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Wednesday,'February 5, 1882 ia

XViWinterOLYNIPIAD

for the
Games!

I To set the cause above renown, To love the game

beyond the prize, To honor, while you strike him
down, The foe that comes with fearless eyes; To
count the life of battle good, And dear the land that

gave you birth, And dearer yet the brotherhood, That

Getting Q9p
ready

Felix Belczyk

binds the brave of all the earth.

Sir Henry Newbolt

What’s
in store

News Staff

Could 16 be Canada’s lucky
number? .

We'll find out beginning
Saturday as the 16th Winter
Olympiad gets under way in
Albertville, France.

From Eric Lindros and the
national hockey team, to Kurt
Browning’s first hunt for
Olympic gold in figure skating,
Canada has an awesome line-
up for these Games. 5

Beginning with one page in.
today’s issue and continuing

. for the length of the Games,

The News will include a special
Olympic section with listing of
events, the Canadian athletes
and their sports, and of course,
Castlegar’s unique connection
to the Games.

The section will also include
summaries of the coming
events, facts and figures on ev-
e ing from the city of Al-
bertville to Canada’s past per-
formance in the Winter
Olympics, as well as quotes
and anecdotes from athletes
and others.

Let the Games begin! eh?

BOBSLED
& LUGE

FIGURE
SKATING

-

SPEED
SKATING

se

ALPINE &
MOGUL
SKIING

KR |

EXHIBITION
BALLET/AERIAL

NORDIC
SKIING

& BIATHLON

CURLING

g

Freestyle Ballet
Skiing Heats

Freestyle Ballet
Skiing Finals

Women's Com-
bined Slalom

Canada

Czech.;
France;
. Swi

vs.
IS vs.

Freestyle Aerial
Skiing Heats

@ Wednesday, February 5, 1992...

Nine FIVE
THE BUDGET

IS COMING

The federal
government will
do all it can to
stimulate the
economy in the
upcoming budget
— short of
running up the
deficit or
increasing taxes,
Finance Minister
Don
Mazankowski
promised
Monday. A date
hasn't been
formally set for
the budget, but
sources say the
government
favors the last
week in February
or the first week
in March.

INKING A
DEAL?

Parker Pen, the
world’s largest
maker of fine
pens, is up for
sale six years
after the
company was
acquired ina
management
buyout, company
chairman
Jacques Margry
said Monday. An
adviser who is
handling the sale
said the
company could
fetch as much as
$540 million.

WRITEDOWN
TO THE WIRE

Placer Dome Inc.
announced
Monday a
massive $397-
million writedown
of its mining
assets including
all its Mount
Milligan. and
nearly half its
Eskay Creek
gold properties.
Placer is writing
off its entire
$266-million
investment in
Mount Milligan
and $50 million
of its 22 per cent
stake in Eskay
Creek, originally
worth $106
million.

Thompson
turning out
guitar sound

Jonathan Green
NEWS REPORTER

Combine a love for guitars with a knack
for woodworking, and you’ve got Doug
Thompson.

For close to 35 years, Thompson has played,
repaired and built guitars.

“I started playing around with guitars when
I was quite young,” said the 42-year-old South
Slocan resident.

Originally from Vancouver, Thompson and
his wife Holly came to the West Kootenay in
1983. The couple hasn't looked back since.

“We moved up here to escape the city,” he
said. “To get away from the nine-to-five thing.

“It was just too hectic.”

For two years, they set up shop in Nelson,
but when the opportunity arose, Thompson
said he and Holly jumped at the chance for a
“handyman special” 13 kilometres west of Nel-
son on Highway 3A — a location that has some
people scratching their musical heads.

“We're kind of a curiosity to a lot of players,”

he said.
But there is method to Thompson’s apparent
madness.

‘It’s a really hard business to get
started in. It takes quite a while to
get established. Basically, the busi-

ness is built more on word-of-mouth
reputation than anything.’
— Doug Thompson

“We wanted to be out of town and still be
convenient for people to find us,” he said.

“So far it’s worked out pretty well that way.”

In a business where custom-made works live
in the shadow of mass production, Thompson
realizes what he has to do to survive.

“The repairing is really the bread and butter
of the business,” he said. “It’s very difficult to
make a living just doing custom building.

“You'd almost consider the building side as a
hobby.”

And with the industry emphasis on assem-
bly-line products, Thompson said the guitar
customer with specifics has to look to people
like him .

“(Custom work) is something the factories
are pretty reluctant to do,” he said, adding that
the size of a musician’s hands may prevent
them from playing a traditional guitar.

Working far away from larger centres,’

Thompson admits his is not an easy profession
to carve a niche in.

“It’s a really hard business to get started in.
It takes quite a while to get established,” he

said, adding that a serious musician’s guitar
is worth it’s weight in gold. “Basically, the busi-
ness is built more on word-of-mouth reputation
than anything.”

And that reputation has guitar players from
across Canada sending him their “babies”,
rather than trashing them for a manufactured
one.

“A lot of musicians are more aware of good,
quality instruments,” he said.

But Thompson admits that he has learned
some of the ins and outs of a guitar from the
major manufacturers.

“You pick up the kind of things that guitar
companies do wrong and what they do right,”
he said.

In the late ’70s and early ’80s, synthesizers
and drum machines played an important role
in the music of the day, as the industry was

slowly swept up in the love affair with comput-
ers.

But guitar-based music weathered the
elctronic storm, and Thompson said this cre-,
ated a surge of manufacturers in his field.

“In the last 10 or 12 years, there’s been a big
boom in guitar makers,” he said.

And with this boom, Thompson said that
more people are discovering the guitar, re-
gardless of age.

“It varies,” he said. “A lot of it depends on
the music people are listening to. 4

“As they grow older, they go back to the
acoustic instruments.”

With an array of styles and models to offer,
Thompson says he can string together “some-
thing that will suit everybody, from the student
to the professional.”

Music to a guitar player’s ears.

Setting up shop in South Slocan, Doug Tho!

Mpsot
mentality that exists there. With a client base that is slowly growing through word-of-mouth,

Thompson finds himself working on guitars that arrive from somewhere new almost every day.

: ‘News photo by Jonathan Green
n has escaped the city and the nine-to-five