Foghorn signals the perfect ending

VANCOUVER, B,C. – A foghorn here in the harbour just belted out the first four notes of O Canada, eliciting another roar from all corners. Between that and the car horns blasting downtown, it’s a sure sign that Canada just won its record 14th gold medal, but more importantly the one gold medal it would sacrifice any other to get: The men’s hockey bauble.

Terrific game, 3-2 over the U.S. on Sidney Crosby’s overtime winner, and now the men are parading around the rink. No cigars or under-age drinking yet and speaking of that kerfuffle, which arose after the women’s team likewise beat the U.S. to win gold, wasn’t that a whole lot about nothing?

Some people think that on the same day IOC president Jacques Rogge put women’s hockey on life support, perhaps they shouldn’t have been doing anything to draw unwanted attention to themselves.

But others would suggest the IOC, given its history, is the last body in the world that should be examining the alleged moral failings of other groups. And besides, when that Canadian skeleton gold-man, Jon Montgomery, paraded through the streets of Whistler drinking from a pitcher of beer, it was considered a moment of pure irrepressible Canadiana. Plus, he was escorted four four Mounties who clearly considered the circumstances and decided to look the other way on the open-container stuff.

But enough of all that. They’re dancing in the streets out here, justifiably overjoyed at this sweetest of all endings, and let’s hope that’s as robust as the activity gets as the evening wears on.

Sitting out Brian McKeever is a terrible call

WHISTLER, B.C. – Congratulations, sincerely, to Alex Harvey, Ivan Babikov, George Grey and Devon Kershaw, Canada’s men’s cross-country team at these Olympics. They didn’t win any medals, but a couple came close and they have had some outstanding performances in a sport in which Canadian men historically are seldom competitive.

That said, unless they finish 1-2-3-4 in Sunday’s 50-kilometre mass start, whoever made the boneheaded decision to leave Brian McKeever, the legally blind athlete who had a chance to make history as the first Paralympian to compete in the Games, should be fired. Immediately.

KEVIN MCGRAN/TORONTO STAR

Brian McKeever speaks to reporters in the mixed zone at Whistler Olympic Park on Feb. 27, 2010.

This is an appalling decision that disgraces the entire organization – an organization that exploited this athlete for publicity purposes without cautioning that he might get dumped at the last second. Surely we can hope someone at a higher level gets it and revises the starting list. Or else one of the other four athletes graciously steps aside.

Do the Olympics need to be entirely about numbers? Does sport always need to be strictly about winning and losing? Can the global inspiration provided by this young man, spread by worldwide media interest since he was named to the team, not figure into things?

Does someone named Inge Braten, the coach who said he needed “to be professional’’ and therefore left McKeever off the team, according to official sources, not understand the situation here?

“I have to choose those guys who are best for the 50-km race,’’ he said, which is fine in any other kind of situation. But we’re dealing with a bigger issue he obviously cannot see.

Good luck to the four guys he named – two of whom were complaining of tiredness earlier in the week when they finished well back in the relay race – but they have all raced at these Games.

McKeever, and all he represents, can’t get one shot to make history? Not one of those four guys can step aside and say, “Go ahead, take my spot?’’

That’s not the spirit of the Olympics – or the spirit of sport. Not to me, anyway.

Bobsleds, true 24-karat gold, to finish in style

WHISTLER, B.C.–All medals are created equal at an Olympic Games, at least in theory. But we all have our favourites, those sports and games we consider 24-karat gold, as opposed to 18-karat or 10-karat or whatever that guy on Eglinton Avenue with the crazy TV commercials about buying your gold is willing to take.

This personal list of 24-karat winter Olympic sports includes hockey, Alpine skiing, figure skating and . . . bobsled.

Not knocking anything else, but those are the ones whose medals shine a little brighter in these eyes and having seen Canadian women destroy the opposition to win gold and silver, all eyes turn to Friday’s four-man bobsled, the granddaddy of them all, the one in which Vic Emery and his Canadian upstarts, a couple of them wearing football helmets, won the gold medal in 1964 in probably the greatest upset in the sport’s history.

Pierre Lueders has won Olympic gold and silver and before Kallie Humphries took gold and Hellen Upperton the silver, Emery and Lueders were the extent of Canada’s Olympic podium finishes. Lueders has had troubles keeping teammates over the years, but he’s the face of the sport in Canada and is a strong sentimental choice on his home track.

Lyndon Rush is the younger, less expereinced pilot but has the outstanding starting push of Lascelles Brown on his side.

