Whistler 2010

During the Olympics, we are hoping to spread some goat cheer and raise another giant herd of goats for hundreds of african families.

You can check us out here: Goat for Gold

But don’t worry, we’ll be back for the playoffs! Goat Canucks Goat!

Goat Party!

Due to the lack of hockey being played over the past couple months, I have not updated the website. On July 21-23 in a village in Kenya, a bunch of people gave me a reason to post an update! The goats from Goat Canucks Goat were distributed in Kenya on July 21-23. I think the brown one with the white spots is one that I got. It looks tough. Like me.

It is amazing to see the pictures and the smiles on the people’s faces because of the goats.

I hope these pictures make you smile.

The Goat Process

First of all: 900 goats! $22,500 worth of goats. It is not too late to get your goat. It is hard to believe that it has already been 13 days, 19 hours and 38 minutes since the final buzzer went to end the Canucks season. But who’s counting? It’s just a game, right? The important thing is that everybody had fun. NOTE: Please excuse the fact that there will some typo’s in this post as a few of the letters on the keyboard are missing after my keyboard swinging incident that occured after the Canucks lost game 6. Anyways, the fact is that so many of you are still buying goats! I love it. As I mentioned earlier, it makes the Canucks loss a LITTLE easier to take when I wake up each morning and see the goat-o-meter on the rise.

I have received some emails and comments from people who are curious as to how exactly the goat process works. I would like to do my best and summarize what happens after you click “purchase.”

Upon finding out that you can donate a goat for just $25, the first thing you might wonder is, “I’m no goat expert, but is $25 the going rate for a goat these days?” Well, after browsing Craigslist to see how much I could buy a goat for here in Vancouver, I found that prices ranged from $50 - $400 for a goat. The $400 goat must be the Ferrari of goats and come fully loaded. 2 horns, rear tail, 4 legs and all the other features. Maybe it’s even potty trained? Anyways, the Goat Canucks Goat goats are purchased through the organization CRWRC. Judging by local goat prices, you will be happy to know that the goats are not purchased here and then shipped to Africa. Could you imagine the cost of stamps and shipping it would take to send a live goat to Africa? The goats are purchased in Africa, for Africa and are purchased as locally as possible. This way the money goes back into the local economy of a developing country. This also ensures that the breed of goat is well suited to the specific environment where it will live. The $25 also goes to having the goats vaccinated.  Usually people from the CRWRC train people in the needy communities to help with the vaccination process.  This equips them to do goat vaccination of goat offspring, etc. in the future. Local people are also trained to administer the program.  They help with the goat distribution and coordinate things like rotating male goats around for breeding, and facilitating the “pay back” program where people give a baby goat to another family in need. This, again, builds up local leadership and equips the program to continue after the CRWRC has gone. There is a careful selection process that helps determine who receives the goats.  The local community helps to identify the families most in need.  Those families must agree to build a shelter for their goat and attend training in animal care.  They also agree to abide by they “pay back” structure.  After that, they can receive a goat.

I hope this helps to clarify the process and answer any questions people had. After reading this information I also hope it is clear how solid the program is. There is much more to it then just handing needy people a goat and letting them figure out the rest. The way the program is run makes for a very sustainable and beneficial goat for those who need it. The “pay back” program is a very cool feature of the program. The goats truly are the gift that keeps on giving. And hopefully with the vaccinations they are the gift that keeps on living.

I have also been asked about the goat T-shirts. Unfortunately for us, but fortunately for some poor villagers, the T-shirts sold out! I never expected they would and now wish we would of had some more made. I know the shirts are about as trendy and fashionable as a T-shirt can be, but to have them sell out is amazing. All the proceeds made from the shirts are going to the purchase of more goats. Thanks to everybody who purchased a shirt.

Remember, it is not too late to get your goat!

Here a goat, there a goat, everywhere a goat

I wrote what I thought was going to be a farewell post a little while ago. I thanked everybody who helped make this a huge success and gave what I thought was going to be the final goat talley. After writing the entry, I expected goat purchases and t-shirt sales to stop. They didn’t. As of this morning we are at 859 goats! Or $21,475 of goats. I was curious what $21,475 can get someone here in Canada so I did some research…

For the amount of money we all raised, we could have purchased a brand new 2009 Mazda 6. I don’t know much about cars, but I think any model with the current year in it’s name is good. For someone who has never owned a car that was made any later than 1991, I would think it must be a nice car.

We also could have come together and purchased 429,500 fuzzy peaches from the corner store. I sure love those fuzzy peaches.

After browsing on ebay, I found an electric guitar that was autographed by “all 15 members of the Rolling Stones” for only $19,000. Was anybody else aware that there were 15 members in the Rolling Stones? That’s alot of stones.

Or we could have bought 8 seasons tickets to Canucks games in the lower bowl. This is the one that really put into perspective how much we have raised!

