Blog Archives: March, 2010
Vancouver 2010 wrap-up
Me with the Olympic cauldron I suppose I should say a little about how I ended up going to the Olympics in Vancouver. Since Vancouver was first awarded the Games back in 2003 — which incidentally happened while I was visiting the nearby city of Seattle — I had wanted to go. I had even told my friend Scott, when I found out that he was moving to Vancouver, to reserve a place for me on his couch in February 2010. Last year, when VANOC announced the ticket lottery, I put in requests for about 8 events, but alas only won one ticket. I decided that one ticket was not reason enough to fly across the ocean to Vancouver, sold the ticket on VANOC’s resale website, and that was that.
Flames lighting the crowd at one of Robson Square's nightly fireworks celebrations Fast forward to February 2010. I spent the first weekend of the Games camped out on the couch, watching the Opening Ceremonies and waiting for Canada to win its first gold. I watched speed skating and ski jumping and checked out pictures from friends in Vancouver on Facebook. It looked fantastic. And then Monday evening I had the spontaneous thought: “well, I could just go”. 
The Olympic countdown clock, counting up The genie was out of the bottle. I looked up flights and checked the availability of event tickets. An hour later (when the Eastern timezone was awake) I ran the idea past a couple friends and my parents to see if I was crazy. Another half hour later, my flights were booked, event tickets purchased, and accommodations arranged. It was hard to sleep that night as I was so excited. The clock was ticking.
Me with the crowds on Granville Street Over the last two weeks, I’ve written about my time in Whistler and the various events I attended. It’s fitting to close with a little bit about what Vancouver was like.
During the first week of the Games, I heard and read a lot about how Vancouverites were embracing the Games, and how everyone was enjoying themselves so much. When you encounter a story in the news, it’s hard to know whether it’s something that reporters are blowing out of proportion — something that the average person on the street wouldn’t even notice — or whether it truly is like that on the ground.
Flames lighting the crowd at one of Robson Square's nightly fireworks celebrations Let me tell you, downtown Vancouver was crazy during the Olympics. The centre of the insanity was the intersection of Granville and Robson streets. Both of those streets were closed to traffic throughout the Olympics, and Robson Square, one block north of that intersection, was a major outdoor gathering point. Each night during the Games, there were fireworks at Robson Square, and I met up with fellow Waterloo alum Ian to see the show one night.
Crowds celebrating the last night of the Olympics on Granville Street I ended up downtown a few nights, including the night that Canada defeated Russia in hockey and the last night of the Games after the Closing Ceremony, the day that Canada was gold in men’s hockey. As you can see the streets were packed! Filled with a lot of young people dressed in Canadian hockey jerseys or Team Canada clothes, wanting to do nothing more than high five everyone in sight. 
Hockey fans on Granville Street The last night I was downtown there were a few spontaneous rounds of O Canada to be heard while walking up and down the street. The only experience I can even remotely compare it to is being in Ottawa for Canada Day, except this was every night for two weeks in February. It was truly incredible and one of my favourite memories from the Games.
Was it the patriotic expression of a newly confident Canada emerging on the world stage as the newspapers were debating? During my life, I think Canadians have always been great fans of the Olympics and the Canadian team — the prevalence of maple-leaf-covered Roots and now Hudson’s Bay clothing being just one example — and this was just the next step. From what I read about at Dundas Square in Toronto and the constant interest from friends across Canada on Facebook, it seems the excitement stretched far beyond Vancouver, across the entire country.
The last big Olympic experience I had was flying out of Vancouver airport on the day after the Closing Ceremony, the busiest day in the history of Vancouver airport, with 39,000 people departing. While I wasn’t expecting chaos — they made a big deal out of being prepared for this — I was at least expecting a bit of a crowd. But I guess my flight, at 11:45pm, was too late for much excitement. When I arrived (4.5 hours early, as recommended), there was no line up for check-in, no line up at the Olympic souvenir shop, no line up at security; it was a run-of-the-mill quiet Monday evening at a medium-sized airport. How disappointing!
Me with Dutch gold medallist speed skater Sven Kramer at Vancouver airport As it turns out, I had forgotten to bring the card that gave me access to one of the lounges at the airport, so once I got through security I wandered the terminal a bit to see what was going on. There were still some athletes there waiting for flights, including a few folks from Great Britain and a sea of orange jackets from the Netherlands. As I went over to Tim Horton’s to get my last Tim’s hot chocolate for some time, I recognized one of the Dutch athletes (who was the only one not in orange): Sven Kramer, presently the best long track speed skater and gold medallist in the men’s 5000m. I watched him (on TV) win gold during the first day of the Games. He kindly indulged my request to take a picture with him. It was a great way to end my trip to Vancouver.
