Oh, Canada!

JCL · #20 02-18-2010, 02:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FSETH

Is it just me, or has anyone else thought the Olympics have been somewhat of a nightmare so far? The death of a luger, malfunction of the Olympic cauldron, having to haul Gretzky in a truck to another cauldron (because the other was indoors), significant amount of protesting, bad snow conditions causing horible skiing/snowboarding conditions (the women are crashing left and right as we speak), warm temps, etc. I know every olympics has issues (1996 Olympic Park Bomber, etc.), but man...

I'll try not to be too defensive

It hasn't felt like a nightmare. The death of the luger was very tragic. The luge federation inspected the track again, and declared it safe. They reported he had only done something like 16 runs, which makes you wonder what he was doing at the Olympics on a fast track.

The stage show malfunction was handled pretty well, they got the indoor flame lit before the hand held torches ran out of fuel. We heard they had 20 seconds left in each torch. They are pretty high tech, apparently.

I have only seen one protest on TV, and that was led by imported anarchists from the US east coast. Send them home. Maybe we could send them down the luge track first, sans helmets.

Snow conditions on Cypress have been a challenge. Global warming?
We had the warmest January on record in Vancouver. They trucked snow in for weeks. Whistler has been much better, however. They had to postpone two events today at Whistler because of too much snowfall. I guess it is part of the logistics challenge.

We do notice that the media have a certain slant. They seem to be trying very hard to find negatives to report on. Part of the deal, I guess. One example was Steven Colbert (sp?), who many of us don't know. He has been running his own style of stories on Vancouver and Canada for weeks, reportedly. So today he was downtown, outdoors, taping live. A large crowd turned out to welcome him, laughing and singing Oh Canada. Great spirit.

What I have noticed most is the spirit around town. The crowds are universally well-behaved, people are smiling and happy, and it seems to be coming off well. I directed a Swedish contingent to Chinatown today (they were lost, looking at a map), and the Cultural Olympiad has lineups around the block at most sites, with live bands playing every hour.

Anyway, I am probably biased. It feels pretty good here, however. Now we just need a gold medal hockey game for both men's and women's teams.