INSIDE: Scorching temps send mercury soaring, breaks record July 9, 2010
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LOCAL NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER & ENTERTAINMENT chilliwacktimes.com
Oranje fever
Chopper helps put brakes on car thief
Chilliwack’s loud & proud Dutch community hoping for World Cup victory
BY TYLER OLSEN tolsen@chilliwacktimes.com
A
man is in custody after a 40-minute crime spree was brought to an end by an RCMP helicopter Wednesday afternoon. It began rather innocuously at around 12:20 p.m. when a witness reported the theft of a car from a Luckakuck Way parking lot. The car, a red Plymouth Acclaim, was located by a police cruiser soon after on Vedder Road, but then the situation got interesting. When the driver pulled into a parking lot in the 5700 block of Vedder Road, the police car a c t i va t e d i t s lights in an attempt to pull over the susEB IRST pect. First reported on But the suschilliwacktimes.com pect had different ideas and, according to RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Lea-Anne Dunlop, “drove the stolen vehicle over the curb, over trees and shrubs, across the boulevard and public sidewalk and back out onto Vedder Road to evade police.” Police looked north down Vedder Road and watched the suspect leave the vehicle and begin running. The car was still moving, however, and officers remained at the scene to monitor the Plymouth as it left the right side of the road and struck a tree and brick wall fence. Dunlop said the situation could have been far worse. “His driving and his attempts to evade police were very, very
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BY TYLER OLSEN tolsen@chilliwacktimes.com
Paul. J. Henderson /TIMES
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hilliwack’s large Dutch community will be yelling “Hup Holland!” this weekend as the Netherlands squares off in the World Cup final Sunday in South Africa. For the past two weeks, Chilliwack has grown steadily more orange as the Dutch have made their way through the group and knockout stages, where they knocked off powerhouse Brazil. Even the local UPS store, where brown is usually the dominant colour, has gone orange, thanks to owners Jos and Fieny Van den Boom. The Van den Booms, who immigrated from the Netherlands nine years ago, have woken up as early as 4 a.m. to watch their team in action. “We are pretty excited for Sunday,” Jos told the Times. He said he is “as confident as the Dutch always are” and that the local Dutch community is optimistic that their heroes will triumph this weekend. While Canadians of uncertain descent, like this reporter, may have a difficult time finding a rooting interest in the world’s largest sporting event, for those with roots overseas the World Cup can be a way to reconnect with one’s birth nation. While his family has been in Canada for nearly a decade now, Jos said that he feels more of an affinity for his country and its symbols— the monarchy and the soccer team—than he did when living in the Netherlands. “We are more Dutch here than we ever were in the Netherlands,” he said. “You’re more interested in what’s going on and you feel more attached to the country than you did before.” That feeling, he says, is not unique to his family nor immigrants from Holland.
Local wood baron Robert Prinse proudly flies a Dutch soccer flag behind his bike.
“The English over here are more English than over there [in Europe],” he added, noting that he still cheers for Canadian athletes in competitions against countries other Holland. Jos hoped the Netherlands would face Germany in the final and exact revenge for the 1974 Dutch loss to West Germany in that year’s championship game. For a time, that rematch looked likely. Like most keen observers, Craig Doble, who coaches with Bolton Wanderers’ international academy and who was in town for a soccer camp at Townsend field, predicted Germany to beat not just Spain, but the Netherlands in the final. And in the Klassic European Deli on
Wednesday, the game blared from speakers, employee Urusla Linau sported a hat with two German flags, and the colours of Germany and the Netherlands hung above a refrigerator. With Linau hailing from Germany and two other employees of Dutch descent there was hope that Germany would reach the final and up the tension. “To make it interesting we want the teams to be Netherlands and Germany,” said Linau. Alas it was not to be, as the Germans fell 1-0 to Spain. At Corky’s Pub, where a couple dozen fans watched the proceedings, a German fan who would only give his name as Eric said, “We See ORANJE, Page 27
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