My First Post!

So, since I am going to the Olympics now, I am going to post on here as well! (and it will be awesome!)

Something Scott has neglected to blog about on here, is his collection of Olympic gear! Take a look!

The black Canada jersey on the left is from the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics with Smyth on the back. The red one on the right is the new 2010 Hockey jersey with obviously no name on the back until they announce the team. The details within the leaf are very cool.

At the top of the picture, Scott has also received a 2010 Olympic hat.

Then at the bottom of the picture we have 3 shirts. The first on the left would be a hoodie I bought Scott for his birthday. In the middle is a t-shirt Scott's parents got him that has previous Olympian signatures.


Lastly, on the right we have a t-shirt that my parents bought Scott with the RCAF logo.

These are all of the clothes that Scott will be packing in February for his trip! He will be a proud Canadian and no one will second guess it! :)

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The Olympic Flame

Finally…the countdown begins.

At noon today in Greece (about 5 AM Eastern....sheeeshh), the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Flame was lit.
The flame will make a 8 day journey around Greece, before arriving in Victoria on October 30th. From there, it will spend 106 days visiting every corner of Canada, travelling over 45,000 km in the process. VANOC has a very cool interactive map highlight the route, which can be found here.

Now, like an idiot, I’ve managed to make myself unavailable the night its going to be in Toronto (Dec 19th), so I think I’ll have to drive down to Hamilton a few days later (Dec 21st) and see it there.

I think that this represents the starting of the true ‘home stretch’ for the Games. A video of the ceremony itself is below.

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World Cup of Curling

So last night Beth, my dad, my Papa and I fought traffic to head out to Mississauga for the opening draw of the World Cup of Curling. As mentioned, this is basically the pre-Games warm-up tournament, featuring the ‘Top 5’ Canadian Men’s Teams and the 9 ‘Foreign’ teams that will be at the 2010 Games.

The opening draw was surprisingly well attended given the GTA’s normal apathy towards ‘big event’ curling. I’d estimate the Hershey Centre was almost half full, probably putting the crowd at a little better than 2,000 people.

I think one of the nicest things about curling is how accessible it really still is. Last night only served to remind me of that fact, as we were able to slide down to the 1st row and be right on top of the action. You’re close enough to hear every conversation on the ice, and it gives you a chance to take quite a few pictures:



The biggest thrill of the night was the quick chance we had to meet Brad Gushue. All teams signed autographs post-game, but he’s the one we went down for. This pics in the photo-stream, but I thought it deserved special re-posting here.

In terms of the actual curling action, the Canadian teams ‘won’ the night 4-1, with the aforementioned Gushue being the only Canadian defeat. The most interesting win was the Ferbey game, where the Chinese ran out of time with a full end still to play.

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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

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Venue Preview: Whistler Sliding Centre

Name: Whistler Sliding Centre
Sports: Bobsleigh, Luge, Skeleton
Sessions: BS003 (Women’s Runs 1 & 2)
Days: Day 12
Location: 4910 Glacier Lane, Whistler, BC
Capacity: 12,000
Opened: 2007
Costs: $105 million CAD

On Day 12, Pam and I will be leaving the cozy confines of greater Vancouver and head up the Sea-to-Sky Highway to Whistler. One of the top skiing resorts in the world, Whistler is home to all of the ‘Alpine’ and ‘Sliding’ sports for the games. Having never been to Whistler, or any ‘Resort Town’ before really, I’m looking forward to the chance to get up there.

While in Whistler, we will be seeing one event: the Women’s Bobsled – Runs 1 & 2. This will give us a chance to check out the Whistler Sliding Centre, and the insanity that is someone rocketing down the track. Widely considered to be the fastest track in the world, sliders can reach speeds over 150 km/h at the Whistler Sliding Centre. Crazy, crazy, crazy stuff. For the Bobsled event, we have ‘Level B’ tickets, which function basically as general admission to the grounds. From there, you just find a patch of asphalt that looks good, and observe. The seating chart below gives an overview of the track; the general admission areas are in blue.


Having been to the Salt Lake track, I actually think that I prefer the idea of being in the general admission section, as it gives you a chance to be right on top of the track. Assuming a similar layout to SLC, you can stand right up against the railing, which is probably less than 6 feet from the surface of the track. If you had good enough aim, you could probably reach out and touch people going down the track.

