Update: Alex Hermann’s perfect bracket ended in the third round when Butler upset Syracuse. He got the other three games right. Still pretty amazing! Congratulations to Alex Hermann of Chicago, an autistic 17 year old, who is the only person in the country with a perfect bracket after the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament. Quite the feat in a contest full of … Continue reading Autistic Kid with Perfect NCAA Bracket
I’m a fair weather fan. I admit it. I don’t follow a team or watch ESPN or read the agate or particularly care about the drama in sports. When a team goes down I shrug and get on with my life. I can’t understand why people get depressed or beat their wives. It’s a game. Hello! I skim over the sports pages and stop to read stories … Continue reading March Madness
Just another couple of days and I’ll be heading home from Vancouver. Didn’t want to leave the Olympic city without sharing this commercial with you. Over the course of the games, out of the corner of my eye, I kept joining this television ad in progress. I never quite grasped what it was about because I didn’t see it in its entirety until tonight. It … Continue reading Tim Horton’s Coffee Commercial
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 to normal after being the center of the sporting universe. … Continue reading Olympic Moments
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 friendly as we are with our neighbors to the north, this … Continue reading Hockey Night in Canada
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 high at the Olympics but the Canadians also have a very singable … Continue reading Oh Canada
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 White look alike and his sidekicks led the crowd in the … Continue reading Gretzky Lights the Flame
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. Being part of a production team at the Olympics is, … Continue reading Why I Work at the Olympics
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 and chaotic with last minute preparations. Thousands of people were … Continue reading Olympics: Canada Style
This blog was born so that I could post to my friends, family and anyone else interested from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Now on the eve of 2010 Olympics, as I prepare to board an airplane for British Columbia, I find myself blogging again and reflecting on the only other time I was in Vancouver. I was 10 years old and my great uncle … Continue reading Greyhound Bus to Vancouver
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