Bringing down the curtain

That's a wrap, Canada. Well done, too.

Until Neil Young brings down the curtain along with a cast of thousands tonight, this finale to these Olympics just completed this afternon mirrors the arc of these Games: Halting beginning, lots of questions, a rising red and white tide – and finally a new generational touchstone with an epic gold-medal hockey final. Sidney Crosby has always been The Kid to Canadians. Today he became The Man.

(Photo: Julia Mackey, left, and Francis Sacurom of Vancouver celebrate Sidney Crosby's overtime winning goal in the men's hockey final as Canada beat the United States. The pair were watching on a giant screen at Vancouver's BC Place while awaiting the start of the Olympics closing ceremony Feb. 28, 2010 in Vancouver. ROBERT SKINNER/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

What has struck me being here the last two and a half weeks is the magnitude of the crowds downtown – and the lack of incidents (as of this writing, anyway). The athletes are always what these things are all about, but Vancouver, Richmond, Whistler and the visitors here joined them among the biggest stars of these Games. At the World Cup, this kind of fervour sometimes spills over, tribal affiliations and flags and beer running over and up against each other. I was in Marseille in 1998 when fans rioted, and in Dortmund four years ago when hoolies from Poland and Germany met up for a punchup that was contained by police far away from the stadium where we all sang I Will Survive. I've seen the Olympics at its best and less (Sydney 2000; Atlanta 1996). These are all privilege assignments, but as a Canadian with family ties to Vancouver, this one was especially so. Here, every night coming back on the SkyTrain from downtown to Richmond was a packed party on wheels. Every morning coming back in, you wondered if anyone was sleeping given the early lineups to get into the sights. 

I'll leave the rest for my colleagues to fill in. Meantime, one last link before I get on tonight's redeye for back home. It comes from overseas, from the BBC's James Pearce, looks ahead to Vancouver's influence on the next unfolding of the bloated, overhyped and entirely out of control Olympic circus, and it's a worthy coda to those way too early assessments that seem a long time ago and far, far away:

One senior official from London 2012, who's been in Vancouver, told me that she's learned more from five days in Canada than she had from three weeks in China. That's because, in terms of spectator experience, London will be looking to follow the Vancouver model.
(snip)
On Saturday I was outside the Broadcast Centre grabbing some fresh air when I saw a large crowd heading down the street towards me. At the centre of the throng was a big Canadian flag being waved proudly in the air. As the people moved closer I could see that the man carrying that flag was Jon Montgomery, a Canadian gold medallist last weekend in the skeleton.
Around him, an impromptu procession had formed - a celebration of home-grown success. The further down the road that Montgomery went, the more people tagged on behind. If this had been a scene in some other countries maybe there would have been accusations of over-hyped nationalism, but this felt spontaneous, natural and very good natured.

I had witnessed just one of hundreds of events that have been taking place on the streets here every day, but for me it summed up one of the successes of these Games.

Cigars all around

This one just arrived in the inbox, and it's no surprise. To mangle an old saw, a game is only a game - but a good cigar is a smoke:

"Although the International Olympic Committee is ready to rain on the celebration parade of the Canadian Women's Hockey Team, one company stands behind the cigar smoking and wine guzzling gold medal champions, Gurkha Cigars! The luxury cigar brand, Gurkha Cigars, is in full support of the group of athletes that were simply celebrating their victory and has even overnighted cases of their new Triad Cigar in order to show it.
"Whether they can or can't attend Sunday's closing ceremonies, these ladies will be celebrating in high luxury with $50 a pop smokes and $1,000 cases. Gurkha has also created a Facebook fan page so others can show their support on behalf of the hockey team: Support Canada's Women's Hockey Team."

Funny how this kind of stuff the IOC is worried about is celebrated and indeed televised into the living rooms of the nation in the world of men's pro sports, isn't it?

Morning links, Day 15

One last Olympic weekend. The links:

The Canadian women, after playing a couple of in-camera exhibition games to keep sharp during these Olympics, won the gold in a tight one against the U.S. From Paul Hunter's report:

Twice after checking into the athletes’ village, they sneaked out under the guise of going to “the aquarium.”
Instead, the women played exhibition games against the Vancouver North West Giants, one of the country’s top major midget teams, winning one and losing one against the teenaged boys. They went once the night before opening ceremonies and again after the preliminary games, three outings they waltzed through by a cumulative score of 41-2.
Word never leaked out, so single-minded and united were the women in their purpose.
“We had to stay sharp,” said coach Melody Davidson. “We were winning 18-0, 13-1. We needed to stay sharp.”