So there is plenty of rooting interest as they go up against the typically strong Swiss, dreamy Americans (who are 62 years with a gold) and, of course, the great German Andre Lange, who is seeking his third consecutive four-man gold and fifth over-all. He and Kevin Kuske, who looks like an NFL linebacker, only bigger and faster, won the two-man.

Adding intrigue to the competition is the reputation for danger of the Whistler Sliding Centre track – it has been taking a beating for weeks here – and the withdrawal of four teams so far, those from the Netherlands, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Australia, all for reasons to do with crashes and injuries or, in the case of Edwin Van Calker of the Netherlands, because he simply lacked confidence that he could handle the course. It’s the last big event of the Games up here and it looks like a great finale.

Where the golds fit, and too many blue rings

WHISTLER, B.C. – Sitting up here, waiting for the bobsleds to roll and watching that great Canadian, Clara Hughes, go out with another Olympic medal, it seems that for Canada right now, it’s six of one and half-dozen of the other.

That is six gold medals and six silver or bronze, including Hughes’s in the 3,000-metre speedskating, and while there are plenty more medals heading for the Canadian pile in the next few hours and days, we should all note that six golds represent the same number won at Nagano and is only one below the seven won at Salt Lake and Turin. Prior to that Canada had won more than two Winter Games golds only once, and that was three at Lillehammer in 1994.

In terms of Summer Games golds won, other than the boycotted Los Angeles Games of 1984, whose 10 come with an asterisk, the high-water mark there was seven at Barcelona in 1992.

Just pointing all that out for the sake of argument, because there will be plenty when the final medals count, and what it all means, is being batted around.

Speaking of counting, the security crew tends to operate on a strictly random basis here at these Games. Upon entry into any secure Olympic venue, whether a sports site or a media centre, our bar-coded credentials are scanned and our faces pop up on a laptop next to the scanner. The person checks to make sure we are who we are credentialled to be. There’s a coloured ring around our pictures on the laptop; green means in you go with a cheery wave. A blue ring means you get searched, like a standard airport search.

Scuttlebutt says 1 in 10 arrivals is searched on a random basis, but in the first 10 days here, I was searched only once. No big deal; it takes about two extra minutes and for some reason they decide to frisk only your left ankle.

Well, that was then. My number keeps coming up; five of the past nine entrances to venues I have been blue-ringed. Either than flies in the face of randomness, they know something, or I am due for a hot streak.

On bets, BlackBerries and bobsleds

WHISTLER, B.C. -- Not that this really means who will win and lose, but before the women’s bobsleds began last night in the rainy gloom of the Whistler Sliding Centre, a guy looked up the betting odds, just for fun.

Lo and behold, the sled driven by Kallie Humphries is the favourite on Interbet betting sites at plus-$200, or 2 to 1. Germany;s Kathleen Martini is next at plus-$275, Sandra Keriasis is third choice at 3 to 1 and Canada’s Helen Upperton is fourth pick at 5 to 1.

For those thinking pucks, it was expensive to bet on Canada against Germany; Canada was 4½-goal favourite and even laying that many goals, you needed to lay $140 to win $100.

There is time to check things like odds on the hand-held whilst riding the buses around, from venue to venue. British Columbia apparently has different traffic laws from Ontario. Leaving Whistler Olympic Park, we sat on a bus for about 15 minutes waiting for the departure time. The instant he pulled out, the driver was on his BlackBerry, chatting away to whomever. Wouldn't that be illegal in Ontario?

Good thing these are not exactly those winding Alpine roads, like the ones in France. Back in ’92, the road up from Albertville was so twisty and sharp-cornered that a Toronto columnist with a fear of heights (not this one) lost his lunch on the bus to the point he had to change hotels from the one up the hill. And those same Games, the road to Les Saisies was so wild a ride, particularly coming down, that Dave Anderson, the terrific New York Times columnist, nicknamed the press bus “the 44-man bobsled.’’

We all survived.

Say, the hockey game just started and how about that first shot of Martin Brodeur sitting on the bench? He looked like he just found out the hard way that someone else farted.

Spectacular views and Chief Wahoo, too

WHISTLER, B.C.

There’s one thing about going to work every day on a chairlift, which is how you do it if you cover skiing or sliding sports around here.

You either don’t do it or you get over your fear of heights.

In less than two weeks, I have gone from a nervous passenger, gripping the safety bar with both hands and never looking down, to talking on the phone, pointing and waving, that kind of thing. If I saw a bear I might throw gum at it.

But Monday I tried the ultimate fear-of-heights test, this sensational engineering marvel known as the Peak2Peak, the world’s longest gondola ride, stretching mountain to mountain, from Whistler to Blackcomb or, if you’re coming from the other direction, from Blackcomb to Whistler.

