Canadian men's hockey gold!

This was THE game... the one an entire country's emotional wellbeing was tied up in: Canada vs. USA for the gold medal in men's hockey on the final day of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games, hours before the Closing Ceremonies. Had Canada lost, there would have been rioting in the streets and an onset of nationwide depression. Particularly since a Canadian loss would have meant a United States win.

The Olympics have given us an opportunity to see a rare outward display of Canadian patriotism (usually a much more subtle affair than it has been for the last fortnight). For weeks, shops have had "Go Canada Go" signage, cars and homes have been displaying the Canadian flag, and lots of red and white clothing has made an appearance. And, for the majority of the population, this match was the climax of the entire Olympics: hockey is Canada's game, and the men's team are the darlings of it. (The women's hockey team also won gold, a few days ago - an extremely proud moment for Canada, but not the moment that had the most national pride attached to it.)

In a marvellous episode of tension and suspense, with the game at 2-1 to Canada, the US team scored their second goal with only 24 seconds left. This meant the game went into "sudden death" overtime: the first team to score a goal would win. Seven minutes and forty seconds into overtime, the winning goal was scored.

And thankfully it was Canada that scored it.

We were wandering in and out of the shops along West 4th at the time of the win. There's no way a description in words would suffice, so here's a video of the mood on the street shortly after the game ended - no doubt an example of what is going on all over Canada this afternoon. Crank up the sound...

Here are some photos of the sights...

















And this is a compilation of videos taken as we drove along West 4th on our way home...

Finishing these Olympics with more gold medals (14) than any other country (although coming third in the medal tally overall), Canada has every reason to be celebrating. And celebrating they certainly are!!

Olympic weekend #2

On Friday night, we went to Granville Island (not actually an island, just part of Vancouver) to see The Lost Fingers, a gypsy jazz string trio consisting of two classical guitarists and a double bassist. They are from Quebec City and were playing here as part of the Cultural Olympiad running alongside the Winter Olympics. They played arrangements of 80s songs from their album "Lost in the 80s" - click the CD cover below if you'd like to hear a sample! It was a fairly small and intimate show, and before it started it was brought to our attention by the Coastal Jazz MC that some members of the Canadian womens' curling team were in attendance - we all gave them a cheer! (Curling is a really weird winter sport - look it up!) Anyway, we had front row seats at the side of the stage and thoroughly enjoyed the show!


It was fun to experience the Olympic atmosphere around Granville Island in general... lots of crowds, foreign languages, pavillion line-ups, 45 minute to 2 hour waits at restaurants (we eventually found an almost-empty one away from the main thoroughfare!), musicians and dancers performing outdoors, and the city lights glittering prettily across the water. Granville Island is growing on me - especially on night visits!

On the drive home, we saw flashing emergency lights ahead and then saw that it was because the Bombardier streetcar had run into a Jeep that was sitting on the tracks! (The streetcar is a temporary installment for the Olympics, carrying people between Granville Island and downtown.) When we first saw the lights, Ben had actually predicted that it would be a car hit by the tram, because when he and Gerard had ridden the streetcar back to Stuart and Rosanne's place to collect the car last Saturday (while Janelle, Claire and I rode the skytrain back to their place), the tram driver had had to slam on the brakes to avoid the same thing happening - a taxi was just idling merrily on the tracks, waiting to pull out onto the main road! Vancouver drivers can be a little, erm, vague... they deserve a separate post, which we are thinking about writing one of these days!! Anyway, I saw in the online news the next day that no one was injured in the streetcar/Jeep crash.

On Saturday afternoon, we headed into downtown Vancouver to check out the Olympic craziness, with the intention of seeing another pavillion or two. It was a beautiful sunny day, about 9 degrees. We didn't end up going into any pavillions because the line-ups were just too long - the closest we got was checking out some of the innovations at the BC Hydro PowerSmart Village (such as the "home of the future" and a dancefloor that generates electricity when people dance on it!).

However, we certainly saw lots of interesting/ bizarre/ amusing sights, and the amount of Canadian clothing around indicated that it wasn't just foreign tourists cramming the streets while the locals steered clear! Although we are aware of some Olympic negativity in the media and apparently among certain groups of locals, we definitely haven't encountered it in person... everyone we've seen here is enjoying the Olympics with admirable and infectious levels of enthusiasm!!

Here are some of the sights in downtown Vancouver on Saturday:

Olympic merchandise and shoppers at The Bay...





Lunarfest on Granville Street (hanging Chinese lanterns made by schoolchildren)...











Olympic pin collectors/ traders...



A hairy Canucks fan...



The crowd on Granville Street...



Anyone want a hug?





Displays of patriotism...







People zip-lining 100m across Robson Square... insanely, they had waited in line for 6-8 hours for this 10-second adrenaline rush!!!

The Olympic mascots...

A crowd waiting for some entertainment to start...



The colourful Vancouver Art Gallery, where the Olympic countdown clock is located (pictured below)... check out the cherry blossoms - did they lose track of what season it's meant to be?!















A sizeable flag...



The line-up for hot dogs...

On our way to Kelly and Janae's apartment; the entrance to Chinatown...

A flower-seller rummaging through the rubbish to find drinking containers to recycle (Ben heard on the radio that the greatly increased trash levels is a positive side-effect of the Olympics for the homeless people who rely on recycling for a little income!)...

For supper, we met up with Kelly and Janae, Janae's parents Donna and Terry (our US Thanksgiving hosts), and Janae's brother Justin. This is the gorgeous view of the Vancouver skyline from Kelly and Janae's apartment balcony...



