Day 7 (Feb 19, 2010)

My last day at the Olympics!  I can't believe it's all done.

I finally had a morning off today and got a little bit of sleep.  I have to admit that was nice.
Today started out at noon with Norway vs. Switzerland.  That may sound like a pretty boring or uninteresting game, but I was pleasantly surprised.  That was definitely the most consistently entertaining game I have seen.  In the first 5 minutes of the game, there was a penalty shot, a goal, a 5-on-3, and blood on the ice.  It was back and forth for the whole game.  The Swiss had an amazingly effective forecheck and Norway's Tore Vikingstad and Patrick Thoresen lit up the scoreboard.

The game ended with a 5-4 OT win for Switzerland.  GREAT GAME.
Then in the late afternoon I had my final event of the Olympics: Slovakia vs. Latvia.  It was another great chance to meet up with a few Latvians...or at least Latvian-Canadians.  It was cool at first to have a seat in the 9th row.  However, I soon found out that I could only really see one end of the ice...

Unfortunately, the game did not exactly go Latvia's way...if you can call a 6-0 loss that.  The only bright side was seeing Lubomir Visnovsky get a goal.  Now he just needs to do that after the Olympics...

So, all in all, a great day and a FANTASTIC week.
Perhaps a conclusion will be forthcoming in a day or two...

Day 6 (Feb 19, 2010)

I can't believe this was my second last day at the Olympics!  It feels like I just got here.

Unfortunately, no more Canada events for me.  But that doesn't mean that I don't have anything good!

I started out today with my last early morning of curling at the Vancouver Olympic Centre.  This morning's draw featured China/Denmark, Russia/USA, and Germany/Great Britain.  China absolutely obliterated Denmark 11-1 (including 5 in the 6th).  They shook hands after only 6 ends.  Germany/Britain was very close until the 9th when Britain took 5. They shook hands half way through 10.

The real exciting match was Russia and the USA.  Although they're both at the bottom of the standings right now, they had a fantastic game.  Came down to the last shot before the US finally managed their first win of the tournament.







Then I spent one last afternoon watching the world walk by in downtown Vancouver.  I swear this place gets busier every day.  The weather has simply been AMAZING.  Sitting outside in the afternoon is like being out on an afternoon in May or June...not February.

After a few hours in the sun I was off to my first Latvia hockey game against the Czech Republic.  It was a lot of fun cheering for the underdog.  I even managed to run into a few Latvians who tried (rather unsuccessfully) to teach me how to cheer in Latvian.

Unfortunately, it ended in a 5-2 loss for the Latvians.  However, that was basically because of 9 penalties and a really shaky start that resulted in 3 goals in the first 5 minutes.  If Latvia played the whole game like they played most of the 2nd and 3rd periods, they could have made the game a bit closer.

Finally, I headed over to BC Place for my last Victory Ceremony.  Unfortunately, no Canadians today.  But still a good time.

Tomorrow is my last day of events at the Olympics.
Two hockey games:
1200 - Norway/Switzerland
1630 - Latvia/Slovakia

Day 5 (Feb 18, 2010)

Another great day in Vancouver!

Again I started out early this morning at the Vancouver Olympic Centre.  But this time it was Men's Curling featuring Kevin Martin and his Canadian rink vs. Sweden.







It was a fantastic match and very typical of Martin's style.  He played well and made some incredible key shots when they were needed.  But it definitely wasn't a very close game.  Martin took the reigns quite early and never let up.

They shook hands after the 9th as Martin won his 3rd in a row 7-3.









Then it was another great afternoon of walking around downtown Vancouver.  If you're in the Vancouver area, I would, again, HIGHLY recommend just wandering around and seeing what's out there.  Sometimes you find something cool, sometimes you don't, but you always see some interesting people.

As the afternoon wore on, you could FEEL the excitement growing.  It's a fairly simple formula: Canada + Hockey = Party.

I got into Canada Hockey Place to a very pleasant surprise: my seat was upper deck, 4th row, almost exactly on centre ice.  I couldn't have asked for a better seat to a better game.

Finally the big game was under way!








I'm sure by now everyone knows the results, so I won't dwell on them.  Here are my few thoughts:

• Canada played well.  But not good enough to beat the likes of Russia or Sweden...possibly not even the USA if we're not careful.
• The top two lines are doing OK.  By top two I mean Nash/Crosby/Iginla and Thornton/Heatley/Marleau.  And by OK, I mean good enough to beat Switzerland...barely.
• The Sharks line is taking the bulk of the work.  That won't win the gold.
• The other two lines are nearly invisible.  We need 4 lines producing to win.
• Sidney Crosby needs to CALM THE HELL DOWN.  He's so itchy to put the puck in the net that he's forgetting to actually play the game.  Hopefully putting away the shootout winner will get him back to being one of the most dynamic players in the world.