The track itself is nestled up against the base of Blackcomb mountain, just outside of Whistler Village. The course drops a total of 152 m over its 1450 m length, which my calculator tells me is an average grade of about -10.48%. Its 16 curves generally are not named yet, with the notable exception of Turn 7: Lueders Loop. During the track testing phase, Pierre Lueders managed to flip his sled in Turn 7, earning him the subject notoriety. Accoridng to the reports I’ve read, Whistler’s track is supposedly one of the toughest in the world. The following video provides a very cool run down the track.

The Whistler Sliding Centre should hopefully see Canada win at least a couple of medals. As the home country, Canadian sliders will have had significantly more experience on the track versus international competitors, hopefully giving us a significant home-field advantage. On the Skeleton front, Canada has legitimate medal contenders on both the Men’s and Women’s sides. Although the primary focus will be on the persons of Jeff Pain and Mellisa Hollingsworth, having the home-track advantage should also help secondary medal threats like John Montgomery and Michelle Kelly. Mulitiple medals on either side are a possibility.

We may also be able to take home medals in bobsled, where the aforementioned Pierre Lueders is a solid threat in the Two-Man, and a secondary threat in the Four-Man. On the women’s side, Helen Upperton is favoured to bring home a medal, colour to be determined. In luge, it would be a surprise for Canada to register a medal.

We’re still not 100% on what our schedule is going to be like in terms of arrival/departure times from the Whistler area. As I’ve never been to Whistler, I’m really hoping to be able to not only see the Bobsled on Day 12, but also hit the slopes. I think we’ll be able to fit that in either during the morning on Day 12, prior to the bobsled start at 5:00 PM, or by staying overnight in Whistler, and getting on the slopes on Day 13, which we have open right now. Either way, I think it’d be a shame to be in one of the top resorts in the world, and at not get in at least SOME ‘boarding.

Anyways, I’ll leave you with a bit of a slideshow, as yoinked from Flicker and Google Images:

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Medals Unveiled

As promised, the Medals for the 2010 Winter Games were unveiled today. The slideshow below gives you an overview of the press-photos released:



I gotta say that I really really like them, especially the embedded artwork. It looks almost lacquered wood, which I think gives it a really down-to-earth quality. An interesting note is that the artwork that appears on each medal is supposedly unique for each of them, with each medal having a 'zoomed in' section of a larger piece of artwork that was drawn up.

My only complaint is that I think I would have liked a maple leaf worked into the design some how, offsetting the strong Native element to some extent....but overall...I'll take 'em...

Medals by the Numbers
• 2.05 – kilograms of gold used in production of medals
• 30 – number of steps in fabrication process
• 95 millimetres – width of Paralympic medal
• 100 millimetres – diameter of Olympic medals
• 399 – medals for the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Winter Games
• 500 grams to 576 g – weight of medals, among the heaviest in Olympic and Paralympic history.
• 615 – medals for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games
• 903 – kilograms of copper used in production of bronze medals
• 1,950 – kilograms of silver used in production of medals
• 1976 – the last year the Royal Canadian Mint created medals for the Olympic Games

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Building Momentum

The announcements and unveilings have been picking up steam a little bit over the past week, as we get closer to the 100 Days To Go Mark. Ticket Sales, Volunteer Uniforms and Transportation Plans have all come out in the last 48 hours. The one I wanted to talk about briefly however is the ‘Live City’ events announced by the City of Vancouver.

The city announced that there will be two ‘live’ celebration sites during the games: one in Yaletown at David Lam Park, and one downtown at the corner of Georgia and Beatty……..Of course, the corner of Georgia and Beatty is about 50 meters from our hotel!

Artist Rendering of the Downtown 'Live City' Site

Included at the downtown site will be a 40’ TV screen, booze, and the Canada Pavilion. Its gonna be very sweet to have that so close to our hotel…..just so long as we can get at least the semblance of some sleep.