And here we are in the condo that Donna and Terry were staying in... settling in to watch some of the day's Olympic events while munching on pizza, candy and icecream!



And that was another great Olympic weekend! :D

Olympic weekend

Well, we have survived our first Olympic weekend! :)

Here's how the last few days panned out...

The Winter Olympics sadly began with a tragedy on Friday morning: one of the luge competitors, Nodar Kumaritashvili from the country of Georgia, died after an accident at the Whistler Sliding Centre during practice. This was to be his Olympic debut - he was only 21 years old.

On Friday night the Opening Ceremonies were held at BC Place in Vancouver. This was a massive event costing $40 million, with over 60000 people there in person and another 23 million watching throughout Canada (out of a population of 33 million - not bad!). We watched it from the comfort of our loungeroom, courtesy of the live streaming at www.ctvolympics.ca. Ah, technology!

The Opening Ceremonies were a major spectacle, complete with native dancers, the Parade of Nations as each country entered, performances by famous singers, tap-dancing and fiddle-playing numbers, incredible special effects, and the lighting of the Olympic cauldron as the 106-day torch relay came to an end.

Australia has 40 athletes at the Winter Olympics, so it was wonderful to see them enter the arena during the Parade of Nations. It was also very moving to watch the small Georgian team walk in, wearing black armbands and with their hands over their hearts, having lost their teammate earlier that day. They received a standing ovation from the crowd. (There was also an official announcement of his death and a minute's silence later in the ceremony.) And of course, the loudest cheering of all was for the entrance of the Canadian team, who marched in last since they are the host nation.

The special effects during the ceremony included a 20m "spirit bear" rising out of the floor, and orcas appearing to swim under the stage floor and spouting water out of their blowholes. There were even the Rocky Mountains with real snowboarders and skiers on them, totem poles that turned into pine trees, and the aurora borealis (northern lights). It is really not possible to put it into words, so if you are interested in watching it, click here!

There was an unfortunate malfunction at the crucial moment just before the cauldron was lit. We were watching the four torchbearers jogging, waving and smiling in the arena and the suspense was dragging on until eventually the voiceover said: "there appears to be a problem... the cauldron is supposed to rise up out of the floor...". Then we saw three large cauldron "arms" start to rise slowly out of the floor, but from the high camera angle it was obvious there was also meant to be a fourth arm, which was not rising. At this point our live feed cut out, as did everyone else's we have talked to, so we actually did not watch the cauldron being lit until a few days later! One of the torchbearers (all former Canadian sporting heroes) ended up being stranded and unable to help light the cauldron (the flames travelled up the arms to the cauldron). Anyway, apart from that embarrassing situation, it was a thoroughly enjoyable ceremony and Canada did themselves proud!

On Saturday morning, we went to Stuart and Rosanne's for an "Olympic brunch", along with a bunch of other friends. (S&R have not featured on this blog for a while as they have been living in London/ working in Turkey for a few months!) We drove there with Janelle and Gerard and Claire - here's a photo of Ben getting Claire fed up before we left their place...



And some photos from the fantastic brunch Stuart and Rosanne hosted...





L-R below: me, Ruth, Myla...


L-R below: John, Rosanne, Shonna, Joel, Stuart...


After a long brunch, we walked to Granville Island and took the Bombardier streetcar (a temporary installment for the Olympics) to Cambie Street. There, as we walked across the bridge, we had this view of the giant Boxing Kangaroo flag hanging from the Aussie team's balconies in the Athletes' Village...





I had only realised that morning that we have our own Boxing Kangaroo flag, which we inherited from Susie when she left! Here it is adorning Claire's stroller...





Some of the crew under the bridge (L-R: Janelle, Ruth, Gerard, Andrew, Ken, Juanita, Helene)...



This was the view across False Creek on this cold, rainy first day of the Olympics (the round building is Science World)...





After walking through a pavillion of Asian food stalls and past a couple of other pavillions (such as the Saskatchewan House, which had a huge line-up!), we queued for about 45 minutes to get into the Russian pavillion, which was in Science World. Russia has the next Winter Olympics - Sochi 2014. The Russians have the very nice policy of letting people with young children skip the queue, so Gerard, Janelle and Claire (along with Andrew and Ken posing as "family") were in long before the rest of us! Here are some photos taken while we were in line...









These protesters were near the front of the line, protesting about the location of the Sochi Olympics apparently being the site of a genocide 150 years ago that has never been acknowledged by the Russian government. There have been a number of protests to do with the Olympics, but the ones getting the media time are the big anti-Olympic protests that have already turned violent twice since Friday. These guys were loud but not violent, and as a result the police at the site could not remove them - much to the irritation of the Russian security I think!!



This quintet then set up a few metres away on the other side of the queue, and managed to somewhat drown out the protesters' chanting with their beautiful singing...



And here are some photos taken inside the pavillion. We saw Russian dancers and musicians, pictures of the Russian landscape, and we watched a documentary about the Russian hockey-like sport of bandy. (I wouldn't say the House of Russia was actually that thrilling - the greatest attraction was that it was dry and warm - but as yet we have no other pavillion to compare it to, so I'll let you know once we have a greater sample size!) Here are some photos from inside...













And Ben captured this shot of a tourist that the Russians were getting their photo taken with (can you see why?)...



After we left the Russian pavillion, the more hard-core members of our group continued on to see a few more sights, but Juanita, Ben and I went back to Gerard and Janelle's and got Indian food delivered while watching the womens' moguls and some speed skating events online. Much more comfortable than lining up for hours in the cold and rain!!

Claire probably thought so too...



And that was our first Olympic weekend! More to come, hopefully!