The Games are Gone: Olympic Hindsight

One day later you're probably already sick of the Olympics, but here is my collection of parting thoughts--good and bad--on Vancouver's games.

1. It's not about you guys in suits. VANOC CEO John Furlong opened and closed the games with extremely long speeches that would've put a Red Bull addict to sleep, marked by some of the worst French I've heard since Stockwell Day ran for prime minister. I realize he poured his life into this venture, but, dude, ease off a little--we see ya. It ain't your show. As for IOC president Jacques Ragge, his egomaniacal need to appear anytime someone muttered the word "Olympics" like he invented the games is so petty I think he needs a lesson in humility from some of the athletes. Both of these gentlemen appear to need a reminder as to who these games are for.

2. Own the Podium. Call me ignorant, but I missed the fine print: I thought the goal of this program was to have our best Games ever, not to win it all. So when Chris Ridge--another camera-hog in Armani--threw in the towel half-way, I was pretty disgusted. Sure, maybe it worked as reverse-psychology, but it came off as a set of misplaced priorities. Fourteen gold, there, Chris. Even if I were to believe that winning is everything, I'd say that the Yanks may own the pode, but we've helped ourselves to the top tier.

3. The Weather. I was amused by an article I read that criticized the games early on: "If you're going to host the Winter Games, please ensure you get winter." Funny, but thankfully it improved. How are we going to perpetuate a stereotype if the igloos keep melting?

4. What it's all about. When North Vancouverite Maelle Ricker was set to mount the awards podium at Whistler, the Swiss bronze-medallist Olivia Nobs waved her hands to work the the hometown crowd into a roar for their girl-done-good. 100% class, kid. Somebody get Nobs to teach a course to Dale Begg-Smith.

5. Curling. I know how to curl--it's mandatory in Saskatchewan--but I've never really enjoyed it. I guess it's taken on a huge following this time out--the boys on Wall Street were hooked on it as soon as trading ended, riveted by the "chess on ice." I've always believed that curling is like golf: anything my grandpa can best me at shouldn't be a sport. And thanks to the Norwegian team's wardrobe, the two sports are that much more comparable.

6. He's everywhere! Yes he should be making an appearance, but did Stephen Harper really need a ticket to everything? Especially when he's under heavy criticism for his choice to prorogue Parliament for most of the winter? He made sure he was seen with Wayne Gretzky a lot, which to me looked like currying favour with sports-fan voters. Or maybe Gretzky's our next senator . . .

7. Jon Montgomery. Had I known there was a sport where you could be named after He-Man's nemesis, I never would've finished high school. Jon Montgomery's celebration--strutting out of the gondola to chug a pitcher of beer on the streets of Whistler--after winning the gold in skeleton earned from me the utterance: "Now that's Canadian."

8. Hockey. The rest of the world quipped: "It's just a hockey tournament to Canada." I cringed, because I am the first hockey fan to remind people about the other athletes, even the curlers. That being said, it's this country's favourite sport. Nobody knocks the Austrians for tuning in by the million for downhill skiing, or the Norwegians for skipping work to cheer on their super-human biathletes. We love hockey in Canada, and this tourney--both the men's and women's--was, as they say in cheesy sports lingo, "one for the ages." My friend Hayley was adorned with her fourth Olympic medal, her third straight gold--and even though I really haven't got much good to say about him, the PM had her jersey on at the game. According to CBC Radio this morning, 20 million of us will always remember where we were when Sidney Crosby scored in overtime. Me? Somewhere in the air between couch and coffee table.

9. CTV/TSN. I'm a CBC man, but the commentators--especially CBC-trained Brian Williams--held up admirably for seventeen days. The exceptions: the air-filling morning crews and the dunder-heads at TSN. Canada AM was rife with navel-gazing and celebrity-oogling, with comments like, "We need to cheer more like the Americans," and the treatment of Ben Mulroney as if he's a credible journalist. Shameful. And having the likes of Bob Mckenzie, Pierre McGuire and Nick Kypreos delivering commentary on the hockey tournament did a number to the Olympics' world-class credibility. C'mon, hire some decent journalists--it's the OLYMPICS!

10. Ceremonies. I liked the tongue-in-cheek closer the best, but I think the artistic display of these two ceremonies added veracity to the statement that these were "Canada's Games." People are still talking about K.D. Lang's performance, and that whole beaver/lumberjack/Mountie/Buble schmoozle was genius. I was most moved by my hero Neil Young's rendition of "Long May You Run"--NERD ALERT: it's a song about a dead car, played across the street from GM Place; there are no coincidences. Seeing the old hippie caused me--yet again--to ruminate on the trouble I've had being socially-conscious but an Olympic fan at the same time.

I became a bit of an Olympic junky, I'll admit. I'm glad they're over, and as a hockey fan I'm most looking forward to four years of "Yay!" rather than four years of so-called analysts debating what went wrong again. Yay, home.

The Games are Good

Though it does me no favours, I've always felt positive about my inability to see the world in black and white. The Vancouver Olympics have come at an appalling cost, they've seen a shady purging of the homeless from the city's downtown, and the province is going to be paying for it until Whistler's beach front.

