Olympics
March 10th, 2010
The Olympics has ended over 10 days ago, and it felt like a vacation (sort of, except I actually had to work).
We lined up in the cold, along with thousands of other people, for stuff. Some stuff was a waste of time, while others were worth the wait.
We attended a few events. 3 curling events:
1) Men’s curling round robin #1, and saw Canada vs Norway, which was great because it was also Canada vs Norway in the gold medal game, but we didn’t have tickets for that one.
2) Men’s ice hockey, qualifier round Norway vs. Slovakia. It was my first live hockey game ever. We sat in the lower bowl, category A seats. Yup, we sort of splurged, since the tickets weren’t too costly. Not like it was a semi-final or gold medal game.
3) Women’s gold medal curling, and saw Canada vs. Sweden. Extremely unfortunate that our Canadian team didn’t win gold. Of the 4 big team sports medals (men and women’s hockey, and men and women’s curling), this is the only one that didn’t get gold… It was a very exciting game though. And we can say that we were there! ![]()
4) Men’s bronze medal curling, and saw Sweden vs. Switzerland. Another great game. Unfortunately for us (but fortunately for Canada!) that the Canadian men went undefeated and didn’t end up in the bronze medal game, so we didn’t get to see them.
So, what were some of the free venues that we lined up for? (By the way, Benny was with us in all of these!)
1) Torch relay. Dez and Benny got photos with some athletes and saw some politicians.
2) Downtown Olympic cauldron. Heavily fortified!
3) Live City Yaletown. Went to the Coca-Cola pavilion to get pics with torch (no flames)…
4) Vancouver Art Museum. Saw lots of Leonardo Da Vinci stuff, as well as local art. Didn’t have to wait too long. Not many pics because photography was not allowed in most areas.
5) Royal Canadian Mint. The highlight of our line-ups! 5 hours wait in the rain. Dez and I sort of did a relay, so it wasn’t as bad. Got to hold the Olympic medals with our (gloved) hands! And saw the million dollar 100kg gold coin! Didn’t know coins can look so good…
6) Sochi World. Saw the IOC president Jacques Rogge and figure skating phenom Evgeni Plushenko.
7) Richmond O-Zone. No wait! Saw Yu-Na Kim’s performance live on big screen, as well as Mao Asada and Joannie Rochette.
Men’s gold medal curling and gold medal hockey! OK, we were actually home for those, but watching it on TV was great! Canada beat Norway in another great curling game, and Canada beat USA in hockey overtime and claimed the title of most gold medals ever in a winter Olympic game. Not too shabby.
It was certainly one of those events that we may never see in Vancouver again in our lifetimes.