After looking at some of the items we could have purchased with the amount of money we raised for goats, it really made me thankful for every single donation and goat that has been given. There have almost been as much goats purchased since the Canucks were eliminated then when they were in the playoffs.

Yesterday we received this email from the Premier of British Columbia, Gordon Campbell:

 Again, congratulations.”

I think I read in his bio that Gordo’s favorite animal is the goat. And how could it not be?

Keep the goats coming!

Keeping the Momentum

Other than multiple chair throwing incidences and “property damage” as the police man called it, I think I have been handling the game 6 loss very well over the past few days. After watching the Canucks get eliminated from the playoffs, I thought it was going to be the end of the goat era. Since the idea was to buy a goat for ever Canuck win and the Canucks no longer had the opportunity to win a game, I was sure the goat-o-meter would stop rising. It appears that the complete oppostie happened. Close to 200 goats have been purchased since the Canucks were eliminated from the playoffs brining the goat-o-meter up to 705! That’s $17,625 of goats! Not ba-a-a-a-a-d at all! (Another classic goat joke which I have used every chance I get). Anybody else know a clever goat joke? It’s awesome to see that people are still getting their goats. I was curious about this, but then I found a website that explained the 5 stages of grief. With the recent spike in the goat-o-meter coming after the Canucks lost, I figure we must be at the “bargaining” stage in the process:

Bargaining: bargaining often takes place after the loss. Attempting to make deals with the spouse who is leaving (Replace the word “spouse” with the word “team”), or attempting to make deals with God to stop or change the loss. Begging, wishing, praying for them to come back.

If you’re like me you probably went through the whole, “I will buy 1.7 trillion goats if the Canucks win game 6″ thing. It sure is great to see that so many of you are still getting your goats.

A new batch of T-shirts has arrived so there are some more available now. Remember - the goat shirt never goes out of style. All proceeds from the goat shirts go to buying more goats, so you will be making a fashion statement and a social statement when buying a shirt. Plus you’ll just plain old look great.

Keep it up everybody! Enjoy the weekend.

Thank you!

I hope everyone is feeling a little better today after watching the Canucks get eliminated from the playoffs last night. I am still down in the dumps and am already tweaking the Canucks roster for next season. If we can talk Gretzky out of this whole “coaching” thing and add him to the line up we will be in good shape. Combine Gretzky’s offence with a new 4 or 5 year contract we give to Bobby Orr on defence and I really like our chances.

I woke up this morning and thought about all the excitement that has happened over the past month. Between the Canucks playoff run and the goats it has been very fun. Although it only happened 6 times, it was a very special feeling each time the Canucks won a playoff game. Goats were flying left, right and centre and it felt like everybody in the city was happy. Riding on the SkyTrain or the city bus, all people were talking about were the Canucks. Everybody was everybody’s friend. Christmas is pretty good as far as “times of year” go, but aren’t the playoffs fantastic?

As a lifelong Canucks fan, I have become very familiar with comforting sayings such as, “Maybe next year” and, “Well at least…” The truth is I think every year is “our year,” but until this year I have never believed the “Well at least…” part. This year it is different. This year we can all say that at least we changed people’s lives. It may not have been the Canucks year, but it is going to be a lot of other people’s year.

Maybe it is the fact that denial is step one of the grieving process, but I woke up this morning to lots of emails from people saying that they are still buying goats. More people even purchased goat shirts this morning. Who are we kidding, the goat shirts are fashionable all year round, but it was encouraging to see that so many people are still buying goats. Hopefully Goat Canucks Goat will help make buying a goat just as trendy as wearing a chic goat shirt.

While it is encouraging to see that so many of you are still buying goats, it is not surprising anymore. When I first started the Goat Canucks Goat facebook group the goal was to buy 16 goats. When I saw that the facebook group had over 50 members in it, I could not believe it. Then it just kept growing (unlike my patchy beard). Then Darrell from www.1981.ca emailed me and told me he wants to buy a goat and make a website and things really took off. When we set the goat-o-meter to 100 we thought it was going to take a deep run in the playoffs by the Canucks if we wanted to reach the 100 goat mark. After we reached 100 goats, the goat-o-meter exploded and goats came spilling out the top. We then thought we would set the new goat-o-meter to 500 just for fun. We would have been happy to get half of that. This morning we are at 584 goats. That’s $14,600 worth of goats! No kidding! (Get it? Baby goats are called “kids.” Very funny goat joke) People are also deciding to donate more than goats. A group of seniors in New Westminster also informed me that they have decided to get together and dig a well for a refugee camp. I should make that a little clearer. Don’t worry, the group of seniors will not be doing the actual digging of the well. That is done through CRWRC. The generosity and encouragement from people has been overwhelming. We had people visit the web site from 72 countries around the world and covered every continent. Even Antarctica! Unbelievable.

