Friday, February 12, 2010

Olympic Fever

Seven sports, 86 events, 258 medals, 15 venues, 5,500 athletes representing 80 nations, 25,000 volunteers, 1.8 million tickets, 10,000 media representatives, and one flaming torch.

The eyes of the world turn to Vancouver, British Columbia this evening as the 2010 Olympics finally get underway. I say "finally" because the Canadian TV station providing coverage has been advertising the event for the past two years. Last week, during the Superbowl, every commercial break (and there were wayyy too many of them) involved yet another commercial for the Olympics and several viewings of the theme song "Believe", which I like but not over and over and over again in the same two hour period. Then again, they had to show something since we don't get to see all the big Superbowl commercials that are shown on the U.S. stations.

No matter, that is all behind us now. The big day has finally arrived and even though the hype will continue, now the fun starts. You can feel the fever everywhere you go, locally and nationally. Lots of people are wearing the Olympic clothing being sold by one of our major department stores - the red and white mitts are a big hit - and everyone is talking about who will be the last torch bearer lighting the flame in the stadium tonight (it's still a deeply guarded secret - will it be Wayne Gretsky or a hologram of Terry Fox or Terry's mom? And why is Arnold Schwarzenegger carrying it today??? What is his Canadian connection???), whether there will be enough snow (they've been trucking it in from higher up in the mountains) and what our medal possibilities might be (what, we're not going to win them all!?) Even Google has a fabulous banner picture today to commemorative the event:

You can check out the official website here: http://www.vancouver2010.com/. You should also check out Lelania's blog - she is an online classmate of mine who is working as a volunteer and posting entries regularly. It's fascinating to read the details and see photos taken by someone who is right there in the midst of it all: http://tatterededge.blogspot.com/.

Let the Games begin!!

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