Up Next
Coming up next are three of the big ones:
Today: Unveiling of the Medals
Week from Today: Lighting of the Flame
Sometime in the next week or so: Seat Assignment

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Google Streetview

So Google Streetview has finally come to Canada. As useful as this is in everyday life/work, one of the things I've been using it for the most is taking a bit of a virtual tour of Vancouver. Below are some of the more relevant items in regards to our trip:

Our Hotel

Here is our Hotel at 733 Beatty Street. During the games, Beatty St. will be a closed off pedestrian area for most of the day. Not sure what they'll be filling the street with instead of cars, but I'm sure its going to be a lively area. On the Streetview, you can spin it around 180° and see how close we are to BC Place. I'd really love it if we ended up getting a room that overlooked the stadium!

Canada Hockey Place and BC Place

Default view here is of GM Place, to be renamed Canada Hockey Place during the games, as seen from the Georgia Viaduct. This is one of my favourite views I've come across, as it highlights just how close we are going to be to everything from the hotel. From the default view, you can swing 90° to the right, to see BC Place, and 180° to see our hotel. It’s the brown building with the smokestack partially obstructing it about 250 metres off. Similar to Beatty Street, the Georgia Viaduct will be closed off during the games.

BC Place is of course home to the Opening/Closing Ceremonies and the nightly Victory Ceremonies. One neat thing to see here are the numerous cranes operating around the building, working on upgrades to the roof in support of the Ceremonies.

I'm really glad that we've got the Day 10 Victory Ceremony ticket, just so that we have a chance to actually get inside the Main Olympic Stadium.

UBC Thunderbird Arena

This one is a little weird for me. Having attended a Canadian University for 5 years, I know what to expect from a Campus, and from a Campus Athletics Centre. It’s got to be a little weird for UBC to actually house an official Olympic venue. Nevertheless, above is a view of the UBC Thunderbird Arena, which is the secondary hockey venue. I'm really looking forward to the Canada v. Sweden women's hockey game there, as with such an intimate atmosphere, I bet the place will be rockin'.

Pacific Coliseum

Home to Figure Skating and Short-Track Speedskating, we will only make it over to the Pacific Coliseum once during our trip. Out in suburbia a bit when compared to the other venues, it has apparently gotten a complete facelift from what is shown here. Above that, I'm sure that all of these street-views will look very different during the games with all the building wraps, banners, adverts etc that are sure to be in place.

Richmond Olympic Oval

The so-called 'Crown-Jewel' of the games, the Richmond Olympic Oval is the #1 venue that I wanted to see while out there. We only get there once, and not until Day 16, but it'll totally be worth the wait. I'm really hoping to get out there well in advance of the event itself so that we can spend some time just wandering around the building, both inside and out. One thing I've noticed on the streetview however is how much of an industrial area the Oval is in. The large open field directly to the west of the Oval is particularly ugly. Hopefully things will be 'spruced up' a bit between the timing of this photo and the games.

Vancouver Olympic Centre

This is a great view of the Vancouver Olympic Centre, home to Curling. As you can see, they are still working on the finishing touches here in this photo, but I'm sure the venue will be amazing come the games. I'm still not sure how all that direct sunlight works from a practical point of view, but it should make for a great building.

Whistler

Unfortunately, the Whistler venues are all just out of the reach of the Street view coverage areas, so instead, here is a view of the Whistler Village. Post-Bobsled on Day 12, I think we're definitely going to have to hit up for a bar down here. I'm sure the place is amazing in the winter normally, let alone during the games.

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O Canada!

So its a bit of an old one, but I came across a video highlighting the Vancouver Sympony Orchestra's recordings of 'O Canada' for Vancouver 2010.




Not much of a music critic, but I love this version...especially Take 1.

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Canada Hockey House

So one thing I was kinda excited for during the games was the ‘Molson Canadian Hockey House’, basically presented online as a big tailgate party for Canadians to watch the games from. Today they released a whole slew of new information on it, which had me somewhat excited, until I noticed the ticket prices:

Gold - 17 Day All Access Pass - $ 8500.00
Silver Package 1 - February 13 - 16 - CND $ 1700.00
Silver Package 2 - February 17 - 20 - CND $ 1800.00
Silver Package 3 - February 21 - 24 - CND $ 1900.00
Silver Package 4 - February 25 - 27 - CND $ 2000.00
Silver Package 1 + Gold Medal + Closing Ceremony - CND $ 2695.00
Silver Package 2 + Gold Medal + Closing Ceremony - CND $ 2795.00
Silver Package 3 + Gold Medal + Closing Ceremony - CND $ 2895.00
Silver Package 4 + Gold Medal + Closing Ceremony - CND $ 2995.00
Bronze Package 1 - Opening Ceremony February 12 - CND $ 495.00

Oh yes, those prices are per-person…..

