 A male teacher gives a colleague a lap dance at Winnipeg's Churchill High School.
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WINNIPEG - It takes only a hot video, it appears, for a story to really catch fire.
Churchill High School's "lap dance" involving two teachers -- and particularly a video of the incident, shot by a student -- is far more than the talk of the town, after making headlines and television newscasts around the world.
And where the footage has particularly flared up is online, with the help of Facebook and YouTube.
Across Canada and to Chicago, New York City and Sydney, Australia, the minute-long video is generating talk, curiosity, web hits and plenty of controversy.
It can also be viewed at winnipegsun.com.
"It's gone into a frenzy," Mike Babinsky, a trustee with the Winnipeg School Division, said Wednesday of the media inquiries he's fielding.
"The phone is ringing off the hook. And now it's international. People say sex sells -- that's what is happening."
TV's Fox News in the U.S. ran the story Wednesday, joining -- on air or on their websites -- outlets including CBS, Chicago's WGN, the Sydney Morning Herald and the New York Daily News.
"It actually has almost 50,000 views on YouTube," said Saigha Vincent, the 14-year-old Grade 9 student whose footage sparked the furor.
"Everyone is just kind of shocked," she added of the reaction to her video, at the school and beyond. "A lot of people think it's funny. Other people think it's gross."
"Everybody has talked about it being on FOX," added Zach Unrau, a Grade 11 student at Churchill. "And it's everywhere."
Vincent noted she's become "a little bit" of a celebrity at her school amid the waves made by the video. Any attention she's getting, though, will pale compared to what's on the teachers while the school division investigates.
Babinsky stressed, however, all the attention should not compel administrators to punish the teachers more than if the incident had not been caught on video.
"Absolutely not. The frenzy will not affect it," he said. "But it might speed up the process."
