News Item: Nackawic’s sweetheart makes final five

[NB4Casey]

NB Telegraph-Journal | EWS15
As published on page A1/A2 on August 18, 2005

Casey fans feel disconnected
But Nackawic’s sweetheart makes final five anyway

MARTY KLINKENBERG


Casey LeBlanc not only escaped the axe in Canadian Idol on Wednesday night. She also may have survived the cut despite a snafu that seems to have kept her most enthusiastic followers from jamming the lines on her behalf with their cell phones.

The 17-year-old from Nackawic cruised into the final five, collecting a large enough portion of the 3.3 million votes cast on Tuesday night to keep from even being among the three lowest-vote getters on the top-rated CTV program.

Aliant spokeswoman Brenda Reid said, however, said she was unaware of any technical problem.

"There were no outages or major issues on our mobility network," Ms. Reid said. "We monitor our network every minute of every day to assure the optimum number of calls can be completed, and that safety and emergency services can be maintained.

"I have checked with every part of our network, and haven't been able to find any reason why people would have been unable to register their votes. We are confident everything worked as it should have." The artsy Josh Palmer of Saskatoon was the odd-man out, leaving only Ms. LeBlanc, Rex Goudie of Newfoundland, Suzi Rawn of Kamloops, B.C., Melissa O'Neil of Calgary and Aaron Walpole of St. Thomas, Ont., in the competition.

The fan darling so far, Mr. Goudie found himself among the bottom three for the first time, along with Ms. Rawn and Mr. Palmer. Oddsmakers have declared the hard-rocking Newfie and the dimunitive Ms. Rawn the favourites, but the outcome each week is becoming less predictable, Last night, when judge Zack Werner looked across the stage at the John Bassett Theatre at the three competitors on the bubble, all he could do was give a surprised shrug.

It's fairly rare for the testy judge to be left speechless - and indicative perhaps that he doesn't speak for a nation.

The results allowed Ms. LeBlanc's fans to breathe a collective sigh of relief after a day of dithering as a result of having difficulty getting through to the toll-free number assigned to the New Brunswick songbird.

"I feel an awful lot better now," said a relieved Jeff Young of Nackawic, who tried to call Ms. LeBlanc's number more than 900 times on Tuesday night and was never able to register a successful vote. "This should silence once and for all the complaints people have had about regional voting.

"We know it is a bunch of bull because many of us were never able to get through.

"And as for seeing the judges' favourites in the bottom three, it makes me recall an old saying: that sacred cows always make the best burgers."

Nackawic Town Manager Nancy Cronkhite, however, said a technician who works on Aliant's mobility network told her a problem had occurred related to a transmission tower on Tuesday night, and that users in Bath, Bristol, Hartland and Florenceville had been affected by an outage.

Despite denials by Aliant, the town of Nackawic was so convinced there had been a problem that it posted a message on its voicemail at 5 p.m. Wednesday informing callers an interruption of service had, indeed, occurred.

"If you are calling because you had trouble voting for Casey last night on your cell phones, we have found there was a widespread problem in the province, so we are asking people to call Aliant and make a complaint, and to maybe e-mail the show and voice your concerns," the message said. "We hope that this does not affect whether Casey comes home tonight.

"Keep your fingers crossed." Scott Henderson, director of programming communications for CTV, said the network was investigating the complaint. Mr. Henderson said Aliant had been contacted and that officials denied a glitch occurred, and he added that CTV's data seemed to support that.

Mr. Henderson said a tally of voting indicated that 30 per cent more votes were cast in New Brunswick on Tuesday night than during the preceding week.

But nerves were raw in Nackawic Wednesday afternoon.

Faye MacFarlane, who placed a home-made sign on her front lawn cheering for Ms. LeBlanc long ago, said she registered 40 votes Tuesday night on a Rogers cell phone she borrowed from her daughter-in-law.

Mrs. MacFarlane, who for 35 years ran the drugstore in Nackawic along with her husband, Ryan, said she was unable to ever get through on her Aliant landline or Aliant cell phone.

"When you sit for two solid hours, dialing seven times a minute, and you get nothing, it is very bad," she said. "Most of the time we weren't even getting a dial tone. All we got was static." On an average Tuesday night, Mrs. MacFarlane said she employs two cell phones to vote for Ms. LeBlanc between 700 and 800 times. She said the 40 votes she registered Tuesday night were the most she had heard of anyone making in Nackawic.

Mr. Young, a family friend who oversees a Yahoo! user group for Ms.

LeBlanc, said he was a member of a group of five people that watched the show together Tuesday and that between them all, only 42 votes had been successfully cast, all on landlines.

He started calling Aliant to complain at midnight Tuesday and still was not satisfied at mid-afternoon Wednesday with what he had heard.

"Originally, I was told the problems were caused by excessive demand on the system," Mr. Young said. "Now, the last thing I heard is that there were technical issues.

"People are really angry and frustrated.

I did not register one measly vote and I am not alone here. You have a whole town of people in the same situation."

Marty Klinkenberg is contributing editor of The Telegraph-Journal. He can be reached at 645-3236 and [email]mklinkenberg@rogers.com[/email].

(CTV photo)
Andy Savoy and family - wife Denyce and children Gabrielle (6) and Cade (4) - with Casey LeBlanc after the Nackawic teenager performed in Toronto on Tuesday night.

[TheClash05]

Thank you very much for posting these articles, NB4Casey. I hope that Aliant will look into it so that this won't happen again and we won't have to worry.

[Idol For All]

ty!

[Dark_Angel]

Thank you for sharing that with us!