Are they crazy? Its cheaper to actually goto the games than sit outside in a tent and watch them? In-friggin’-sane….

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The Resale Market - Part III

Talked to Ben the other day, and he pointed me to an article on the CBC that suggests that VANOC may allow higher than face-value sales on the official re-sale website. That'd certainly make things pretty convenient in terms of off-loading our extra tickets!

The website should be up in early November.

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Canada Olympic Uniform

This past week, ‘The Bay’ unveiled the official Olympic gear for Team Canada.

Yes, thats Stevie Y...

As of right now, it’s a whole clothing line, rather than the actual gear the atheletes will wear when entering the Opening Ceremonies. However, from what I’ve been able to read up on, the official entrance uniforms will either be made up of articles from the announced line, or will be very similar.

Overall, there is a lot of black in it, but at least they were smart enough to stick to something simple and with red/white accents. Overall I give it pretty high marks….I’ll certainly be picking up a few items!

It’s pretty much my goal to be completely decked out in ‘Canadian’ gear for the entire time I’m out there. I’ve got a pretty good wardrobe going in that regard already, but it will definitely need some supplementary pieces.

As a final note, these uniforms are featured on the downtown 'The Bay' store building wraps from my last post!

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Building Wraps

When I was in Salt Lake City, one of the favourite images I saw was of the downtown core all ‘decked out’ in Olympic livery. This isn’t the exact image I saw (will probably never find it), but it gives you the idea:


I love this image so much because it highlights how much of an ‘Olympic Village’ gets created in the downtown. I can’t wait to be right in the middle of it all come Vancouver. Our games will probably be even better in this regard than Salt Lake’s were, just because our venues are much more centralized.

Anyways, reason I bring this up, is that at gamesbids.com, there were some images posted of two of the first building wraps for the games:




That’s one huge Canadian Flag on the Georgia Hotel. The second image is of ‘The Bay’ in downtown Vancouver…which is the Olympic superstore. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the buildings…and Vancouver as a whole…will look like in a couple months!

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Olympic Torch Relay

So today is the one-month mark to the lighting of the Olympic Flame in Greece. It won't arrive in Canada until October 30th, but I thought I'd get the ball rolling with a bit of a discussion.

First off, I realized that I actually haven't discussed the Olympic Torch at all. Announced eons ago now, it’s a pretty simplistic design...but there is nothing wrong with that.



I applied a few times to be a torch bearer, but it doesn't look like that's going to come to fruition. No matter, I'm still very excited just to see it passing through Ontario in advance of the games. It reaches Toronto on December 17th, and will be in southern Ontario pretty much through the whole holiday season.

The 'community celebration' on the 17th in Toronto is probably the biggest moment I'm looking forward to pre-games. I'm assuming that it will be at Nathan Phillips Square, and should be quite a day. I'll probably have to bugger off work for that afternoon, but it'll be totally worth it. A few days ago, VANOC unveiled the caldron that will be used as part of the 'community celebration'.



What will be interesting will be to see how close this community celebration caldron is to the actual caldron used in Vancouver. Obviously everything is very 'hush-hush' around the Opening Ceremonies, but the big mystery will be how they manage to light the flame inside BC Place, yet display it outside for the whole city to see.

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Seat Assignment: Pre-Game

Received an email from VANOC yesterday asking us to confirm out delivery addresses for our tickets. They should be coming around Christmas; late-December to early-January.

More importantly however, I took the opportunity to ask VANOC about when the seat assignment process would be completed. The email I got back said that they should be posted to our ticketing account in early-to-mid October….so I’m obviously looking forward to that now!

Once we find out where our seats our, it’ll be time to talk about what we’re gonna do with our extras! Hopefully VANOC opens their ‘official ticket market’ at the same time.

