TURIN - As Clara Hughes churned her way to victory on the Lingotto Oval last night, a couple of pieces of Canadiana lay buried in the oval ice � a tiny gold maple leaf and some beer bottle caps.

Ice maker Mark Messer of Calgary, who'd been cagey before the Games when asked whether he'd put a loonie in the ice, put a 14-karat gold maple leaf given to him by Canadian team sports psychologist Kimberly Amirault at the finish line right by the Games slogan `Passion lives here.'

"I thought, `Put it at the top of the P,'" said Messer, whose regular job is at the Olympic Oval in Calgary, where the country's top skaters train. "It's got to be a passion for sport if you're going to win.

"I also put a couple of Molson Canadian caps in the ice, too. That was for me. But this is for the team. I wanted to put a Canadian flavour in the ice. I mean the maple leaf represents Canada and it represents the gold and that's what we were after."

Amirault bought the maple leaf in Canada, but it was made in Italy. She was talking to Hughes on her cell phone when she brought the little trinket � "for good karma," she said � but decided this week she wouldn't tell the skater about it.

It was dug out of the ice after the race and given to Hughes. The whereabouts of the beer caps are unknown.

"This is a pretty special little nugget," said Hughes

. The lucky loonie tradition began at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics when icemaker Trent Evans buried one at centre ice and the Canadian men's and women's hockey teams went on to win gold.

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