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NEW WATERFORD — A former New Waterford man whose dream came true when he danced with Madonna on Tuesday night described the night as “electrifying.”

“There was like a roar of thunder going through the place —like a wave, like the entire atmosphere was on fire,” said Blair Boudreau.

“There are very few human beings that can actually cause that level of excitement when they walk into a room.

“It was pretty incredible, once in a lifetime — a life-changing event.”

Boudreau, a flight attendant with Air Canada, was one of about 30 members of the Hard Candy Fitness centres Madonna co-owns around the world — including Russia, Chile and Switzerland — who won dance competitions, landing the opportunity to be led in a fitness class with Madonna during the grand opening of the new Toronto club.

Boudreau said Madonna arrived at the club at about 8:30 p.m.

“We were waiting in the studio doing warm-ups with her personal trainer,” he said.

“Then they announced a 30-second warning to clear it of equipment.”

He said hundreds of people lined the streets at the security entrances to the fitness centre and hundreds were inside the club.

“Members could be in the main gym area but they had to sign up for a special bracelet to even get close to the event.”

He said Madonna walked the red carpet, which went the entire length of the gym.

Boudreau said when the music icon walked in the studio, the room exploded.

“We were standing and cheering and jumping,” he said. “There was high, high electric energy in the room.”

Madonna told the group she had broken her foot in Switzerland. He said Madonna lead the cardio-based Addicted to Sweat class to high-energy house music that she actually works out to.

“I’m telling you the injury didn’t slow her down. She kicked ass, there wasn’t one person in the class who wasn’t dripping in sweat at the end of it.

“My shirt was so heavy with sweat it was hanging off me at the end of it. She looked fresh as a daisy.”

He said the night went well but some people behaved poorly.

“I couldn’t believe what they were doing to try to get near her. People were trying to break past security and trying to get into the room while we were there — security was tight though.”

Boudreau said after the approximately 40-minute workout that included 12 dances, Madonna addressed the group as a whole.

“She was saying, ‘How’s that Toronto? What do you think?’

“We were all screaming back the Hard Candy motto ‘harder is better.’ She’d say, ‘I can’t hear you,’ then we’d start screaming it harder and louder.”

Boudreau, a 30-year fan, said Madonna is even more beautiful in person.

“Her skin was flawless, she is very tiny — ageless, young and fit.”

This is the eighth Hard Candy Fitness that Madonna has opened across the world and the first in North America.

TRURODAILY

By: Richard Ouzounian Theatre Critic, Published on Wed Feb 12 2014

She’s come a long way, baby.

On Tuesday night, Madonna was greeted by hundreds of screaming fans who braved the sub-zero weather on Yonge and Gerrard Sts. to greet the Material Girl as she swept into the Toronto branch of her international Hard Candy Fitness chain, to shake her butt for the press, lead 30 hand-picked gym members in a class and declare the facility officially open.

“But what am I doing here anyway?” she asked the Star during an interview following her red carpet walk. “Didn’t they try to arrest me here?”
She was referring to the infamous moment on her Blond Ambition tour, immortalized in the 1991 documentary Madonna: Truth or Dare, when she’s told the Toronto police are going to stop the show and take her into custody if she simulates sex acts while singing “Like a Virgin.”
But on those nights in May 1990, Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone called authority’s bluff and her show went on without any interruption.
“I’m not going to be masturbating during my workout tonight,” she grinned slyly, “or simulating masturbation, so I guess it’s cool. Yeah.
“I think Toronto’s finally learned to accept me.”

The 55-year-old superstar looked glam, if a bit weary around the edges, in a slinky black blazer-skirt ensemble from the Canadian design team of Dean and Dan Caten, known more prominently as DSquared2.

A trademark black bustier kept her cleavage front and centre while a reasonably discreet crucifix nestled underneath. Her left ankle was taped due to an injury variously attributed to a mishap during dance and/or exercise, although to Madonna they’re often one and the same, with her patented dance workout called “Addicted to Sweat.”

“If dancing wasn’t a part of Hard Candy Fitness, I wouldn’t be here,” she said, speaking of the chain whose Toronto opening joins the roster of locations in Berlin, Mexico City, Moscow, Rome, Santiago, St. Petersburg and Sydney.
“That’s what makes my gym different from everybody else’s.”

The STAR