Months after the memorable 2010 Winter Olymipcs in Vancouver, the iconic red mittens are once again available! The mittens that shook the world, revolutionized the clothing industry, changed the face of Canada!
…..ok maybe I am getting a bit carried away here, but no one can deny the unbelievable success that the simple red mittens at the Olympics had. I’m sure we have all heard of them, probably even own them, and now they are back! The Canadian Olympic Committee has released a “re-vamped” set of mittens, that will be on sale for only $10, of which, proceeds will benefit the Canadian Olympic Committee. So far, the amount of mittens sold has been an astonishing 3,406,071 (and yes, that is the ACTUAL number thanks to www.redmittens.ca). Now the question is, how did a simple pair of mittens become an integral part of the “canadian” image during the olympics?
I myself own a pair of the famous red mittens, and there is no question in my mind that I would buy them again. The popularity of the mittens began to spread like wildfire before the games even began, and soon people were having to wait in lines for hours just to get the chance of buying them. The HBC stores could not keep them in stock fast enough!
So what made these mittens so popular? To begin with, the price was great, and for tourists coming from other countries it provided a unique souvenir at an affordable price. Not to mention the fact that 
many celebrities endorsed the product. The likes of which included Roberto Luongo of the Vancouver Canucks, Stephen Colbert, Wayne Gretzky, Joe Biden, and even Oprah! This factor, coupled with the sense of Canadian pride felt by pretty much everyone living in Canada turned the mittens into one of the main symbols of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic (and if the Canadian Olympic Foundation has its way…many future Olympics too)!
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