Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics -Feb 12-Feb 28, 2010-

[Barbossa]

For any of you chasing the Olympic torch, an extra added bonus on Feb 8th and 9th in White Rock. The Royal Hudson steam train will be in White Rock to help celebrate White Rock's Winter Festival. The torch will be there on Feb 9. You can ride the train from Vancouver to White Rock and return. Here's the info:
http://www.wcra.org/tours/pdf/WRBROCHURE2010.pdf

21 days to go!

I finally found a pair of adult sized Torch Relay red mittens today.

[Radiobarry]

I haven't sensed much excitement about the games here yet (meaning Southern California at least), but I am sure that as NBC's promotions become more and more evident, it will build.

During the Torino games, I found myself watching as much of the coverage of the events shown on NBC's cable networks like Lifetime, Bravo and such...as I did the stuff on the main network.

I like watching events shown live, whenever possible, even if I have the apparent misfortune of living on the West Coast.

[Barbossa]

For any of you that are going to be in Whistler and want to party with the Jamaican Bobsled Team...
Jamaica Bobsleigh House | Your 2010 Olympic Party Headquarters | Savage Beagle, Whistler BC

Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! C'mon Jamaica, its bobsled time! COOL RUNNINGS!

[Barbossa]

19 days to go!

[Barbossa]

The Olympic flame arrived in Kelowna this evening and I went to check it out. So, without further ado, here's a trip report...

Entering City Park, people were greeted by these five ice sculptures, each representing a different sport. The ice sculptures were done by a local artist. Each sculpture was lit-up by the colours of the Olympic rings.








Next I headed off to the Coke display. They had an RV set-up with the different torches from past Olympics on display.

The one on the left that looks like the Calgary tower was the calgary torch. Some people say it looks like a toilet plunger.




Vancouver's Torch:


Here's a bunch of photos of the main stage.




Coke put on a high energy show that was part acrobatic and part Stomp (guys were drumming away on plastic buckets and other percussion instruments).





Just before the arrival of the torch. Our local politicians on stage along with our Premier. One of our MLAs up on stage was actually one of my professors from college.


Here's the torch. Sorry for the blurry photos. I didn't have my tripod with me.




The cauldron getting lit.




The guy on the right in the blue jacket is one of our local MLAs (member of legislative assembly [provincial government]), Norm Letnick. Norm was one of my professors in college before getting elected to public office.


Premier Gordon Campbell speaking to the crowd.



Second from the right in red (with microphone) is our mayor.





The MC with the cauldron.


And here's the community cauldron with the flame all the way from Greece.


One of the local bands playing. These guys were actually pretty good.



and the last couple of photos showing the torch relay sponsors' banners on each side of the stage.

Here's RBC (Royal Bank of Canada).


And here's Coke's beside the Jumbotron. Ok maybe it's not a Jumbotron as Sony isn't a sponsor, Panasonic is, so it's a probably a Panasonic product.


And here is the free swag I got.

I got:
RBC Tambourine
Coke flag
Light-up limited edition Coke bottle (edition #130717 of 250,000)
A couple glow stick torches from the City of Kelowna
Mascot sport stickers
A torch relay button from the BC Government
3 aluminum bottles of Coke made specially for the Coke relay

Coke had a neat setup. They were giving the Coke bottles out of a Zamboni. I saw the Zamboni at the McDonald's in West Kelowna. They took a Zamboni and gutted the ice cleaning machinery out of it and converted it to a cooler. They were driving the Zamboni around and would stop every so often and hand out the aluminum Coke bottles.

HBC (Hudson's Bay Company) had a stand at the community celebration as well. They were selling pins, hats, shirts, and other souvenirs. They were selling four Torch Relay pins that weren't being sold in stores, just exclusive to stops on the torch relay route. The four designs were:
Torch with red mittens
Torch with map of Canada
Miga with torch
Quatchi with torch
I picked up this one:


And that's the community celebration in Kelowna. Tomorrow the torch will continue thru Kelowna and head north. It's supposed to be stopping at the local Zellers store tomorrow. I'm going to go there as they will be offering a free pancake breakfast and free Team Canada toques to the first 100 people.

Just 17 days to go!

[Barbossa]

I got up extra early this morning because the Torch was going to be at the local Zellers store and Zellers was handing out free pom-pom toques to the first 100 people in line to get autographs from a couple Olympians. Also, there was a free pancake breakfast – who could pass that up?