But a couple of things are bugging the IOC. First, Jacques Rogge, who drops in on these gold medal women's finals once every four years or so, was hinting yesterday that the field has to get deeper. Or else. As Cam Cole notes in the Vancouver Sun, they're almost too good, these two teams – or more accurately, the rest of the world has remained too far behind:

After hearing IOC president Jacques Rogge's words of warning Thursday — coming, pointedly, on the morning of the championship game — you could not watch the sport's fiercest battle unfold without wondering how many more of these predictable climaxes to anti-climactic Olympic tournaments will be tolerated before the IOC throws up its hands and tosses women's hockey on the same discard pile that cost women's softball its place in the five-ring circus after the 2008 Beijing Games.

And oh, about that victory celebration – beer, champagne and cigars, at centre ice a half hour after the game – the IOC is none too pleased about that, as well:

Steve Keough, a spokesman for the Canadian Olympic Committee, said the COC had not provided the alcohol nor initiated the party.
"In terms of the actual celebration, it's not exactly something uncommon in Canada," he said, referring to raucous locker-room celebrations that are a tradition in some professional team sports.
"If these athletes were of legal age, then it's not something that's against the law," he said. "We can understand there's a lot of sensitivity around celebrations."

Joannie Rochette finished up the most trying week of her life last night with class, dignity and a bronze medal around her neck. From Rosie DiManno's report:

This was a different Rochette than the skater whose career has been documented by national and international media for the past half-dozen years. Where once she was emotionally fragile, her cluttered mind often overtaking muscle-memory so that stumbles occurred in front of judges, the body torqued by psychological stress, Rochette has suddenly evolved into a skater of internal resilience and external poise.
But, oh, what a horrible way to arrive at this competitive composure: The discovery that, residing in her soul all along was this tough cookie who could rise to the Olympic challenge in what has been the worst week of her life.

As for the overwhelming winner, Yu-Na Kim, the most telling quote of the night probably came from skating analyst Jamie McGrigor, in Phil Hersh's Chicago Tribune report: "If this was track and field, we just watched an eight-second 100 metres."

As for Brian Orser, the coach who trains Kim out of Toronto Cricket, Skating and Curling Club, the cameras caught him doing aerobics along with her as he followed her along. Here's Orser's assessment, from Cam Cole's Vancouver Sun column:

 

"She didn't miss a step, from what I could see from my side. She was skating with her heart. I just wanted her to have an Olympic moment. I wanted it to be Olympic and not cautious, not hold back, just go out and embrace the space, and the Olympic Games."

From Russia, with bile, while Sasquatch lurks

Three links while you wait for tonight's hockey game, where, mercifully, Russia won't be on the ice against Canada. As Trueslant.com's Julia Ioffe notes from Moscow, the reaction to yesterday's Canada men's win over Russia has been as brutal as you might expect:

Hanging out in Vancouver?.

The city of Tomsk held a moment of silence. “Because of disgraceful performance of our team I’m afraid to approach TV-set,” tweeted Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s envoy to NATO. “How on earth could we have blown it so disastrously in hockey?”

Cathal Kelly rounds it all up back at the home office, noting a Pravda editorial from before the game that has been making the rounds.

But Pravda, which has morphed into kind of a Russian Weekly World News, has come back with an exclusive - "Canadian researcher snaps Sasquatch in Vancouver", after "Canadian cryptozoologist Randy Brisson" snapped Bigfoot, reassuredly noting the big lug was "quite far from sports objects":

Brisson assured his Russian colleagues that it was a photo of the legendary Bigfoot, or Sasquatch. The popularity of the mythical creature has won it the honor to become a symbol and a mascot of Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Mr. Brisson’s photo may mean that the mascots ramble somewhere in the woods of the Olympic city.

Interview: Kleintje Pils

Gerardus and Rudolf, the Bakker brothers, hail from the coastal hamlet of Sassenheim, Netherlands, and are founding 30-year members of Kleintje Pils, the 11-piece brass band that goes home today - and the Richmond Olympic Oval (and Vancouver) will be much less boisterous for their departure. Kleintje Pils – the name means “a little beer” in Dutch – have been revving the supporters in the speedskating venue for the last 12 days. They've played all around the world, and have the seal of approval of the Dutch royal family, having played at the wedding of the Dutch prince. These guys even wear wooden shoes. I caught up with the Bakkers yesterday, before it all came apart when hot Dutch favourite Sven Kramer was shockingly DQ'd in the 10,000m, the rarest of misfortunes – for one thing, it shut up Kleintje Pils. An interview, photo and video, after the jump.

Neil Young: The choice to bring down the Olympic curtain

The lips of VANOC are sealed here, but this looks and sounds like more than just heavy speculation: Neil Young will feature very heavily in Sunday's closing ceremony.

A source close to the scene says Young has been tabbed for a headline role, and an acoustic “Heart of Gold” from the 64-year-old Toronto-born rock legend figures to be the see-ya song of this Vancouver Games, for completely obvious reasons.

Ceremonies producer David Atkins is not doing interviews this week – a request through VANOC was politely turned down – so there's no official confirmation. But it makes sense. Young's classic 1972 album Harvest, including the Heart of Gold at the centre of it, was named the No. 1 Canadian album in a poll of 600 musicians, critics and Djs for Bob Mersereau's 2007 book, The Top 100 Canadian Albums (Goose Line Press).