Well. What a ride. Views more breathtaking that you can imagine. Thousands of skiers and snowboarders baking in the sun on one side and, 2.73 miles away across the valley, thousands of skiers and snowboarders baking in the sun on the other side.

It takes 11 or 12 minutes to get across in big, comfortable mostly glass-sided gondolas that seat 22 (so the sign says) and accommodate six more standees. That’s a lot of people, plus ski poles and skis and helmets – and one guy was apparently skiing in a Cleveland Indians batting helmet and who ever figured you could meet Chief Wahoo up here?

At the middle of the ride, even with the steel cables sagging what look like a couple of hundred feet, because the two support towers are 1.88 miles apart, the distance above the little creek in the bottom of the valley is 1,427 feet, according to the signs.

You can look straight down from some of the cars – two of the 28 have glass floors, for which you can line up separately – and that’s the acid test if you have the height heebie-jeebies.

But no. Not one short breath. And no bears to throw things at.

If you ever get out here, take the ride. It’s unforgettable.

'Heartbroken' Hollingsworth starts looking to 2014

WHISTLER, B.C. – Considering the devastation she has gone through since Friday night and will continue to endure all because of a little mistake in the heat of competition, Mellisa Hollingsworth is either courageous or crazy to want to put herself through the four-year wringer once more.

Or maybe a little of both.

She wanted to talk to the country Sunday morning. She wanted not to hide but to talk, to unburden herself, to say she’ll be back for Sochi in 2014, to thank total strangers who sent her more than 500 messages — but no marriage proposals – telling her to keep her chin up.

“Every one of them let me know I didn’t let my country down,’’ she said and tears flowed again. “I want to tell Canada thank you for being so supportive. Thank you for the compassion and understanding.’’

She said she did nothing Saturday except lie in bed all day wondering, as she put it, “Why did I make a mistake like that in the biggest moment of my career?’’

The mistake, she indicated, was being off-line about an inch heading into a critical corner in Friday night’s final run, the gold medal – and only the gold medal – squarely in her sights. That inch on the entry translated to the wrong exit point and ping-ponged her off the wall, what she called “two big exploding hits,’’ that dropped her to fifth place.

“Fifteen years of work and training and it comes down to this,’’ she said, holding her hands four feet apart. “The difference between first and fifth place. It’s heartbreaking.’’

Most of us cannot imagine how she feels, how all the hard work and dedication and sacrifice can be undone by that inch. Yet she wants to come back for more and it is entirely up to her; if she wants to pay that price for four more years, knowing the ultimate reward can disappear by such a tiny margin, more power to her.

As she lay in bed Saturday, she began reading the messages, talked with family and friends. She got up at 5 p.m. and went to the medal ceremony for Jon Montgomery, her skeleton teammate who seized the golden moment, and with the support of friends and family began stitching her life together again: And what it said was four more years.

She said her decision was set when she sat alone and dumbfounded after the competition, “sitting in shock and hoping for a do-over,’’ she said, and her coach told her she had nailed the start. First time the world’s best in her event had ever had the fastest start, 4.93 seconds.

“I did it. My training had paid off. That’s what we work 15 years for, the hundredths of a second, and I had finally done it. That’s when 2014 flashed through my mind.’’

In the big picture, on a track where a Georgian slider had been killed – which had its upsetting effect on every competitor, Hollingsworth included – winning or not winning a skeleton race is a matter of perspective. Canada will still win plenty of medals at these Games, although maybe one less than everyone thought.

Hollingsworth also spoke for a moment about Joannie Rochette, who lost her mother Saturday night, and that jarring development helped her regain her own perspective.

“This isn’t the worst thing she has gone through,’’ insisted her proud father, Darcy. “When she didn’t make the (Olympic) team in 2002, that was worse. This time she had an opportunity. That time she didn’t.’’

And it sounds as if she wants to invest the sweat to give herself another one.

“I want to be on top of that podium,’’ she said.

Dry-land training begins in May.

Great Canadian spirit and one tough team to make

WHISTLER, B.C. – The often wonderful Canadian spirit at these Olympic Games is the best part of them and the happiest example for these eyes – the best example of Canadian spirit witnessed at 10 Games – arrived in the wee small hours Saturday morning.

Jon Montgomery, fresh from his gold medal in a captivating skeleton competition – a bauble that assures Canada will not go zero-for-Whistler – was paraded through the top end of town, his helmet under one arm and a small armada of RCMP officers trying to keep him moving forward. He high-fived the fans, who screamed and gave him the rock-star treatment.

A woman slipped out from a bar with a beer for Montgomery and not just any beer. An entire pitcher of beer. He happily chugged away at the pitcher while the flashbulbs popped and he continued advancing and mixing enthusiastically with the fans.

