2002 Olympic mascots reflect on past, future of Salt Lake Games

SALT LAKE CITY — They had a thrilling, front-row seat to the 2002 Winter Olympic Games and they said they would gladly do it all over again when the Games return to Utah.

Those who served as official mascots Powder, Copper and Coal 22 years ago described an unforgettable time of their lives as they looked ahead recently to what could lie ahead in 2034.

“I was just so impressed with how people came together to make this a special event,” Linda Horsley said, as she sat in the home of fellow former 2002 mascot Heather Mickey. “It was amazing.”

Horsley, who played the role of Copper at Olympic events, and Mickey — who was Powder during the Games in Salt Lake — described a hectic daily schedule of events where it was routine to work 12 to 14-hour shifts.

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More: Exclusive news, stories and highlights from the Paris Olympics on KSL TV and KSL Sports.

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“It was nonstop — literally we’d go home for a couple of hours, maybe 5, 6 hours, get back in the car at 6:00 a.m., take off to our next,” Horsley said. “We would play up the crowds together and we would, like, have snowball fights, and we tried to get the crowd involved so that they would be excited to be there and they would be laughing.”

Horsley, then a second grade teacher, said she “ran for three weeks solid” as a mascot.

“I just thought it was so neat we got to meet and interact with so many people around the world,” she said.

Of course, Horsley, Mickey and the others had to interact without speaking — a cardinal rule among mascots.

“I think when you put the head on and you can’t talk, it’s just an international language of hugging and loving people,” Mickey said.

Certainly, mischief and humor were a routine part of the job for Copper, Powder and Coal.

Mickey recalled a time when Mitt Romney was in the crowd.

“He was on his phone and I took my big paw and started rubbing through his hair and he said, ‘Just a minute, Powder, I’m on the phone with the President.’”

According to Mickey, she later learned it was the president of the International Olympic Committee, not the then-President George W. Bush.

“He loved the entertaining we did,” Horsley added of Romney. “Although he didn’t know who we really were.”

The 2002 games proved to be a time when friendships developed and deepened and love even blossomed.

Justin Heppler, who also played Copper, got engaged to his wife, Kristen Heppler, during that time.

“I didn’t want to get engaged on Valentine’s Day, which was the fourteenth, so I thought it would be fun to get engaged on the thirteenth,” Justin Heppler said. “I had this big plan where I was going to get engaged in Olympic Square and I’d snuck the ring into Olympic Square and I was supposed to meet her in Olympic Square and she was with her roommate who was engaged and got delayed to the point where there wasn’t time to do it in Olympic Square anymore.”

Plan B quickly shifted to Temple Square.

“He put the ring in a pair of Copper the Coyote socks and he handed me a pair of socks,” Kristen Heppler laughed. “I was like, ‘Oh, thanks.’”

Justin chuckled and acknowledged his daughters today would not be impressed.

“I loved what was inside of it,” Kristen Heppler said, smiling.

The couple called the time a unique experience.

When asked if he’d reprise his role as Copper, Justin said “maybe.”

“It kind of was fun to be participating in something that was a worldwide event here in Salt Lake City,” he said.

Mickey and Horsley were more definitive as they donned their mascot heads, which they kept after the 2002 games.

“You can’t recreate that memory,” Mickey said. “Jump at the chance to do it, if you can.”