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Final Olympics night snapshot

February 28th, 2010 · 7 Comments

I missed the game (too much tension), following its progress by the screaming around me.I felt like I had to get out afterwards, because it was all just too much like an unreal Disney movie to me. Really, could old Walt himself have dreamed up anything better? Sports mega-event comes to (in global terms) relatively small town of nice, wholesome types. They have great dreams of glory, but those dreams are deflated early on as things go wrong. After a few early triumphs, but the team falls apart, things start to go wrong. It looks as though it’s all going to end in disaster. Spirits sag. And then … miracle. The team comes together. They start winning gold medals. And in the movie’s finale, the team overcomes great odds to win a gold medal that gives the little town the greatest medal count the country has ever seen.

Sheesh. And it HAD to be the movie-star hero, Sidney Crosby, who scored the winning goal. You know, if someone submitted this screenplay to Hollywood, it would be dismissed as too mushy and unbelievable.

So, as an antidote, I headed downtown later to enjoy people taking over even more streets than before. Police were posted at the top of the escalators of the downtown SkyTrain, relieving the 18-year-olds of their six-packs of beer. Thank god they’re so dumb sometimes.

Best idea I saw of the night: Someone who brought a boombox down and set it up outside the mall north of Georgia on Granville, producing an instant dance party on the street. Now maybe that’s what we need every Friday and Saturday night to soak up all the excess youthful energy. Get them dancing and they won’t have any energy left to pick fights.

Next best idea: the wooden basis under the Chinese lantern trees, which people have been using as found soundscape devices. The builders didn’t intend to have them use as stamping pads, but that’s what they’re being used for (even though a few stampers have actually broken through) and it creates a great drumming sound down the whole street.

Further down Georgia, I ran into a posse from the Vancouver police: Chief Jim Chu, along with deputies Doug Lepard and Bob Rolls. Before I could ask any questions, a young guy came up, asked if the chief was John Chu and then thanked him profusely for making the Games so great for everyone.

Then they continued on their way getting a feel for what was going on in the streets. Apparently there’s a massive system of information loading that tells them how many people are arriving downtown on transit, how many are leaving, and, through CCTV, how big the crowds are so that they can tell if there’s a big influx of kids from the suburbs about to hit.

From there, through an empty Chinatown, accompanied only by posts arriving through Facebook on my blackberry, informing me of how atrocious all my friends thought the closing ceremonies were as they were unrolling. (“When they bring out the giant inflatable beavers, you know they’ve jumped the shark,” said one.)

And then a bus home,  as the traffic returned to the streets, with an inexplicable jam of cars headed … not away from downtown, but towards it.

Categories: Uncategorized

  • Dee

    Well summarized – I’d like to hear your reflections on the next few days and weeks. Two weeks to sober up and then the paralympics. I wonder how much support Vancouver will give then. I’m almost thinking of buying a ticket to the opening ceremonies to an event where people have openly overcome personal adversity just to set me in a determined mood to pay back for all this fun over the next decade. I’m thinking I need some exercise first though: all this couch spectating has got me a few bottom sores and saggy middle parts. Wasn’t the Russian entertainment at the closing ceremonies classy (if not typically over dramatic). Go overinflated beavers go!

  • Bill Lee

    Is it over?

    Can we come out now?

    Have the police been given their guns and tasers back?
    Have the police and ISU taken down the hundreds of cameras?

    Will the Worst.Games.Ever be remembered with any fondness after the two budgets, federal and provincial.

    We all remember the fantastic ’74 Spokane World’s Fair of course.

    Where was the multi-culturalism (non-white) and French in the closing ceremony? Terre de nos Aieux indeed! They don’t care, they can’t carry the cross and sword. It’s all a sham.

    Nice to see people enjoying the streets (and the sidewalks ) for one last time before late summer festivals.