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Canada Olympic Hockey Camp

So I feel a little remiss for not having posted regarding the Canada Olympic Orientation Camp that took place in late August. I guess the largest reason for not posting about the proceedings is that nothing terribly exciting or revealing happened.

The team selection process will still largely be governed by who opens the NHL season strongly.

Perhaps the most interesting development that did come about was the formation of a theoretical top line of Iggy-Crosby-Nash……….sign me up for that come Feb 16th vs. Norway.

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NY Times: Canada Protects Home Advantage at Olympics

So over the last few days, there has been a bit of a ongoing story regarding Canada’s approach to training access for foreign athletes at the 2010 venues. Other countries, the USA in particular, are upset that Canada hasn’t been allowing them extra time on the rink, or extra runs down the track, as we apparently have in the past

The New York Times has jumped on this bandwagon today: Full Article

Quite a few terms have been applied to this behaviour, including ‘unsportsmanlike’ and ‘un-Canadian’.

Well…not that my opinion matters, but if being called ‘un-Canadian’ means that we maintain the homefield advantages that hosting the Olympics are supposed to bring; then I’m all for it. As long as we are meeting the minimum access requirements as outlined in existing agreements, I see no reason why we should have to go ‘above and beyond’ and provide extra access.

One of the main advantages and points of hosting the games is the opportunity to be familiar with the venues, to play in front of hometown fans, and to use parlay those advantages into medals. Don’t think that there is an advantage worth protecting? Look at the medal total history of the USA since 1964.



As you’ll notice, there are two local maxima on this graph. You’ll also notice that those two maxima curiously correspond with the two years where the USA was the host nation. Especially striking is the jump from ’98 – Nagano to ’02 Salt Lake City, which saw the States increase their total from 13 medals to 34. That’s quite a jump.

Canada is coming of a strong showing of 24 medals in Torino. How much of a boost will playing at home provide to that total?

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Utah Olympic Park

So this past week, I had to haul off to Idaho again for another magical adventure placing HAR stations. This time however, rather than flying into Boise and driving to the eastern edge of the state, I flew into Salt Lake City and drove north.

This change in entry point allowed me the chance to do a bit of Olympic related sight-seeing on the days of my flights. As a result, I was able to drop by the 'E Center' on Tuesday night, and the Utah Olympic Park on Friday morning.

The 'E Center'

The 'E Center' was of course the main hockey rink for the 2002 Games, and the location where Canada won its Men's & Women's Gold Medal Games. Short of maybe the Luzhniki Ice Palace, I'd say that its one of the most important foriegn hockey facilities in terms of Canadian Hockey History.

That being said, despite the hallowed ground, the facility itself was actually less than impressive. Its now home to the ECHL Utah Grizzlies, and it looks and feels exactly like you'd expect an ECHL Rink to look and feel. It's really in the middle of a power-centre, and at only 10,100 seats, its hardly a large rink. Something like the John Labatt Centre in London is way way more impressive....

Utah Olympic Park

If the 'E Center' was perhaps a bit of a dissapointment, then the Utah Olympic Park certainly made up for it. Home to the Ski Jumping and Sliding Sports during 2002, it has the Summer Splashpool for the Aerial Skiing/Moguls teams, as well as a couple of Olympic Museums on site.

One of the coolest bits about the park was that I found out upon my arrival at 9 AM was that the US Freestyle Team would be coming to the splashpool to train, starting at 11 AM. It was almost perfect timing, giving me enough time to poke around the facilities, tour the museums....then finish it all off with a little live action from the Freestyle Team!!

Ski Jump

I started off by heading over to the Ski Jumping area. The first thing that struck me was the incline of the landing ramp....its very very steep...to the point that I bet that jumpers are really never more than 10 m or so off the actual ground. Its probably more like 'Ski-Falling' rather than 'Ski Jumping'.

The other thing I noticed was how intimate the venue was. One thing I've been worried about regarding the venues is that we'll be sat so far back that we won't actually have a chance to really 'see' anything. This was pretty much dissuaded by my time at the ski-jumping facility, where you could picture where the stands were during the games. They were pretty much right on top of the action.