It was truly great stuff, unscripted and joyful, and he made his way to the outdoor stage where one of the host broadcasters interviewed him, while thousands of fans packed in behind him, whooping it up as he went over his gold-medal run. He seemed to be having the time of his life, which he absolutely deserved to do, and every face in the picture was beaming, except maybe the guy in the background holding up the large banner that read “Investigate 9/11.’’

It looked like a scene in a sports movie and if Hollywood ever comes calling, this young man could surely play himself in the movie. Except it was the real thing, spontaneous and heartfelt and as memorable as any off-field piece of Canadiana I can remember at an Olympics. Here’s to it – and him.

Here’s one more of those Whistler moments. Riding up the chairlift to the ski hill for Saturday’s Super, you tend to get packaged on the four-person seat with strangers. So you make acquaintances on the five-minute ride up. This day, it was a fan from Ottawa and a young teenager, a local, who was talking about his high school here and its ski and snowboard teams.

The thought struck: Would there be any high-school sports team in the country that would be tougher to make than the Whistler ski and snowboard team? Everybody seems to be perfectly at home on skis here, which seems natural enough. Little kids look great on their skis and snowboards, extremely talented. The teenaged talent pool must be outstanding.

If there’s a tougher team to make, at least in theory, I can’t think of it.

A little like Lillehammer and how sorry Tiger is

WHISTLER, B.C. – Here was one of those nice Olympic moments on an absolutely perfect sun-drenched day in a terrific mountain town.

In between biathlon races, a guy heads for the sliding pit, as always taking the gondola up the mountainside rather than the bus. Walking through town to the gondola, the sidewalk cafés are crammed. The big screens are everywhere, tuned in to the U.S.-Norway hockey game, and whatever problems these Olympics have been having – and they have been many and sometimes embarrassing – for a few minutes here there’s no sign of anything wrong.

People are skiing and snowboarding – some in T-shirts – and watching the games, soaking up the sun, enjoying a beverage and unanimously seem to be having a great time. All the angst about medals won and lost by the home team isn’t apparent, at least for this particular sunny time. It’s the first time in 10 days here that it felt even remotely like Lillehammer, the feel-good Olympics of my time.

WILL WOODS SAY ‘SORRY’?

On a totally unrelated matter, a British bookmaker has set betting odds on Tiger Woods’ use of the word “sorry’’ for his statement of apology Friday in Florida. The favourite at 9 to 4 is twice, while six or more times pays off at 7 to 2.

In the cliché category, his use of the phrase “I regret the hurt I have caused’’ pays off at 7 to 2.

Woods seems to be coming back in character

It is good to see that nothing has changed with Tiger Woods, at least when it comes to his handlers trying to control his image.

The word is out that Woods will sit down with a handful of selected reporters Friday in Florida to start the image-cleansing process. As if there could be enough soap.

There are two points about this operation, which was set up by his agent, Mark Steinberg, with the International Management Group, and is to include a wire service reporter and a "small pool" of golf reporters chosen by the Golf Writers Association of America (of which I am a member, for disclosure's sake).

The first point is that Woods, who usually makes it a habit not to say anything to golf writers that he doesn't want to say – and believe me, I have been in the press room with him a couple of hundred times and never heard much of value escape him – apparently thinks he can control the agenda by controlling the size and identity of the press scrum.

Which ever reporters are in this small knot, they're in a tough spot. Woods's history says he won't answer anything he doesn't want to talk about and anyone who badgers him about the spectacularly sordid moments could be banished to his enemies' list. Anyone who just goes in lobbing softballs for him to hit out of the park will look bad to his peers and the public.

That's the first part and Woods would be better to walk the press gauntlet in a wide-open format, where the tabloid types could fire away. Because he's going to get it sooner or later; he can't run from this forever.

The second part of all this is the timing. Why now? Why not last week or next week? Because it comes right when the Accenture Match Play Championship will be getting down to the short strokes, that's why.

It was Accenture that bailed out on Woods as a key sponsor, of course. Woods, who always had a steely memory for every slight he suffered, whether real or imagined, clearly is beginning his retaliation against those who have done him wrong (in his own mind). So let's see how many newspapers and TV stations and websites give two hoots about the Accenture event when Woods opens his yap in public for the first time since his world was turned upside down forever.

This is Tiger saying to the former Arthur Andersen – the creeps who green-lighted Enron, you remember, so spare no sympathy for them – that he's still the biggest name in showbiz, with or without them.

He may say things differently Friday, but judging just from what we hear today, it sounds like the same old Tiger to me.