  • Denis

    The present government will be back in the Ledg today spreading the idea that all was great and all under budget, which of course won’t be true. Hopefully the hospitals and schools will get back to normal and the budget dropped on us will allow us to regain our lives as the circus fades from memory

  • Dan

    the closing ceremonies were hilariously brilliant following the celebrity monolouges, only to lead into some bad musical acts, save for k-os. Niel Young and buble killed it!

  • david hadaway

    First everything was a terrible disaster, then everything was a fantastic success. If a person had these kind of mood swings they’d need to take some serious meds. And we will be, the kind they stick up your … .

  • michael geller

    “I’m almost thinking of buying a ticket to the opening ceremonies to an event where people have openly overcome personal adversity…”

    Dee, may I suggest you get a ticket for the ‘Courage to Come Back’ awards dinner on May 6, organized by Coast Foundation Society. It’s the most heart warming event of the season…

    While I was not happy with some aspects of the Olympics, I am pleased with how the course of events changed, and how generally successful they turned out. While reflecting on all that happened, it might be worthwhile to take a moment and think about all the things that did not happen.

    We did not have a terrorist attack. Whether there really was a danger of this…I don’t really think so…I mean it’s one thing to attack America, or the Israelis…but who really wants to take on the whole world? But we sure spent a lot of money to make sure it didn’t happen.

    We didn’t have a blinding snowstorm like the ones in the east to paralyze the city. In fact, overall, the weather in the city was quite fantastic.

    And we didn’t have an earthquake. Believe it or not, this is something I actually feared…and shared with my wife…I was very sad to see it did happen in Chile, but I’m glad it didn’t happen here, at least while the Olympics were on. But it will happen here one day and we should become more prepared.

    And while we had the black hooded protesters, we managed to avoid any serious trouble in the streets. I think the Police Chief and his colleagues deserve very loud and public applause for this. They were phenomenal, and reflected very well on the city.

    So what will be the legacies? I know we all want to reflect on this.

    I think there will be a new appreciation for our city, especially by people who live in the suburbs and normally never come downtown…I also expect more conventions and tourists.

    I think we have rediscovered Robson Square as a new public space. Now we need to do something with Jack Poole Plaza and other areas around the Convention Centre to turn them into good public spaces.

    I think Granville Mall will eventually become a pedestrian zone (it’s a shame we’ll have to tear up the broom finished concrete road surface…who made that terrible decision? and Robson Street will one day become a pedestrian street.

    I think we will now demand more of the cultural life that we experienced over the past two weeks. I saw this is so many countries during my world trip…hopefully the Olympics will be the catalyst for more outdoor concerts and the like in Metro.

    Transit. I think more people now agree we need to find more funding to improve our ransit. Especially light rail, more buses and extended hours….(I gather many of the improvements, including the third SeaBus, will now end)

    If you agree with the need to improve transit, let’s remember…the money governments spend is OUR money…we give it to them…so if we want better transit, we need to let governments know how we want our money spent.

    Finally, I suspect it will be interesting to review some of the earlier posts on this blog (CityCaucus.com and other blogs) related to the Olympics…both comments for and against…and evaluate what has happened in light of what we thought would happen. (Remember the fears that the word wasn’t getting out and people might not come?)

    I was an Olympics supporter, but the event surpassed my expectations in terms of community engagement and participation.

    It was a great two weeks, and now we can get back to focusing on dealing with the DTES and the homeless, child poverty, and our generally poor level of personal fitness….(speaking for myself of course)…although few of us are as fit as those 50km cross country marathoners…did you see them? I wonder how we now stack up against those mythical 70 year old Swedes?

  • Higgins

    Michael,
    Give yourself a head shake.

    “And we didn’t have an earthquake. Believe it or not, this is something I actually feared…and shared with my wife…I was very sad to see it did happen in Chile, but I’m glad it didn’t happen here, at least while the Olympics were on.”

    At least not while the Olympics were on? How many Grey cells did you lose after a statement like this, please? Then some people wonder why the things are the way they are in Vancouver. Pathetic.