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Miss Cougar Canada to be crowned
By JENNY YUEN, QMI Agency
Claudia Opdenkelder is a self-proclaimed cougar and president of cougarlife.com. (TODD GILLIS/QMI Agency File)
Enter the cougars’ den at your own risk.
Tattoo Rock Parlour on Toronto's Queen West is going to be crawling with older women looking for fresh young meat Friday night with one lone woman hoping to be crowned Miss Cougar Canada at the end of the evening.
“We did the first Cougar Convention in Silicon Valley last August and we had a massive crowd and turned away hundreds of people,” said organizer Rich Gosse of Cougarevents.com. “The cougar phenomenon began in Canada, so we’ve always wanted to go to Toronto.”
A “cougar” by its bare bones definition is an older woman who is on the hunt for younger men with no strings attached.
Here are the rules: Anyone 35 and older and legally single can compete for the Miss Cougar Canada Title. Everyone pays their $20 to get into the club and it’s up to the cougars to woo the cubs — the younger men — to vote for them by working the room.
The winner will get to experience a room at Hedonism II Resort Spa in Jamaica during International Cougar Week in March. She’ll also earn a spot on the International Cougar Cruise to the Bahamas in December.
“Every cub who comes has one vote,” Gosse said. “It’s remarkable how most answers are the same. The cubs say they know what they want and cougars don’t play games. Cougars tell you that guys their own age can’t keep up with them.”
Keynote speakers include former Sun sex columnist Valerie Gibson, who shed light into Canada’s cougar scene.
“A cougar is the new breed of single, older women — confident, sophisticated, desirable and sexy,” Gibson said in a statement. “What she wants is younger men and lots of fret sex. What she doesn’t want is children, cohabitation or commitment.”
Claudia Opdenkelder, who runs the dating website CougarLife, said while there still is a stigma that still exists with age differences in relationships, over 1,500 new members a month sign up — that has to say something.
“It’s definitely becoming more popular, but it’s not a trend or fad, it’s a lifestyle,” said Opdenkelder, 39, who is dating a 26-year-old guy.
“I was in a cougar contest myself in 2005 on the Dean Blundell show and that was an awesome experience for me, even though it was leaning on the crazy side,” she said. “I won a ridiculous amount of money and a great memory for me.”
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Claudia Opdenkelder is a self-proclaimed cougar and president of cougarlife.com. (TODD GILLIS/QMI Agency File)
