The Black Widow Rope Spinners had Rick Mercer using muscles he hadn’t exercised since grade school.
“I’ve done some serious skipping and I finally mastered the double dutch, something I never accomplished when I was in Grade 6,” Mercer said.
The political pundit and Canadian TV icon made a visit to Holy Cross School to test his metal in the sport of rope skipping.
Unfortunately, his playground memories from yesteryear didn’t help out too much.
“Apparently, those (rhymes) are out. They don’t do the rhymes anymore. One of the young women suggested that that’s something they do in the olden days. Which I remember,” Mercer said.
The Rick Mercer Report, a comedic take on Canadian news and politics, has been on the air for 12 years now and is constantly looking for opportunities for the host to jump into a new and interesting experiences, like joining a jump rope team for a day.
Cathy Cunningham, coach of the Black Widow Rope Spinners, has been coaching for 10 years and first met Mercer when her son Daniel was on an episode of the Mercer Report in 2011 where his power wheelchair soccer team was featured.
“That was when I first met him and figured out this would be a great opportunity for the jump rope team,” Cunningham said. “He loves doing these kinds of activities, he’s never jumped before so it’s good to have him out and take part.”
Her younger son Thomas is a part of the Jump Rope B.C. All-Star team in his third year and was assistant coach for the Black Widow team for four years before he went to university. He was featured in the segment with Mercer.
“It’s really cool because it helps promote the sport in general. If more people see it there might be more teams popping up because we’ve actually lost a couple teams in the country over the last couple years,” Cunningham said. “A lot of people don’t see it as a full-on sport, so we really want to promote that it’s competitive and has a high requirement of development, so it is actually a sport.”
He said the sport faces some challenges due to longstanding stigmas.
“It’s hard to generate interest in males in particular because it’s for some reason seen as a girl’s sport, but we’re trying to get that out of peoples minds,” Cunningham said.
How did Mercer measure up in his eyes?
“We got him in the double dutch, and he did really good. He did well and we’re going to get him jumping more today,” Cunningham said.
Craig Vanherk is on the provincial board for Jump Rope B.C. and volunteers on the national board for Rope Skipping Canada. Vanherk is a fan of the show and he and his daughter we’re excited that Mercer was featuring their sport.
His daughter Brittany has been jumping for nine years and made the provincial all-star team the last two years running.
“She was thrilled. She’s seen the show and laughed. She’s seen me watching the show and laughing. When we heard of this opportunity it was quite exciting,” Vanherk said.
Mercer wrapped up the visit by competing against some of the Black Widow jumpers in a full-on competition. He still insists he’s got the best job in Canada, a statement that’s hard to argue.
“It’s my dream job. Even today, if I had to write down my dream job this would be pretty close to what I would describe as my ultimate dream job,” Mercer said.
He came out of the experience, as with most of his segments, educated.
“I didn’t know very much about jump rope. Now I know it’s really, really hard, but you know what, it’s a lot of fun and they’re all amazing. It’s obviously a great thing to do,” Mercer said.