I’m so glad I went to Vancouver and Whistler for the Olympics. It was one of the best experiences of my life!
Getting to Sochi in 2014 may be a bit more difficult than Vancouver, though. But London’s conveniently accessible from anywhere on the planet, isn’t it?
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Closing Ceremony
Me at the end of the Closing Ceremony Sunday evening I attended the Closing Ceremony of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Although the ceremony started at 5:30pm, we the audience needed to be in our seats by 4:30 for our rehearsal. Working back from that, allotting extra time for lineups at security and aiming to avoid the craziness that would be downtown Vancouver once the hockey game was over, I arrived at BC Place a bit before 2pm; there was no lineup at security whatsoever, and I easily made my way into the stadium.
Watching the Canada vs. USA hockey game before the Closing Ceremony When I arrived in the stadium, the first order of business was to catch up on the Canada versus USA hockey game, which was playing on the big screen. What an exciting game that was! I don’t follow hockey much but even I could tell — without commentary, as we got the raw feed in the stadium — that it was a really well-played game. 
A sea of red leaving the hockey game next door Not knowing the rules of Olympic hockey, I didn’t realize that it was sudden-death overtime; while I was excited at Crosby’s overtime goal, it took another minute for me to realize that the game was over. I was thrilled for many reasons: for the success of the men’s hockey team, for Canada winning 14 gold medals, and for that being a great note on which to start the Closing Ceremony.
My seat for the Closing Ceremony After the game finished, I started wandering around the stadium to take some pictures and see what was going on. One of the best pictures I took before the show started was this panorama. On the left side of the picture, you can see: my seat in the bottom left corner (as noted on the detailed image at right), the podium where speeches were given, flag poles; in the centre: the VIP seating and the three-legged cauldron, and closest to the camera the beginning of the athletes’ seating; and at the right, the Olympic rings and another stage. (If you’re reading this on Facebook, click “View Original Post” at the bottom of the post to see more detail.)
Me with my moose antlers at the Closing Ceremony At 4:30, the audience participation rehearsal started. At our seats was a custom kit with a number of items to use during the ceremony, including elegant foam moose antlers, as you can see, to wear during the spectacular Canadian stereotypes segment. 
Audience members in their white and light blue ponchos We also had ponchos — white or light blue (mine was light blue) — to wear during the ceremony so that we looked better on television when they projected lights onto the crowd.
Clown mechanic repairing the cauldron And then, at 5:30, the ceremony began, with what ended up being my favourite part of the whole ceremony. When I arrived in the stadium, I noticed that the cauldron in the centre only had three legs. I figured that they had just decided to go with that after the fourth leg hadn’t come up during the Opening Ceremony. When the clown mechanic appeared at the start and started “repairing” the fourth leg, everyone in the stadium roared and jumped to their feet. That and Catriona Le May Doan lighting the cauldron made for a perfect start to the ceremony. Although the heat coming off the cauldron didn’t reach me, it did cause the curtain screens hanging in the centre of the stadium to billow a lot.
Joannie Rochette carrying in the Canadian flag 
Team Canada in the stands Next was the Parade of the Athletes. Joannie Rochette carried the Canadian flag in through the entrance just next to where I was sitting. The athletes made their way in and to their seats, also near where I was sitting. Since I was sitting right on a pathway, I was able to get up and take a picture of Team Canada in the stands.
Presentation of Sochi 2014 
Michael J. Fox's speech during the I Am Canadian segment As the ceremony progressed, we had the beautiful presentation from Sochi 2014, followed by speeches by Canadian actors William Shatner, Catherine O’Hara, and Michael J. Fox.
A spectacle of Canadian stereotypes Next was the peculiar but amusing spectacle of Canadian stereotypes and Michael Bublé. The ceremony concluded with a concert by some of the biggest names in present-day Canadian music. I was looking forward to hearing Alanis Morissette for the first time in person, but didn’t much care for the song she played. 
Bouncy balls at the end of the Closing Ceremony Simple Plan put on a good show, as did Hedley. The concert ended with a bunch of huge glowing bouncy balls being released for the athletes to play with and then eventually send into the crowd. The bouncy balls reminded me of the beautiful Sony BRAVIA bouncy balls commercial.
