Olympics Retrospective

It has finally reached the end.  No more massive crowds singing O Canada or any other national anthem.  No more hordes of police making sure that the crowd is well-behaved.  No more massive groups of international tourists here to see their team or their athletes take away the Gold Medal, the Silver Medal, the Bronze, or just compete in that sense of sporting camaraderie.  Tour buses wait outside hotels to ferry masses of people to the airport as they finally take their leave of our wonderful city.

Yes, the Olympics are over.  Vancouver is quiet this morning, perhaps recovering from the mass hysterical hangover that came as a result of Canada's huge 3-2 win over the United States in Men's Hockey.  Seventeen days of the biggest party this city has ever seen.  Of patriotic fervor that I wasn't sure Canadians possessed any longer (at least not in any big group).  Of welcoming the people of the world and saying "here we are, let's have some fun."

As citizens of Vancouver, we had front row seats for it all.  We had to fight the crowds, were able to engage in the revelry, and had the obligation to make the tourists' trips to the city the best time they could ever think of having.

Was it worth it?

Olympic Hockey - Day 4 (Sweden-Finland) & Week in Review

Day 4 of our Olympic hockey odyssey dawned very bright and sunny on a peaceful Sunday morning. This day was going to be a quiet one for us. We weren't going to be gallivanting all over the city, and thus there were no pictures to take (sorry for those who are interested, but I'll try to keep post Vancouver photos to the blog periodically). Sunday was "Super Sunday" in the Olympic Hockey world, with three huge games to end the Preliminaries and determine who has to do a Qualifying game and who gets to automatically go to the Quarterfinals.

We decided we would eat dinner at home and watch the first two games before heading out to the Sweden-Finland game at our customary 9:00pm. It was a fun day to just rest, relax, and watch some good hockey on the television. The Russia-Czech Republic game wasn't that interesting, but the main event that everybody had been waiting for was the Canada-USA game at 4:30. We had our eyes glued to the TV just like most of the country (and unlike most of the US, where I understand NBC didn't show it live).

Olympic Hockey - Day 3 (Belarus-Germany)

Last night was Day 3 of our Olympic hockey odyssey, and I have to admit right up front that it was the one we were least looking forward to.  Neither team is exactly a powerhouse in the Olympic hockey world, though at least Christian Ehrhoff, a Vancouver Canuck defenseman, is on the German team.  Worst comes to worst, we have somebody to root for!  It didn't help that, to this point, Germany hadn't scored a goal in two games (and more, dating back to 2006 in Turin).  Little did we know that the night would become even less of a game to look forward to, though at least the results were good.  And despite my assurances to a couple of friends that we had pretty much taken pictures of everything we would see on our travels, we did end up getting lots of snaps!

This, then, is our story.  Some of the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Ah, who am I kidding?  We're not interesting enough to have guilty parties!

Olympic Hockey - Day 2 (Russia-Slovakia)

Thursday night was our second Olympic hockey game to attend, again at 9:00, and again with Russia!  It was the Russia-Slovakia game, and we were greatly looking forward to it.  As cool as it was how much fight Latvia put up, they were just outmatched against the Russians on Tuesday night (my take on that night can be found here).  This would be a much better game, and even more so by the end of it.  But that's for later (who am I kidding? You probably already know the result, but let's pretend).

This night would not be quite as long as Tuesday night was, as we didn't have 4 hours to kill.  I actually got to go home after work and veg out for a bit (and finish up my Tuesday night post with the pictures).  Around 6:15, I headed out to meet the wife after an appointment she had.  I was just meandering down the streets of Downtown Vancouver, taking in the sights (and momentarily not realizing that, while Robson Street was closed off, the *intersections* of Robson and other streets are not!  Whoops!)  I wish more of my pictures had turned out, but I'm not the steadiest hand with the iPhone.

My Olympics Experience - Russia/Latvia Hockey

Tuesday night was our first time out soaking up the Olympics atmosphere, as we had tickets to the Russia-Latvia hockey game at 9:00 Vancouver time.  We'd heard the noise, of course, since we already live downtown, but we hadn't got mixed up with the crowds to really experience it.  I have to admit that it was kind of fun, and this is coming from a cynical Vancouverite.  It is a once in a lifetime experience (ok, 5 times in a lifetime, since we have tickets to 5 games, but you know what I mean).

Here is our story:

When "Branding" the Olympics goes too far

So far, as a Vancouver citizen, I have to say that the Olympics have generally gone off pretty well here.  There have been the few bumps and bruises (the hydraulics failing on one of the torches in the Opening Ceremonies is a classic moment, or the cancellation of numerous tickets up at Cypress Mountain for various events because the standing room only area was a sea of mud instead of snow), but overall, I think it's been positive.

But there are some dark things behind the scenes.  Most of these are the usual things (i.e. cost overruns, poor decision-making by VANOC, etc), but one thing I found out the other day just chapped my hide (and it's already raw to begin with!).  That is the excessive branding of the Olympics, taken to new heights (or maybe not new...can anybody in Salt Lake City tell me whether it happened there too?)