Sliding Sports

After I spent some time at the Ski-Jump hills, I headed over for the Bobsled track....

Once I got into the track, the first thing that hit me was how increadibly steep and narrow the track is. When you see it on TV, you basically assume that the track is more or less level, even though you know that its a gravity sport, and hence thats not totally true. However, I never imagined that it would be on the kind of slope that it really is. In fact, the average grade of the entire track is 7.8%, so I'd estimate that in steep sections you're looking at a 15% grade or so at least. Throw in the fact that you're on ice when you're going down that, and its not hard to see how you reach speeds of +140 km/h.

The second thing that I noticed about the bobsled track is, again, how on top of the action the spectators really are. It was even more drastic at the bobsled track than it was at the ski-jumping, as for the sliding sports, you could probably reach out and high-five someone going by....should you be so inclined. I can't wait to see a bobsled go past me only 5 feet away!

However, as I was a little pressed for time, I was only able to make it about half-way up the bobsled track before I had to turn around and head on back.

Olympic Museum

After the bobsled track, I headed back to the main HQ and went through the Olympic Museum they had on site. It was pretty much standard fare in terms of a museum...some things that we really cool...and alot of stuff that you're really not intersted in.

The two coolest 'items' were probably the picture board highlighting Canada's hockey wins, and one of the curling stones from the Ogden Ice Sheet. You could reach in and try to pick it up, so I was able to get a little 'hands-on experience'....

Splashpool

The last, and by far coolest, thing I saw at the Utah Olympic Park was the US Freestyle Team's practice session in the Splashpool. As you can see from the picture below, they have a practice facility that they use in the summer, where all the normaly mogul and aerial ramps land into a 10 ft pool. It was a really amazing set up, and I was lucky enough to actually see it in use:

The ramps themselves are treated with a special kind of plastic, which is then wetted down by small sprinklers to reduce friction. Or...in other words...its basically an overgrown Slip-'N-Slide!!

One other thing that might not be evident, from the pictures at least, is the bubbling of the water. As jumpers leave the ramp, there are a series of pipes on the bottom of the pool that release a blast of air. The resultant bubbles reach the surface of the water roughly the same time the skiier lands....breaking the surface tension of the water and reducing the impact. Very high-tech....

Overall, I was able to stay and watch about a half-hour of the practice session before I had to take off for the airport. It was a very cool thing to see in person however, and again...just got me more pumped for the Olympics. Unfortuneatly during the games, I'm only going to have a chance to see the Moguls competition...missing out on the Aerials. Ben and Andrea are of course going to the Men's Finals....but I'll be at Curling during that time. I suppose you can't do it all!

Pictures

The slideshow below has all the pics from my little adventure. Having now had a chance to actually see Olympic Facilities, I'm even more pumped for Vancouver. I could picture what it must have been like at these places when the games were actually on, and know that it will only be more amazing when its on Canadian Soil!!

On a final note, as of today there are 150 Days To Go...

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Testing Out The New Phone

Yesterday I got a new fancy 'HTC Dream' from Rogers. Among many new and cool functions is the ability to link the phone to GMail...and from there this blog. I'm actually sending this from the phone right now!

This gives me both the Twitter sidebar and full posts that I can do remotely during the games.

Other cool items that I'm sure Ill use during the ganes include a direct link to Google Calender and....of course the interwebs...

Gonna have to figure out something regarding bandwith for February....cause otherwise I'll be over the limit for sure!

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Canada Olympic Hockey Jerseys

On Monday, the jerseys for Team Canada were revieled. They're actually alot closer to the existing "Hockey Canada " design then I thought they would be, with the only real change being the logo itself. Overall, I am a fan of the red jersey over the white....I'm just not stuck on the red shoulder bands.


On their own, they're actually fairly plain looking. However, thats not all together a bad thing, a good hockey jersey is simple and not overdesigned. 'Classic' is the word that I would apply.

The redesigned logo itself is still very similar to the rejected "Hockey Canada" logo of the past. The hockey player has been removed in favour of an maple leaf with intricate 'detail', as can be seen below.


I'll be picking up my Red #12 Iginla before the games anyways. Hopefully I'll be able to attach a 'C' on it....

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