2010 medal minting on

VANOC vice-president of communications Renee Smith-Valade was part of a Saturday panel discussion at the Canadian Association of Journalists' convention on coverage of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. She was joined by local journalists Jeff Lee (Vancouver Sun), Mike Killeen (CTV) and Stephanie Levitz (Canadian Press).

Smith-Valade spiced things up with a small nugget of information. She said that forging of the Olympic medals is underway, but offered no other details. The gold, silver and bronze is supplied by Teck and made into the medals by Royal Canadian Mint. The design is top-secret.

I will be the first to speculate that the medals will not in any way resemble an ashtray to accompany the Bombardier-designed Olympic torch. I was first to point out on Feb. 12 that it resembles a joint. Toronto Star did a feature this week that attracted attention from sources that had not previously paid attention to the 2010 Games.