Archive for February, 2010

It’s hard to believe that the Olympics are almost at an end.  It is already Day 15.  Soon the closing ceremony will be here and the torch will be extinguished and it’s all over.  Vancouver will be back to its old self with perhaps a wicked Olympic hangover.  It happens every time a city returns [...]

I was in a beer garden in Vancouver’s Yaletown when a guy draped in an American flag strutted in.  He was carrying on like Superman, all layered up in red, white and blue and making lots of noise.  Boy, did he rile up the Canadians.  After all today is the Canada versus USA men’s hockey match and as [...]

Walking down Granville Street in Vancouver tonight I saw something you hardly ever see  in the United States.  Twenty something girls playfully singing and strutting to their national anthem.  They were on the crosswalk and at the top of their lungs they were singing “Oh, Canada, our home and native land…”  Of course patriotism and spirit are running [...]

Immediately after the opening ceremony people began to run.  They hoofed it to the International Broadcast Centre to see the after party.  Wayne Gretzky rode in a flatebed truck with the Olympic torch aloft to light an external flame outside the building.  The crowd went wild, shouting “Gretzky, Gretzky, Gretzky.”  Amazing to see how Canadians adore The Great One.  A Shaun [...]

My 16 year old son is mad at me.  When I call home his anger is palpable.  He does not understand why I leave home for extended periods of time every couple of years to work at the Olympics.  He won’t listen when I try to explain so I’m putting it out to the world.  [...]

I walked out of my hotel room this morning carrying a plastic bottle of water and by the time I was at the front desk it was empty.  I handed it to the concierge and asked if he could throw it out.  Before I could correct myself a hotel manager did it for me.  Recycle!  From what I [...]

I walked out of my hotel room in Vancouver this morning to see a flock of seagulls squacking their heads off.  That’s the most noise I’ve heard since I arrived in Canada.  Toto, we’re not in Beijing anymore.  In 2008, with the Olympic Games a week and a half away, the city was buzzing with anticipation [...]