Calgary

Ashwin Sood is a Canadian musician. Sood plays drums, percussion, keyboards, and sings. Sood was Sarah McLachlan's drummer and was married to... McLachlan, although they are now separated. Sood grew up in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He started playing the drums at age seven. In high school, he played with a band called Banood where he played drums, percussion and provided vocals for the group. Sood also arranged and conducted horn parts for Banood. In 2005 Banood reunited briefly. In 1990 he graduated from the California's Musicians Institute . Sood has produced songs and albums, including those for McLachlan, Bass is Base, and Lilith Fair. In the past, he has played with Lava Hay and Mae Moore. He met McLachlan while on tour with Lava Hay in the early 1990s. She asked him to play for "I Will Not Forget You" on her Solace CD. On February 7, 1997, Sood and McLachlan were married in Negril, Jamaica. On April 6, 2002, their first daughter, India Ann Sushil Sood, was born. The couple revealed on March 20, 2007 that they were expecting a second child.
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Thomas Billington , best known by the ring name Dynamite Kid, is a retired British professional wrestler who competed in the World Wrestling... Federation, Stampede Wrestling, All Japan Pro Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling in the mid- to late-1980s. With his cousin Davey Boy Smith, Billington became best known for being half of the tag team the British Bulldogs. He has had notable feuds with Tiger Mask in Japan and Bret Hart in Canada. He was born in Golborne, Lancashire. Academics were not a priority to Tom, but he was drawn to the sport programme at his comprehensive school; his adherence to it, particularly wrestling and gymnastics, helped him develop a relatively small but powerful and agile shape. In addition, he had also received training in boxing during his formative years, which helped instill toughness in him before his career. His father, the brother of Davey Boy Smith's mother, was a miner and itinerant labourer who often took young Thomas to see wrestling matches in Wigan, then as now well known for its wrestling tradition.
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Meaghan Simister is a Canadian Olympic luger who has competed since 2003. In the 2005/2006 season, Simister placed second in the Canadian... championship competition. In international competition, she came in 14th at the Koenigssee, Germany World Cup. Her first Olympics were the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. During the Olympics on February 14, she sustained minor injuries from a crash on the luge track, in the third of four runs, when she went to high on one of the corners of the track. As a result of the crash, she didn't proceed to the fourth run. Simister's best finish at the FIL World Luge Championships was ninth in the women's singles event at Oberhof in 2008. She qualified for the 2010 Winter Olympics where she finished 25th. Simister was one of about 20 athletes in the 2006 Winter Olympics to have attended high school at the National Sport School in Calgary, Alberta.
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Lascelles Brown is a Jamaican-born bobsledder who has competed for three different countries since starting his career in 1999. Competing in three... Winter Olympics, he is the first Jamaican-born athlete to win a Winter Olympic medal. He was born in Clarendon, Jamaica. Brown was a member of the Jamaica national bobsled team from 1999 to 2004, competing at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, as a brakeman for Winston Watt. The Jamaican duo set the track push record during those games. He continued training for bobsleigh at Calgary's Canada Olympic Park, where he met and married his wife Kara, a Canadian. As of 2009, they have three daughters together. He applied for Canadian citizenship on July 28, 2005; it was awarded to him by special exemption just prior to the 2006 Winter Olympics, enabling him to compete for Canada at the games in Turin. Brown is currently acting as the brakeman for Lyndon Rush in both the 2-man and 4-man event. Brown competed at the 2010 Winter Olympics together with Rush on their home track at the Whistler Sliding Centre, winning bronze in the four-man event.
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Helen Lesley Upperton is a Canadian bobsledder who has competed since 2000. Upperton was born in Ahmadi, Kuwait as her parents involvement in the... oil industry meant they traveled abroad. She holds dual citizenship of both Great Britain and Canada. Upperton won the silver medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics after previously finishing fourth in the two-woman event at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. She went to high school at Dr. E.P. Scarlett High School Upperton also competed in the FIBT World Championships, earning her best finish of fourth in the two-woman event at Altenberg in 2008. Her best overall Bobsleigh World Cup finish was second in the two-woman event in the 2005-06 season. A former triple jumper at the University of Texas at Austin, Upperton moved to bobsleigh in 2002. In the 2005-06 season she won four medals on the World cup including a gold at an event in St. Moritz, Switzerland. She won a silver medal in the Two-woman competition at the 2010 Winter Olympics with Shelley-Ann Brown. The gold medal was won by fellow Canadians Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse.
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Regan Lauscher is a Canadian luger. Competing in three Winter Olympics, she earned her best finish of tenth in the women's singles event at Turin in... 2006. Her second place finish at the Luge World competitions at Lake Placid, New York in 2004 was the best ever time by a Canadian female luger. Lauscher's best finish at the FIL World Luge Championships was ninth in the women's singles event at Park City, Utah in 2005. During the 2006 Winter Olympics, Lauscher wrote an online journal for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation about her views and actions during those games. Prior to the 2006 games, she had earned her journalism degree from Mount Royal College. Lauscher had surgeries on both of her shoulders in May 2008 and resumed training in October.
