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.

On Norwegians and sportsmanship

WHISTLER, B.C – So how is that home-field advantage working out so far for Canada up here? Well, no medals so far and all kinds of ugly questions raised about training restrictions at the sliding track after the death of that young Georgian luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili.

Now comes a pointed whack at VANOC and the Own The Podium program from downhiller Aksel Lund Svindal, who made it a point, at his press conference yesterday after he had won the men’s downhill silver medal, to voice his opinion of things.

“I just want to say that the reason I was not allowed on the hill last year had nothing to do with the Canadian ski team. The Canadian team, and Alpine Canada, are great to work with,’’ Svindal said after finishing second to Switzerland’s Didier Defago. “Erik Guay gave me a great report on the hill here. I want to thank the Canadian ski team. It wasn’t them who kept me off the hill. It was VANOC and Own The Podium, or something.’’

This the most direct attack yet on the stated plan to limit visiting athletes’ use of the facilities here to the legal minimum. Own The Podium, of course, wishes to have it both ways, boasting about maintain Canada’s “home-field advantage’’ while at the same time saying it hasn’t done anything wrong.

Other athletes don’t see it that way, of course, and Svindal expressed himself  the only way that really matters, out on the field. He’s from Norway, the same place country as Bjorner Hakensmoen, the coach who handed Canada’s Sara Renner a ski pole after hers broke while she was winning a medal in 2006.

Ski delays, but no wet monkeys

WHISTLER, B.C. – So, where are the monkeys?

It’s certainly nothing new for Olympic ski races to be postponed. A certain chill-out factor is needed here and not strictly for the weather. Yes, it has been mushy and rainy and mostly miserable, weather-wise, but the races will get started sooner or later, perhaps as early as Monday morning given the forecast for Sunday overnight here.

The last time there was this kind of delay was in 1998 at Nagano, Japan, when the men’s downhill was scratched four days in a row because of overabundant fog, if memory serves. I can clearly recall getting up in Nagano one morning at 5 a.m. to grab the 6 a.m. bus and rode it the 2 ½ hours up to Hakuba, which was the name of the mountain.

We pulled into the parking lot outside the media centre in pouring rain and this little volunteer got on the bus, turned and faced everyone, bowed, held up her arms and crossed her wrists, the local sign for That’s All, Folks! Then she got off the bus, the driver closed the door and turned the bus around and we began the 2 ½ hours the other way. Not even a squirt stop.

That was living the high life, for sure, except that at some point on the journey, the bus went through something called Hell Valley, which was like a wild monkey park. These macaques, or snow monkeys, lived free and you could see them flipping through the trees and so on. I don’t remember which part of the trip it was, but it was the part you didn’t try to sleep on. The thing about the monkeys was that the state built them hot springs and pools to play in, trying to keep them from plunking themselves into local residents’ hot tubs.

This town, of course, has no monkeys. It does have bears and things with antlers and soft brown eyes that people like to shoot. It’s also no more than 15 minutes riding the bus down to Creekside to grab the chair-lift up to the finish line. Here’s hoping we won’t be making even that dry run again these Games.

Shameless luge officials blame the victim

WHISTLER, B.C. – The Federation Internationale de Luge (FIL) is acting like someone in a fender-bender. You know, admit nothing, shrug, and blame the other guy.

Apparently without a trace of shame, the world luge governing body, as well as the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), met the press Saturday morning to blame Nodar Kumaritashvili solely for his own death and to accept zero responsibility themselves for Friday’s fatal crash that killed the 21-year-old Georgian at the Whistler Sliding Centre.

Yes, it’s a fast track, but it’s not too fast and it’s not unsafe, luge officials stressed several times at a morning press conference, where they also said all scenarios, including cancelling the entire sliding competition at these Olympic Games, were discussed before they decided to go ahead as scheduled.

