minorities throughout her trailblazing career. Baseball legend Fergie Jenkins’ hard work on and off the baseball field is well known throughout the world of sport,” says Jim Phillips, Director of Stamps Services at Canada Post.