Crowds leaving the Closing Ceremony After the ceremony I joined the crowds and headed towards downtown Vancouver to see the chaos on Granville Street. I’ll write more about what Vancouver’s been like during my time here, but the crowds on Sunday night were bigger and happier than any of the previous nights, and why shouldn’t they be: Canada just won gold medal hockey against the United States, had its best Winter Olympics ever, and showed the world a great time! Thanks, Vancouver!
See the rest of my pictures from the Closing Ceremony in my Vancouver gallery.
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Short track speed skating
Me at the Pacific Coliseum for short track speed skating races On Friday I attended some short track speed skating finals at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver. I was really excited to attend speed skating; if there’s one sport I could do at the Winter Olympics, I think it would be speed skating.
The start of the men's 500m final There were three finals being held that night: men’s 500m, women’s 1000m, and men’s 5000m relay. For the shorter distance races, they first worked through quarterfinals and semifinals of each, before having the B and A final races.
Short track races are crazy and exciting. It’s such a small rink to be racing so fast on — just a normal hockey rink, I believe — and the racers stay so close. A single slip up by one of the racers can cause a crash that takes out another racer and ends their chance at gold, so it’s a really nail-biting event when you’re there in person.
Charles Hamelin and Francois-Louis Tremblay celebrating their gold and bronze medal-winning races All of the events had Canadians racing. Two Canadian men made it to the final of the 500m race: Charles Hamelin and Francois-Louis Tremblay. Hamelin spent most of the race in the lead but on the second last lap was overtaken by Si-Bak Sung of South Korea. Coming out of the last turn, Hamelin regained the lead, and then suddenly there was chaos: the South Korean fell, bounced off the pads, taking out Canadian Francois-Louis Tremblay; an unstable Charles Hamelin crossed the finish line on one foot just before spinning around on his skates off balance, with Apolo Ohno right behind him. The crowd erupted having seen that Hamelin crossed first, but then uncertainty set in as the referees consulted. After a tense minute with an entire coliseum holding its breath, the results came in: gold for Hamelin, silver for South Korea, bronze for Tremblay, and Apolo Ohno disqualified for interference. Crazy! If you haven’t seen the race, I highly recommend watching it. On CTV Olympics’ video player, scroll down to “Golden Moments”, hit the arrow to go to page 2, and select “Men’s 500m Final: Hamelin wins gold”.
Next up was the women’s 1000m final. Unfortunately, Canadians Kalyna Roberge and Jessica Gregg didn’t qualify from the semifinals, so they skated in the B final, which Roberge won. The gold medal was won by Wang Meng of China who had dominated her quarter and semifinal races.
Transitions during the men's 5000m relay The last race of the evening — and indeed the last short track speed skating race of these Games — was the men’s 5000m relay final. The qualifying races had taken place more than a week earlier, with 5 teams of 4 making the final race: 20 skaters on the ice, which is pretty chaotic, so chaotic in fact that they scared the on-ice cameraman off the ice! In the relay race, one member from each team races on the outer part of the track while the remaining members of the team circle on the inside of the track waiting to take over. They switch about every lap and a half, and the race is about 45 laps long in total.
China took an early lead, but about half way through Canada managed to squeeze in front. Canada opened up quit a gap with about 10 laps to go by changing their relay timing — continuing skating while all the other teams passed off — but the other teams managed to make up the distance. The last few laps were pretty tense, as the Koreans and Chinese stayed in close. The Canadians maintained their lead all the way to the finish line, but in the last turn, the Chinese skater slipped a bit, leaving the Koreans with the silver and the Americans with the bronze.
Flags being raised during O Canada for the men's 500m short track medal ceremony We were very lucky that they decided to do the medal ceremony at the venue right after the race. For most of the events during the Vancouver Olympics, medals have been presented at victory ceremonies — at either BC Place in Vancouver or Whistler Medals Plaza in Whistler Village. However, for a few events, such as figure skating, they have been doing them right at the event venue. They did the short track medals at the venue as well, probably because they needed to start preparing BC Place for the Closing Ceremony two days later. 
Team Canada on the podium with Korea in silver and USA in bronze Regardless, it was a bonus for us: we got to see three Canadian medals presented in one place — more than at any other medals ceremony at these Games — and got to sing O Canada twice that night. During one of the singings of O Canada, I gave my friend Katie a call on my cell phone so that she could join in.
Although I’ve enjoyed all the events I’ve attended at the Olympics, short track speed skating was my favourite. Overall, it’s just a fantastic, exciting sport to watch. And two O Canada’s in one night made it all the more rewarding!
Take a look at the rest of my pictures from short track speed skating.