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Mark Robert Rypien is a former American football quarterback in the National Football League. He is the first Canadian-born quarterback to start in... the NFL. After attending Shadle Park high school in Spokane, Washington, Rypien played college football at Washington State University. He then left college early and was selected in the sixth round of the 1986 NFL Draft. He spent the next two years on the Washington Redskins injured reserved list. He watched from the sidelines as the Redskins won Super Bowl XXII under coach Joe Gibbs in January 1988. With Doug Williams aging and the trading of Jay Schroeder to the Los Angeles Raiders, Rypien emerged. In his first full year as a starter, he threw for 3,768 yards with 22 touchdowns. He gained his first Pro Bowl berth, albeit as an injury replacement. He was best known for his accuracy as a deep passer, developing an incredible sense of timing with receivers downfield. Sports reporters in Washington would quip that he couldn't complete a pass to a backup quarterback during a warmup toss, but come game time, he could hit Art Monk or Gary Clark in perfect stride from fifty yards away.
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Roark Grant Critchlow is a Canadian actor, best known for appearing on the daytime US soap opera Days of our Lives from 1994 to 1999 as Dr. Mike... Horton. He also had a recurring role on the soap Passions. More recently he was in the TV movie The Perfect Husband: The Laci Peterson Story as well as appearing in the Nickelodeon series Drake & Josh as Dr. Glazer. He also portrayed Jamie Lynn Spears's father in Zoey 101. Roark has had smaller roles in movies like Mr. Deeds with Adam Sandler and TV shows such as Malcolm in the Middle, Entourage, Charmed, Highlander: The Series, Afterworld and Friends. In 2009, he appeared in an episode of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. He also appeared in the 2009 movie "Hydra" as Sean Trotta. Critchlow currently has a recurring role on the science fiction TV show V and on ABC Family's breakout-hit "Pretty Little Liars", where he has the role as Tom Marin . Critchlow was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He was a theater major at the University of Victoria, and married Maria Brewer in 1990, with whom he produced and co-starred in Making it Home.
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Kyle Keith Shewfelt is a Canadian gymnast. His gold medal in the men's floor exercise competition at the 2004 Athens Olympics was the first medal... ever by a Canadian in an artistic gymnastics event and was the first Canadian gold of the 2004 Olympics. He also has a vault named after him. Shewfelt was considered a medal threat in advance of the Athens games. In the end, Shewfelt finished first on Floor and fourth on Vault. Born in Calgary, Shewfelt first began practicing gymnastics in 1988 influenced by a neighbour. His father was also an athlete playing for the Brandon Wheat Kings hockey team. While Shewfelt was a skilled hockey player he turned to gymnastics at an early age. He attended Calgary's National Sport School in order to complete his high school education, while pursuing his Olympic plans with fellow athletes at the school . Kyle trained at Altadore Gymnastic Club under coach Kelly Manjak, from age 6 up until the 2004 Olympics. Manjak married in 2004 and moved following the Olympics to Ontario. Shewfelt stayed in Calgary, training with coach Tony Smith at the University of Calgary.
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Erica Durance is a Canadian actress. She has also been credited as Erica Parker. She is best known for her role as Lois Lane in the... Superman-inspired American television series Smallville. Durance was born in Calgary, Alberta and was raised in Three Hills, Alberta. After graduating from high school, Durance moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, to pursue her interest in acting professionally. "I wanted to get my feet wet in a smaller area than Los Angeles when I gave it a try", Durance has said. She continued to study acting at The Yaletown Actors Lab for many years with her husband, David Palffy. She started out with background work, graduating to commercials, and then guest-starring roles, landing more substantial roles each time. In 2004, she guest-starred on The Chris Isaak Show playing Ashley, a woman on a date with Chris. In Tru Calling, her character was a contender in a beauty pageant opposite Eliza Dushku's character. On the Sci-Fi Channel, she played an intergalactic librarian in Andromeda and a love interest for Teal'c in Stargate SG-1. She also played a sister to one of the leads in the Canadian show The Collector.
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Lanny Mark Poffo , better known by his ring name "Leaping" Lanny is an American professional wrestler. Poffo was born in Calgary, Canada, to Angelo... Poffo, an Italian American Catholic, and Judy, a Jewish American. He is also the brother of wrestling legend "Macho Man" Randy Savage. Poffo grew up in Downers Grove, Illinois. He began wrestling in the NWA territories in the 1970s before becoming a star in his father's promotion, International Championship Wrestling, where he held the promotion's title. Over the course of his regional career, Poffo both tag teamed and feuded with older brother Randy. Upon the ICW's folding in 1984, he joined Randy in the CWA before traveling with him again to the World Wrestling Federation in June 1985. The brother angle was never worked in the WWF and the relationship was never mentioned on-air. While Lanny never attained the popularity of his brother in the WWF, he still managed to find a niche for himself as a minor fan favorite.
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Teddy Annis , is a Canadian professional wrestler, better known by his ring name Teddy Hart. He is currently working on the American independent... circuit for promotions such as Jersey All Pro Wrestling and Dragon Gate USA. He has also wrestled for the Mexican promotion Asistencia Asesoría y Administración and the short-lived Wrestling Society X on MTV, and operates a wrestling school in Calgary. Hart achieved a degree of fame when he became the youngest wrestler to be signed to the World Wrestling Federation. His subsequent release and controversial actions while wrestling on the independent circuit have earned him a measure of infamy. Hart debuted in July 1995 at Rockyford, Alberta, where he teamed up with his brother, Matthew, for the first time, and defeated his cousin, Harry Smith, and TJ Wilson. In the Calgary-based Stampede Wrestling promotion, Hart teamed with Smith, Wilson and Jack Evans. In 2000, he wrestled for and was a key creative figure in the Matrats promotion. In 1998, Hart became the youngest person in wrestling history to be signed to a World Wrestling Federation developmental contract, and was sent to train with Dory Funk, Jr.
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