But I'm glad they're happening.

If you're from that black and white world, you support one of the following views:

1) The Olympic Games are a peaceful gathering of athletes from nations around the world to glorify sport, human accomplishment and peaceful competition.

2) The Olympic Games are an overpriced dog and pony show that've lost any of their original merits to the corporate whoring we see in 2010.

Boring grey me, I agree with both, but when push comes to luge I'm coming down on #1's side.

COST. Yeah, they're expensive, and when you think about the funds allocated to the Games that could've been put to other uses, that's where the first dissenters speak up. Funny that you never hear about protests outside the Academy Awards, which will cost more in a single night than any non-ceremony night's going to cost at these Games. How about the gargantuan cash-suck that is the Superbowl? I mean, not one of these athletes--'cept maybe a first place Canadian in the luge--is walking away from the Olympics a millionaire. The male hockey players compete in a league that sees them play eighty-two times inside of about eight months at a cost of sometimes several millions per player per season. And these young kids with four years of training are the villains?

THE ATHLETES. Every one of us has a skill set, a place to employ it, and once in a while--hopefully--a chance to be praised for it. These young sports spend most of their lives training and competing for a chance to gain international praise one day in a two-week event. Movie stars, country singers, friggin' Paris Hilton, a couple of juvenile delinquents at a C-train station all steal headlines with a decidedly lesser (or altogether lacking) talent collection. Olympic competitors train, fundraise, train, study, train, compete, and train for one chance to showcase themselves to the world. Many are just kids, most have dayjobs, and few are going to spend more than a decade in competition--that's two Olympics at best.

CAMARADERIE. In the majority of the events, the competitors are a big family--they spend most of the years leading up to a Games together. Most sports featured in an Olympics--especially the Winter incarnation--can't get decent viewership (or even airtime) for any tournament other than the big O. They're each other's biggest fans. Yeah, they all want that gold, but before that they just love what they do, and they show their support for anyone doing well at it. Watch the end of someone's run, the first to throw that athlete a high-five are the people he's just beaten.

PRIDE. My wife can't ski--bum knee. And yet, tonight she watched the women's moguls event on the edge of her seat, her emotional wave cresting when Canadian Kristi Richards fell, gathered herself up, and then took ridiculous air in a what-the-hell gesture aimed at pleasing the hometown crowd. Last night, when a crew of Canuck celebrities handed the Olympic flag to a group of mounties, who inadvertently punned themselves by putting' flag to pole, Joelle confessed she was near tears at how the sight did her patriotic heart good--all the while ignoring my anti-Anne Murray mutterings. It may be only one aspect of what I love about this country, but it's an important aspect. When you high-five some dude in a bar because you just watched a countryman mount the podium to hear your national anthem, when that one moment has made you agree with the dude's drunken declaration that "Canada fuggin' ROCKS, man!", well, what the hell's wrong with that? In a world of cynics and critics, it's good to feel good about something.

That in mind: THE EVENT. What's so wrong with spectacle, when it's a positive thing, when it's for the young who've spent years basically doing what every motivational poster in every classroom has always told them to do? Yup, it's expensive to put on, but some of us need a show once in a while, and I'll take this one over an over-hyped football game that's really just about nigh-pornographic Budweiser commercials or watching a movie star with a Grade 9 education miss-pronounce "myriad" in a rambling, narcissistic mess of an acceptance speech. There's a lot of crap in this weary world. Haiti's bleeding, we're at war, the ice caps are melting; dammit, if we put on a show that's supposed to bring out the best in a certain group of people, forgive me if I want to give myself over to something that makes me feel positive for a change.

HAYLEY. The small town of Shaunavon, Saskatchewan swells with parental joy each time Hayley Wickenheiser takes the ice. She's a queen in that town, and has been since the early 1990s. That woman creates pride, camaraderie and events everywhere she goes. She gives that little town--and hundreds of clone burghs across this country--something to join in a cheer over. When Hayley spoke the athlete's oath at the opening ceremonies, I took a mental tally of her accomplishments; substantial for just over thirty years of life. She started as a girl in a boy's sport, hearing that there was nowhere this game could take her. Instead she took it to unimagined heights, even when she had to act as Atlas more than once for the game she's made matter to the world. Got a six year old wondering how one person can matter? Cite Hayley.

(More on why Hayley matters: www.cbc.ca/olympics/vancouvernow/2010/02/what-a-great-friend.html)

I am often accused of possessing innocent naivete. I'm actually kinda proud of it, but I'm not ignorant to the criticisms these Games have received. I do believe they matter. An event like this can bring out something good, something pure, in our nation after earthquakes and wars and politicians giving themselves three-month holidays. For two weeks, amateur athletes can shine and the world will cheer and the only guns being fired over it will be at the starting lines.

Let's try to keep in mind that the eighteen year old kid who's using his ability didn't remove the homeless, whore us out to RBC and Coke or spend six billion on this thing.