I would like to say thank you to everybody who came to the web site. You have no idea how much fun it has been to read all the comments and emails from people. Except for that Chicago fan who emailed me and called Luongo a goat. Don’t worry – he was locked and banned from the web site immediately. Thank you to all of you who purchased a goat. The goats have such a great impact on people’s lives. Thank you to the media who helped give Goat Canucks Goat exposure and in turn helped more goats be purchased. It was very fun to do radio and TV interviews. Who knows, maybe a scout saw my sweet hockey moves on the news and will contact me for a tryout now! Or maybe an agent saw how cool I look with a patchy beard and will ask me to star in some movie! But probably not. Darrell Koopmans from www.1981.ca made this amazing web site and put in oodles of work for Goat Canucks Goat free of charge. He deserves a lot of credit as he is the creator of the goat-o-meter! The web site is amazing. Thank you to Matthew Beimers also put in many hours of work for Goat Canucks Goat and handled the goat shirts.

Thank you to my beautiful fiancee Jennifer, who despite my enormous beard has still kissed me, supported me and been patient with how much time I have committed to Goat Canucks Goat.

Thank you also to the Vancouver Canucks without whom this never would have happened. It has been fun cheering the team on and I am already excited about next season. Next year is definitely our year.

While it has been easy for us to buy our goats, CRWRC are the ones who are doing and will do all the work involved with making sure needy people actually get their real, live goat. Thank you very much to Kristen VanderBerg, Rebecca Combs, Christina de Jong and Ida Kaastra Mutoigo. They have put in many hour of work for Goat Canucks Goat and will continue the great job they are doing at CRWRC. For more information about CRWRC, or to donate things other than goats, you can visit their web site at http://www.crwrc.org/pages/crwrc.cfm

Due to the amount of fun and excitement we all had because of Goat Canucks Goat, it would be very fun to make it an annual event. I have no idea where we go from here, but so far it has been amazing. For now we will leave the web site up and continue to post updates.

For those of us who are still feeling down about the Canucks loss, I will leave you with this.

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” -Mary Anne Radmacher

Beard today, gone tomorrow.

The Canucks lost tonight and are now eliminated from the playoffs. I am going to find some sackcloth I can wear for tomorrow.  In the mean time it is time for all of us who said we would buy goats once the Canucks finished the playoffs to buy our goats. I really need that silver lining right now. Who am I kidding, I need gold lining right now. I for one will be buying my problems away in the form of goats. I’m too down in the dumps to make a full post tonight, but will be back tomorrow. There’s always next year… Again.

Canada AM!

It was an early morning for Joel, but he and Ida shined on Canada Am this morning!

If you missed live broadcast you can check it out here!

Joel Nagtegaal and Ida Mutoigo on Canada AM (The video will play right after the advertisement.)

Thanks again for your overwhelming support, the goat-o-meter exploded this morning again! Biggest game of the season tonight, you can follow us on twitter, and be sure to check out our goat shirts!

500 Goats!

Despite a tough loss last night, there is some encouraging goat news: we have exploded the goat-o-meter again! Time to watch goats come spilling out of the top of the goat-o-meter as we are now at 526 goats! The Canucks did not even win and people still purchased more goats. I comend those people as I could hardly get myself out of bed this morning due to a tough loss last night, let alone have the energy to buy a goat. Great job. It still amazes me how generous and supportive people are being.

Tomorrow (Monday) morning, Goat Canucks Goat will be featured on CTV’s Canada AM. The program airs on CTV and begins at 6:00am PST. Wake up, make some coffee, buy a goat, then watch the goat story on TV. What a great way to get the week started.

Tomorrow night is game 6 of the best of 7 series. Vancouver must win or else their season is over. All the pressure will be on Chicago as they are playing at home and have the chance to end it. This will help out the Canucks and I expect a hard fought battle at the United Center tomorrow night. Game time is 6:00pm PST.

T-Shirts and game 5

Puck drop is right around the corner for game 5! The team is back at home in Vancouver and I think they are going to come out flying! The Sedin’s have been taking some criticism lately, but I expect to see them both have a great game tonight. Thank you to everybody who purchased a goat after last game. It was a tough loss but many people stepped up and still got a goat.

The response to the T-shirts has been absolutely amazing. I had no idea so many people would order one. I guess sporting a goat shirt IS pretty trendy though. Goat shirts are like jeans - they go with anything. Everybody looks good when they are sporting a shirt with a Canuck coloured goat on it. The current stock of shirts is nearly sold out already. Again, I had NO idea that so many of you would want a goat shirt. Please be advised that if you are ordering a shirt after today, it may take 7-10 days before it is shipped. Thank you to everybody who has ordered a shirt. Great shirt, great cause.

Time to watch game 5! Let’s hope for a win so we can watch the goat-o-meter explode!!! Go Canucks!