They’re trying to revise history as they go here, adamant that the WSC track is completely safe and that Kumaritashvili’s own driving error led to his death, despite a litany of complaints and cautions from the athletes themselves in the weeks and days leading to the Olympics. And even though Kumaritashvili’s death is the first luge fatality in 35 years, “there was nothing out of the ordinary that signalled there needed to be a change made,’’ according to FIL secretary-general Svein Romstad.

Yet they have shortened the men’s race, scheduled to begin later Saturday, to the women’s starting point and they will shorten the women’s start, perhaps down to the junior start point, in a bid to slow down the runaway speeds, which have clearly exceeded what the sliding organization thought would be achieved on the track. They also will raise the walls where the fatal crash occurred in a bid to – hold on for this one – “deal with the emotional component for athletes.’’

They are making all these changes even though the track is completely safe, or as VANOC vice-president for sport Tim Gayda put it, “we did everything in our power to make that a safe track.’’

Except for all the new stuff, apparently.

It sounds as if lawyers drummed into them that they should admit no responsibility whatsoever. German Josef Fendt, FIL president, when asked if legal action had been threatened, answered, “I don’t know.’’

Asked to identify which “emotional’’ components would be addressed by moving the starts down, Romstad of the United States, fighting back tears, said he he didn’t know specifically because “this is a component we have not dealt with before.’’

Played down, as well, were Canadian Olympic Committree boasts for the past several months that Canada was exploiting its “home-field advantage’’ by limiting the training runs allowed by other countries. Gayda said FIL guidelines were followed “and we largely lived up to those obligations and even surpased them’’ by offering enough practice runs.

The FIL pointed out that Kumaritashvili had 26 runs on the track. That he didn’t finish No. 27, they are saying, is solely his fault.

But they’re going to shorten all the races anyway. Out of the goodness of their hearts.

Going 90 metres up to find new heroes

WHISTLER, B.C. -- One day ago, I asked a bunch of lugers who the craziest winter-sport athletes are and without hesitation they nominated the downhill skiers. And maybe they’re right.

But try going up to the top of the ski jump, that concrete birdsnest way way up in the sky, and then tell me the ski jumpers aren’t the most completely nutty of the bunch.

My hero used to be the guy who ate the first oyster, but maybe now it’s ski jumpers in general.

I took the chairlift up to the 90-metre starting point today at Whistler Olympic Park. Walked out across the steel mesh walkway suspended above the mountain, never letting go of the handrails, until reaching the start house, which is about the size of a two-car garage, with a little balcony/walkway kind of thing all the way around.

This, mind you, was not even the big guy, the 120-metre hill. This was “only’ the little jump and let’s just say if anyone wanted to make big dough, he could open a life insurance stand right there at the starting point and sell to tourists.

It’s scarier than Elin Nordegren’s divorce lawyer, and particularly frightening if you don’t like heights, which is another issue entirely. It gets even worse if you throw in some hard-blowing mountain wind and big, thick snowflakes that slicken up the walkways and trim visibility. The downward ramp itself seems so incredibly and stupidly steep, even though the actual ski jumping, in which the athletes seem to be no more than about 15 feet off the ground almost the entire way, apparently isn’t that dangerous.

Just don’t try telling that to someone at the top of the jump for the first time.

Everyone always remembers that Wide World Of Sports opening scene from decades ago, where that ski jumper crashed and rag-dolled, although they always said he wasn’t hurt. A guy making a visit to the top of the jump thinks to himself, “Well, he was surely crazy even to be up there in the first place.’’

Omega, the timepiece company, was giving tours of its time-keeping facilities, including the start and judges’ stand at the ski jumping. That was the admission ticket to  the scariest sports location in town. It’s one of those things you’re happy to do. Once.

  

   

Of security, salmon and rats with good P.R.

WHISTLER, B.C.

Olympic security is what it is these days. In less than two decades it has gone from a smiling volunteer nodding at the gate in the chain-link fence to squinty-eyed rent-a-cops (or real cops) scrutinizing everyone from head to toe and double- and triple-checking Ids. Plus pat-downs and bag searches.

Such is modern life and quiet co-operation is the only way to go.

