P.E.I.'s Mark Arendz featured in 'High-Performance Herd' T-shirt series
Mitch Cormier | CBC News | Posted: July 28, 2017 9:00 AM | Last Updated: July 28, 2017
Arendz spending summer training in New Zealand snow
Two-time Paralympic medallist in biathlon Mark Arendz of Hartsville, P.E.I., is being featured on a new line of T-shirts celebrating Canada's top high-performance athletes.
The High-Performance Herd of 2018 features caricatures of moose representing 16 Olympic and Paralympic athletes from across the country, and will raise money for training.
Arendz' moose is designed to be missing part of its antler.
Bobsledder Jesse Lumsden helped create the program, reaching out to top athletes and offering them a chance to raise some training funds. He enlisted cartoonist Dave Elston to do the designs.
'Missing parts'
"When we were talking I'm like, 'I think it would be really cool to have some missing parts,'" said Arendz.
"So we went with missing the antler, so that's kind of symbolic right there. I really love the design."
The T-shirts will be printed in batches during the rest of the year, with Arendz getting a portion of each shirt sold.
The link through which to buy the T-shirts changes every two weeks — the shirts will be available here between Aug 1. and Aug. 15.
Heading 'to the snow farm'
Arendz is training hard in hopes of making the 2018 Paralympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, trading P.E.I. summer in for New Zealand snow.
"We go to the snow farm," said Arendz, referring to an area in New Zealand near Wannaka. "It's great snow conditions this year too."
Arendz said he's training hard to shave a few seconds of his times.
"There were a lot of close races, a lot of close fourths that I could easily make into thirds if you will," he said.
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