The Canadians are coming! The Canadians are coming!

In this year’s Space Elevator Games, no fewer than five teams from Canada have entered the Climber/Power Beaming competition.  Returning from last year are teams from the University of Saskatchewan (USST) and from the University of British Columbia (Snowstar).  New Canadian entries this year include the McGill Space Elevator Team (from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec), the Queens Space Elevator Team (from Queens University in Kingston, Ontario) and the University of Alberta Space Elevator Racing Team (from the University of Alberta in Edmonton).

USST has to be considered the early favorite for this competition.  They finished first in the competitions in 2005 and 2006 and missed out on the prize money last year by just two seconds.

I’m personally very glad that we have so many entries from north of the border.  My wife is a Canadian citizen so fully half of my extended family are Canucks.  In addition, this land of Moose, Hockey, and Mounted Police brews a plethora of fine beer.  Now, I’m an American and I love my country (and my beer), but it is my personal opinion that most American beers are not up to world standards.  So, I would take it as a very great personal favor if each of the teams would bring yours truly a six-pack of their favorite brew.  If you do, I promise to reimburse you in American or Canadian dollars and to post a very favorable story about your team 🙂

CBC news, a Canadian news organization which did a fine job of covering the games last year, has posted a story about this year’s Canadian invasion of the games.