But what about the bears? Did anyone realize that the erection of security perimeters around each and every Olympic facility, a must for every Olympics now, also keeps out the large wildlife?

Take the Whistler Sliding Centre, where bears used to be regular visitors. Alex Gough said she remembers pulling up from a training run a few months ago, whereupon a bear ran across the track behind her, thanks very much, and Canadian veteran Jeff Christie had his own bear story.

“I was at the start line and looked down and right there in Turn One was this big, black thing. It stood up and put its paws on the edge of the track. It was my time to go and I said to the starter, ‘I’m not going. I’m dressed all in red. I’ll look like a giant salmon.’ So I waited a while.’’

The bears have been fenced out, but some of the smaller visitors abound and Canadian singles racer Meaghan Simister said she had noticed “some of the Europeans trying to pet raccoons.’’

This does not exactly sound like a growth industry, either. Some of those damned raccoons will rip your hand in half if you give them a chance. At least the ones who hang out in my carport are like that and they’re all related. They’re just rats with better P.R. and Davey Crockett had the right idea: Make hats out of them.

Does Stern have a few minutes for hockey, too?

The news that NBA commissioner David Stern has suspended Gilbert Arenas for the rest of the season, a very expensive proposition for the gun-toting Washington Wizard, packs no surprise.

Arenas and Jarvaris Crittendon, also gone for the season for stupidly bringing guns into the locker room, are suspended without pay and Arenas could be out something like $12 million in salary. He also is facing sentencing after pleading guilty to a criminal charge. He knew he was in the wringer and he apparently does not plan to appeal.

The thing here is this: Any chance Stern has some spare time to administer some hockey discipline?

He doesn’t mess around. He has an image of his league and even if it is one that not everyone shares, there are clear, no-nonsense rules in place and he enforces them decisively. Compare that to hockey, where head hits are spinning out of control, the NHL pretends they don’t really exist and junior players get the kind of suspensions that don’t seem to act as a deterrent because no sooner does the hubbub from one near-decapitation die down than another one takes place.

Well, seeing as what this is going to cost Arenas – and you can bet the Wizards will be trying to wipe out the remainder of Arenas’s $110 million contract – do you think any NBA player will ever be stupid enough to try this kind of stunt again?

Unlike hockey, where the participants in the game tend to rally in support of the perpetrator of on-ice crime, rather than the victim, this punishment acts as exactly what it is supposed to be: A deterrent to dumb things.

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The talk today is of Andre Dawson going in to the Hall of Fame in a Montreal Expos cap, rather than a Chicago Cubs beanie, as he supposedly had wanted. Those of us with a soft spot for the Expos applaud the call, since he’ll certainly be remembered here far more as an Expo than as a Cub.

The Hall of Fame makes the final call, rather than leave it up to the player, and you can thank Wade Boggs for that one. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays wanted to “buy’’ a Devil Rays cap on Boggs by paying him a lot of money to select the Rays lid and rather than seeing any player auction off his forehead, the Hall stepped in and gave itself the final say on these matters. Good for them, too. They’ll try to do the right thing.

Bud and Tony need to get stories straight

Poor Bud Selig. He agonized over just what to say about Mark McGwire.

According to the commish of baseball, he spent the entire Packers-Cardinals game Sunday writing and re-writing his self-serving statement about McGwire’s long-overdue admission that he did indeed use steroids for much of his career. Bud said he “painstakingly went over it’’ many times to get the wording just right.

But check out what else Bud did here when he said, “I knew beforehand, but not much. I’ve talked a lot about with (Cardinals’ manager Tony LaRussa and owner) Bill DeWitt. We’ve talked about it since they made (McGwire) their hitting coach.’’

Really, Bud? You talked about it “a lot’’ with Tony La Russa? This would be the same Tony La Russa who claimed Monday night that he didn’t know a thing about McGwire’s steroid use until Monday. Ooops. Somebody doesn’t have the story straight here.

Nobody believed La Russa, of course, and now Bud has outed him in this particular whopper by admitting they talked about the confession scenario. Maybe Tony wasn’t listening.