I got out of bed at 6:10 and headed over to Zellers. I got there at about 6:40 and there were already about 50 people lined up. It was almost like Boxing Day or Black Friday shopping. A good crowd started to gather. Meanwhile, the torch relay started in the morning at 7:00 at City Hall. At 7:15 they let us in and I managed to get my free toque and autographs by Canadian Olympians Catherine Pendrel (Cycling) and Michael Lewis (Rowing). Michael won bronze in lightweight men’s four rowing in Beijing. He had his medal on hand and I got to check it out. First time I had an Olympic medal in my hand. It was cool. I realized I forgot to bring my camera. D’oh! Then I had breakfast and around 8:00 the torch relay arrived at Zellers. The Coke Zamboni was handing out free product again. A great big crowd showed up along Springfield Avenue. It bugs me that I didn’t have my camera there.

Since I didn’t have my camera, I decided to race home and get it and meet up with the relay on Hollywood Road right across from Quigley Elementary School. Here’s some pics with the students getting ready to cheer-on the torch bearer:




Here comes the relay entourage:



Here’s the torch bearer bus. The bus would drop off the torch bearers at the various handover locations. Each bearer got to run 300 meters with the flame. That’s not bad, maybe I should’ve signed up to be a torch bearer:



The rest of the entourage approaching:



This is RBC’s truck:



One of the support buses:



Here’s Coke’s setup:




The RCMP escort:




One of the support RVs:



And here’s the flame with the torch bearer high-fiving the students:




A back shot of the relay:



Then I quickly raced over to the intersection of Leathead and Rutland roads, right by my place and managed to get these great photos.

The crowd, and it was a big one:




The Kelowna leg of the torch relay ended at Rutland Secondary School just down the road to the left:


Here is Kelowna’s last torch bearer:




More crowd:





Getting ready to receive the Olympic flame:



Getting some last minute instructions:





Here comes the flame:



The handover:





And off she goes:



Another shot of the crowd:



The back of the RV:



The previous torch bearer getting back on the bus:



Another crowd shot:



Here’s some more swag I got today including my free toque (a $15 value!) and autographs:



The torch is now heading north to Lake Country then to Vernon, and then to Revelstoke. It will continue north and then swing back south and head to Vancouver.

17 days to go!

Go Canada Go!

[Barbossa]

After the torch relay, I headed over to the GM dealership where I picked up a couple more items for free:
a car window flag:


and a pin:

[BC_DisneyGeek]

Nice photos. I want the light-up Coke bottle of all things...

[Barbossa]

Nice photos. I want the light-up Coke bottle of all things...

It's pretty neat. It's actually styrofoam with a plastic cover. It changes colour when you turn it on; cycles thru the colours of the Olympic rings. And only 250,000 were produced.

[BC_DisneyGeek]

Does Vanoc know you're using the Olympics logo as your avatar? They're ruthless you know...

[Barbossa]

Does Vanoc know you're using the Olympics logo as your avatar? They're ruthless you know...

I know they're ruthless . But they way I see it, It's free viral advertising for them . I couldn't believe an article I read about a week ago concerning the Vancouver library. It said that if they have Sony TVs, they have to cover up "Sony" because Sony isn't a sponsor of the games, Panasonic is. There's a few things Vanoc is going a little overboard on. Sometimes it seems they forgot the games are about sport, not business.

[Radiobarry]

There's a few things Vanoc is going a little overboard on. Sometimes it seems they forgot the games are about sport, not business.

Ummm, since when?

Don't mean to be overly cynical, but I certainly remember the controversy when the USA "dream" basketball team won the gold medal in 1992, and there was an uproar over whether Michael Jordan would wear the Team USA warmups on the medal stand, because they had Reebok logos on them, and of course he was beholden to Nike.

The Olympics are a lot about business. Big business.

[sediment]

Yup. Someone has to pay for all the new construction.

Tell Greece and Montreal that it's all about sport. Both had huge deficits that had (orstill have) to be paid off.

[sir clinksalot]

I think every Olympic host city goes into debt. I think I remember hearing that the Beijing games were close to a BILLION dollars in the red.

Plus now they have to actually truck in SNOW for the games. Who's bright idea was it to put the games where there is no snow???

[Radiobarry]

I think every Olympic host city goes into debt.

Los Angeles didn't, because, among other reasons, they insisted on using existing venues and didn't cave into every single demand made by the elites that run the IOC. I think they built a new facility for cycling and that was about it.

Thank you, Peter Ueberroth.