A Little Anticipation

Couple things that I'm looking forward to today.

Grey Power World Cup of Curling

First off, tonight I'll be headed out to the Hershey Centre in Mississagua for the World Cup of Curling. Its basically the pre-Olympic tune-up competition, featuring the 5 Top Canadian teams and the 9 teams that will be representing their countries come this February.

The draw for tonight is:
1 - Martin vs. Edin (Sweden)
2 - Howard vs. Kapp (Germany)
3 - Gushue vs. Shuster (USA)
4 - Ferbey vs. Liu (China)
5 - Koe vs. Dufour (France)

Other teams at the World Cup, but on byes tonight are Murdoch (Scotland), Ulsred (Norway), Schmidt (Denmark) and Stoeckli (Switzerland). I would have particularily liked a chance to see Murdoch and Ulsred, but what are you gonna do? Having all 5 Canadian teams on one draw is still pretty good.

Here is a TV spot that Martin did this week on Canada AM for the event:World Cup of Curling

Lighting of the Olympic Torch

The other upcoming item that has me pumped is the lighting of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Flame in Greece tomorrow.

Due to timezone differences, it's scheduled to take place at about 5 AM Eastern time tonight. Hopefully when I wake up in the morning, CTV or the IOC will have a video of the lighting ceremony available online. I'll talk more about the lighting tomorrow, but until then, here is an overview of the schedule for the lighting ceremony:

12:00 - Opening of the Ceremony
- Olympic Anthem - Hoisting of the Olympic Flag
- National Anthem of Canada - Hoisting of the Canadian Flag
- National Anthem of Greece - Hoisting of the Greek Flag
- Recitation of an extract from Takis Doxas’ poem " THE LIGHT OF OLYMPIA"
- Address by the Mayor of Ancient Olympia, Mr. Georgios AIDONIS
- Address by the President of the Olympic Torch Relay Commission, Mr. Spyros ZANNIAS
- Address by the President of the International Olympic Committee, Dr Jacques Rogge
- Address by the President of the Hellenic Olympic Committee, Mr. Spyros CAPRALOS
- Address by the CEO of VANOC, Mr. John FURLONG
- Offer of commemorative pot to the CEO of VANOC, Mr. John FURLONG
- Entry of limited number of VIPs in the Temple of Hera

12:25 - Ritual of the Lighting Ceremony at the Temple of Hera
- The High Priestess and the Priestesses enter the Ancient Stadium with the Olympic Flame
- Handing over of the Flame to the first Torchbearer by the High Priestess

12:50 - The first Torchbearer departs via Pierre de Coubertin’s Grove – Opening of the Olympic Torch Relay