I honestly think that this team has the potential to win the gold.  But potential doesn't put pucks in the net.  Also, hitting a hot goalie doesn't help.  We put 48 shots on Hiller and he only let in 2.  That is going to happen.  We just need to be able to put that 49th shot on net and make it count.

Then I was off to BC Place.  I would like to make a slight retraction here.  On Tuesday I complained severely about accessing BC Place from Canada Hockey Place.  Either they retooled the access or I completely missed the short route because there is now a direct walk from Canada Hockey Place to BC Place.  You don't even have to go through security again.  So my 35 minute walk from Tuesday is now a 5 minute walk like it should be.

Anyway, back to interesting things!

First, I got to see Marianne St-Gelais get the silver medal for Women's 500m Short Track Speed Skating.

Then it was time to see Christine Nesbitt get the gold medal for Women's 1000m Long Track Speed Skating!

Yet another great Canadian moment at the Olympics!

So it was yet another fantastic day at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.  Every day seems to somehow top the previous day.

Up Tomorrow:

Women's Curling: Germany/Great Britain, Russia/USA, China/Denmark

Men's Hockey: Czech Republic/LATVIA!

Day 4 (Feb 17, 2010)

Yet another great day here in Vancouver at the Olympics.
Today was my first day of curling.  I was up and running very early this morning to see the ladies play.

I started out early this morning at Vancouver Olympic Centre.  A decent facility in quite a nice location.

Right in front of me was the most interesting game: Canada vs. Japan.








It turned out to be quite a good game.  It ended up coming down to the very last rock before Canada won 7-6.  I thought Canada played reasonably well, but not exceptional.  As I remember seeing, the team was only curling around 80%.  The reason that they won was because of Japan missing a few key shots.  But all that really matters is that we won.  Here are a few more pictures from the game:

After curling, I finally had some free time to just hang out in downtown Vancouver and check out the "Olympic vibe".  It's quite an interesting experience and I would recommend that anyone coming to Vancouver take a few minutes and just sit downtown somewhere.  You can literally watch the world walk by.

Later in the afternoon, I had my 3rd hockey game of the Olympics: Sweden vs. Germany.  I have to say I'm rather impressed with Canada Hockey Place (aka GM Place).  I was literally sitting in the top-most row today and I can't say I had any complaints about the view.  Edmonton could take a few pointers there...

But back to hockey!
This was definitely the most competitive game I've seen so far.  I couldn't really tell if it was Germany playing exceptionally well or Sweden not living up to the standard of reigning Olympic champions.  But the main point is that this game was far less one-sided than most people would have predicted.  Sweden only ended up winning 2-0.  From what I saw, the Sedins were basically invisible.  I'll be interested to see what happens when Sweden plays Belarus and even more interested when they play Finland.  Sweden definitely has to step up their game.

Here are a few pictures from the game:

I ended up leaving the game early to make sure that I got to today's Victory Ceremony on time.  It was definitely worth missing some hockey.  I got to see Maelle Rickard receive her gold medal for Women's Snowboard Cross.  I have seldom heard a crowd cheer that loud (on par with Stanley Cup finals in Edmonton) and have very rarely felt so proud to be a Canadian.  It was truly an amazing moment as a Canadian, a sports fan, and a follower of the Olympic movement.

So, altogether, another great day for me and for Canada.  Vancouver is getting some (surprisingly) great weather this week.  It's fantastic here.

Up tomorrow:
Men's Curling - Canada vs. Sweden
Men's Hockey - Canada vs. Switzerland

Should be another great day!

Day 3 (Feb 16, 2010)

HOCKEY!!!!!

Today I finally got to see some hockey.  Finally a sport I can actually comment on.

Unfortunately, I left my SD card in my laptop when I uploaded yesterday's pictures.  So I don't have much to show from the morning.  Luckily, I managed to run up to London Drugs in downtown Vancouver between games and bought a cheap SD card so I have a few pictures from the late afternoon at least.

The day started out with USA/Switzerland at noon.  The Americans were quite well represented in the crowd but the Swiss were definitely noticeable too.  Although the USA did manage to win 3-1, I will make a few key points which put a bit of a footnote on the game:

• I thought the Swiss outplayed the Americans for at least half of the game.
• The US only had 2 shots in the whole 3rd period.
• Out of the 6 possible assists the Americans could have had, they only had 1.  All of the goals were basically individual efforts...no real team play.
• Only the Kane line showed ANY signs of life and/or talent.

So the first game ended and finally it was time to leave so that I could re-enter for the Canada/Norway game.

