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Gold medal gift for boy’s oldest friend

Grant Warkentin
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Ben Wagg won tickets to the men’s moguls but was unable to attend – so he generously gave them to his best buddy.

Grant Warkentin

Campbell River Mirror

Young Ben Wagg didn’t get to see Alexandre Bilodeau’s gold medal performance on the moguls at the Olympics on Sunday.

However, his oldest friend did.

Wagg, who won two tickets to the event for his entry in the city’s “Why I Love Campbell River” contest, didn’t get to go because his family couldn’t get two more tickets so they could go together, explained his mom Cathe Wagg. And besides, she said, they are already going to Vancouver in 10 days for two other events – the men’s hockey quarter-final, and the men’s curling gold medal game. Planning a second family trip was just too much.

But they got an idea. They plan to stay with friends in Vancouver during their visit, a friend of Cathe’s – a fellow nurse and former co-worker – and Ben’s oldest friend, Matthew.

“They’ve known each other since he was 18 months old,” she said.

Their hosts weren’t able to get any tickets and didn’t plan to go to the Games, so the Waggs decided to offer the men’s freestyle moguls tickets as a way of saying thanks.

They had a blast, she said.

“They thoroughly enjoyed every moment of that Olympic gold medal performance,” she said. “We all felt good about it because they got to go.”

She said they described the experience as a “thrill of a lifetime.”