Vancouver's Tracey Hinder makes it to final five in CanSpell national contest

Here are excerpts from the Ottawa Citizen story by Haley Mick with files from Joel Baglole of the Vancouver Sun.

Tracey Hinder, the Vancouver regional CanSpell winner made it through
the words appetitost, nival, and calypso at the national spealling bee
in Ottawa over the weekend.

But the 13-year-old Grade 8 student from West Vancouver secondary
school lost when she failed to correctly spell “daven” a Jewish word
that refers to the act of praying.  Hinder finished fifth overall
in the Can West CanSpell National Spelling Bee.

“I knew my words, and most other people's words, so I think I did all
right,” Hinder said in a phone interview iwht The Sun on Sunday. 
The contest was eventually won by Finola Hackett of Edmonton, who went
head-head-for 11 rounds with Edwin Ho of Toronto Saturday night….

Hinder of Vancouver and Anqi Dong of Saskatoon wept when they
eventually ended their run.  But there was some controversy over
Hinder's loss.  She claims she spelled “daven” incorrectly because
the competition's officials mispronounced the word when asking her to
spell it.  Hinder says the officials pronounced the word “Dove-In”
instead of “Dav-In.”

“I appealed,” said Hinder.  “But they didn't accept my
appeal.  The judges said they had gone on, and it was too
late.” 

Still Hinder said she enjoyed the competition as the other competitors
where nice and she liked looking at the old buildings in and around
Ottawa.

“It was fun,” she said.

http://www.canada.com/national/features/canspell/index.html