This is where I will put my first (and so far only) complaint.  The layout of the entrances and exits for Canada Hockey Place (CHP) and BC Place are TERRIBLE.  The only way to approach CHP is from the North.  The only two entrances are from the South.  I understand this, in concept.  It allows the exiting crowds to head straight north while the crowd for the next game goes around and enters from the South.  There are two problems that I found though.  My seat was on the exact opposite side of the assigned gate on my ticket.  So I had to go all the way to the North end of CHP.  Leaving CHP after the second game was the really ridiculous part though.  CHP and BC Place are approximately 500-700 metres apart.  However, to get from the exit of CHP to the entrance to BC Place, I had to walk about 3 km.  There were probably five to ten THOUSAND people doing the same thing.  That's not good planning.

However, I digress.  Back to hockey!

Approaching Canada Hockey Place the excitement was noticeably growing. It was a sea of red and white.

To say the crowds were large would be a bit of an understatement.  But everyone was in a good mood.

This is where my amusing story of the day comes in.  I was waiting to get into Canada Hockey Place when a guy came up rather aggressively trying to sell programs.  He gave me a few lines such as "How will you know who's hot on Norway?" and "Come on, you won't know who these Norweigians are!" Then he somewhat cornered me and said if I could name a star on the Norweigian team, he'd walk away.  Naturally I said "Patrick Thoreson."  (For the uninformed, Thoreson used to be an Oiler and they made a big deal about him being the only Norweigian in the NHL)  He stared at me for a second, said "Oh.", and walked away. 

I finally got in and got to my seat.  I have to admit I lucked out.  3rd row of the upper deck behind Luongo for the 1st and 3rd.  AMAZING.  The crowd went nuts when the Canadians stepped onto the ice.

The game itself was absolutely amazing.  I will completely forget the scoreless first period (assuming we never see that kind of play again) and chock it up to the team settling in and the players figuring each other out.  But once the second got started, it was very obvious which was the more talented team.  They just needed to get that first goal out of the way and they relaxed.

The top line with Nash/Crosby/Iginla played quite well.  Crosby seemed to be looking for a goal (which he didn't find) but thankfully he didn't seem to hog the puck more than is necessary.  Marleau/Thornton/Heatley also played very well together, unsurprisingly.

Altogether (and even considering the first period), it was a fantastic opening game for Canada.  It sent a message that we have a good team and that we're here to play.

I thought it was a nice (and humble) touch at the end of the game when the players saluted the crowd.

After the Canada game (and somewhat late), I headed to BC Place to catch my first Victory Ceremony.  Unfortunately, I missed the presentation of Mike Robertson's silver medal for Men's Snowboard Cross.  However I did catch the medal presentation for the Men's 500m Speedskating that I saw yesterday.  Then I saw a bit of the Barenaked Ladies.  Sadly, they're not quite the band they used to be after losing Stephen Page.

A great day, all in all.  Being a part of a team Canada game in Canada was a breathtaking experience.  The crowd was electric once the team got going.  I can't wait to do it again on Thursday.

Up tomorrow:

0900 - Women's Curling

1630 - Hockey - SWE/GER

1900 - Victory Ceremony (Including the presentation of Maelle Ricker's gold medal!)

Day 2 (Feb 15, 2010)

Day 2!

My first real day of Olympic action.

On tap for today:
1530 - Men's 500m Long Track Speed Skating
1830 - Vancouver Victory Ceremony









I started out my day with a quick trip into the heart of Vancouver to check out Robson Square.

As expected it was quite insanely busy.  There are all sorts of random things in the square including some cultural events and the huge zip line.  The zip line seems to be quite popular...at least judging by the 5 hour wait.








Finally I headed up to Vancouver City Centre station to head south to Richmond.

I then ran into a rather large contingent of Dutch speed skating fans.  I VERY quickly learned that the Dutch are extremely passionate about speed skating. An impromptu anthem singing competition ensued.  There was little doubt that the Dutch won.

After a 20 minute train ride and a good long walk, I finally got a look at the Richmond Olympic Oval.








The event itself was amazing with a few small exceptions.  As with yesterday there were always twice as many volunteers as was needed.  So everything runs incredibly smoothly.  A Dutch brass band called Kleintje Pils entertained the crowd during lulls in the action.  Hearing a Dutch band playing Hava Nagila in Richmond BC was...a unique experience to say the least.  The Japanese also had a very large group of fans who alternated between absolute silence and ear-shattering noise, depending on who was on the track.

Unfortunately there was a very long delay caused by the zambonis.  You'd think that a bunch of Canadians could manage to resurface ice without incident... But I digress.  Unfortunately, the Canadians didn't manage to medal, but a good time was had by all.

The only real downside of the day was missing the Victory Ceremony at BC Place because of the delays at speed skating.  That, of course, meant that I missed Alex Bilodeau receiving his gold medal.

But overall, a great first day!  I can't wait for more.

Tomorrow:

HOCKEY!

USA/Switzerland and Canada/Norway