Vote now for Metro Vancouver's unofficial ambassador: The final 4
An artist. 2 actors. And a crow. These are your choices, Vancouver
After a week of voting and hundreds of thousands of ballots cast, we have the four bracket winners in our competition to decide Metro Vancouver's most loved representative.
One of them is dead — and another one is a bird. The internet can be unexpected like that.
But we're of the opinion that in the final round, there should be at least one living human to contest the title of Metro Vancouver's Unofficial Ambassador.
So the semifinals will reflect that. Celebrity versus celebrity in one round, artist versus icon in the other.
The winners move on to the championship round.
(Voting for the round closes at 11:59 p.m. PT Wednesday. If you're viewing this through a Google AMP page, click here so you're able to vote)
Semifinal 1: Seth Rogen vs. Michael J. Fox
First, let's see how they got here.
Fox, star of the Back to the Future trilogy, arguably won the toughest bracket to get here — Celebrities Over 40 — defeating Bryan Adams, Ryan Reynolds and David Suzuki to get to this point.
Pretty much the only knock you can have on Fox is his links to the Vancouver area are the weakest of the finalists, having moved away from Burnaby as a young adult around a decade after his family arrived from Edmonton.
Vancouver-born Rogen, meanwhile, has received the most votes of any non-crow in the field thus far, and is in the middle of a giant streak of Canadian goodwill stories. But he doesn't have nearly the same body of humanitarian work as Fox, who, over two decades, has tirelessly raised funds to help find a cure for Parkinson's disease.
Which one is Metro Vancouver's favourite celebrity?
Semifinal 2: Bill Reid vs. Canuck the Crow
Again, the tale of the tape.
We could try to break down who the favourite is in this matchup as though there was some drama, but it'd be sort of silly: barring something completely unforeseen, Canuck the Crow is going to defeat Bill Reid.
Canuck is going to win because there are thousands of people who only vote for him in every round, thousands who haven't been interested in taking part in the competition anywhere else, thousands who are either sincerely hopeful or ironically amused at the prospect of a friendly bird with a special relationship with a post office worker winning an online poll that has a measure of legitimacy because it's hosted by a large broadcaster.
You could say, "but Bill Reid is probably the most important figure in bringing northwest coast art and Haida heritage to worldwide prominence!" and you'd be correct.
But it doesn't matter, because people have fallen in love with the story of a scrappy East Van crow and his exploits.
"I sort of want him to live his life," said Shawn Bergman, Canuck's best friend and occasional caretaker, at the end of a documentary about him, "even if that life is a combination of crow life and human life."
Which is a sweet sentiment. And one that seems set to advance Canuck to the finals.
Unless, of course, voters choose otherwise.
Who will contest the championship match? Check back on Thursday, when you can vote on who is crowned Metro Vancouver's Unofficial Ambassador.