VANCOUVER -- Olympic gold-medal goaltender Roberto Luongo lit a Paralympic cauldron in front of a cheering crowd of hundreds at Robson Square on Thursday evening.
The Vancouver Canucks captain made his through the flag-waving masses carrying a Paralympic torch as the crowd called, "Looooooou, Loooooou, Looooou."
OTTAWA ' Dozens of schoolchildren, politicians and the public cheered Canada's torchbearers who carried the Paralympic flame in a relay to Parliament Hill after it was ignited earlier just a few hundred metres away on Ottawa's Victoria Island by Aboriginal firekeepers of the Pikwakanagan and Kitigan Zibi Algonquin bands.
More than 600 torchbearers will carry the flame leading up to the March 12 start of the Paralympic Games in Vancouver, and Ottawa was the first stop. The flame will be taken to Quebec City Thursday, to Toronto on Friday and later to several communities in British Columbia, before the Paralympic cauldron is lit at BC Place in Vancouver, marking the beginning of the 10-day Winter Paralympics.