Other clues: Young didn't figure in the opening ceremony, and wasn't a part of a sold-out tribute concert last week at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre here, a show that included Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, Toronto's Broken Social Scene and Ron Sexsmith. It'd be just like these kind of closing-night shows to bring in some of the more notable absentees from the opening, and Young is the most notable, his career into its sixth decade. His involvement in causes like Farm-Aid and the environment have taken him beyond the music world. In short, Young is a great Canadian.

As for speculation on who might well be joining him on the Sunday night bill, I'll float a few names from the broadest spectrum that come to mind (and keep in mind, these are pure floats): Joni Mitchell, Arcade Fire, Leonard Cohen (sure, k.d. Lang stood in for Cohen with a Hallelujah that was a highlight of the opening, and Cohen's son said that was good enough, but I dunno), Diana Krall.

If you're looking for a wild card, Vancouver supergroup the New Pornographers, led by tunesmith Carl Newman and the powerful pipes of Neko Case, have been making wonderful music for years. They're a wild-card, yes, but wouldn't this make a hell of an anthem to sing along to:

The New Pornographers: Your Hands (Together) (from prettymuchamazing.com)

Let's throw it open in the comments – who would you like to see and hear?

Morning links, Day 9

The Canadian Olympic commissioners will give their midway point address in Vancouver this weekend, but we got a peak at the script on Friday: Canada won't finish on top. Other nations, though, are rolling on ahead of projections, and forget about Marcel Aubut's confident chest-beating of a week ago, or the Own the Podium™ mantra.

Yes, the United States and Germany have exceeded expectations. And just a couple of days after they were up in arms - imagine a national media moaning about lack of medals - Norway is scaring with a lot more than those curling pants. 

That all seems pretty far away stuff, though, at ground zero. The streets of downtown Vancouver have filled up and look like Times Square on New Year's Eve with a coat of red paint dumped all over everyone. It's all laughing and red-mitten high fives. Inside Smiley's Public House on Pender on Friday night, everyone was a skeleton expert, even the guy crying out "Go Jeff, C'mon Jeff!" as Jon Montgomery bulleted around the track to the top of the podium. 

So where do we go from here? Five questions to ponder, as these Olympics reach middle age:

Can Denny Morrison stop Shani Davis? The two - one Canadian, one American - are training partners, but in Saturday's 1500m speed skate they will face one another in one of the top events of the weekend. Davis has been posting "Shani on Shani" video updates outlining his approach and his fears, like this one after winning the 1000m:

Are you ready for Yu-Na Kim? South Korea's biggest sports star was due to arrive on Friday from Toronto, her training home, with former Canadian Olympian Brian Orser the mentor leading her into Tuesday's opening of the women's figure skating. Yu-Na will be a major star here, but back in South Korea the hype machine is already working her, including for laughs:

What's this - a kinder, gentler Stephen Colbert? Departing Vancouver, Colbert had this to say on syrup-suckers lapping up his act: "The Canadian people, God bless 'em. They get the joke." 

Will Evgeni Plushenko please shut up?

Which of Cindy Klassen, Christine Nesbitt and Kristina Groves will shine brightest on Sunday? The women's 1500m might well be the best single event of these Olympics in terms of quality CanCon. Nesbitt has a gold already, Groves a bronze, and remember 2006? Sure you do.

Weekend links: Olympic narcolepsy, Elvis and Steve Nash

Olympic narcoleptic. Randy Risling/Toronto Star

The Urban Dictionary defines Olympic narcolepsy as "the sensation you get that you will abruptly fall asleep at any moment during the day due to trying to watch as much of the Olympics as you can the night prior, causing you to stay up way too late." But the good people at UD don't go far enough. The moguls, the medals, Twitter updates, that Galen Weston commercial - it's a river of gush that matches the meltwaters flowing into the Burrard Inlet here in Canada's sunny subtropics. And we're only halfway though.

Here's some links to send you into the weekend, and please, as we mentioned on the live chat today, try not to keep any sharp objects lying around on Sunday when the Canadian Yzermen meet the American Burkies with hockey angst on the line, if not a medal (that comes later but the angst, it never leaves - is there a definition for hockey narcolepsy? Someone has to make one):

Here's Elvis Stojko, about as rock-solid as the Canadian Shield, delivering thumbs-down on Thursday's men's figure skating champion:

Sorry, Evan Lysacek.
You’re a great skater and all.
But that wasn’t Olympic champion material.
How can you be Olympic champion when you don’t even try the quad? If you’re going to take the quad out, why not take out another triple axel and just have more of the other stuff so the International Skating Union can make it more into an “art” recital. In Thursday night’s men’s free skate, Lysacek skated slow and his jumps weren’t close to the technical ability of defending Olympic champion Evgeni Plushenko.

In Moscow, meanwhile, they're saying "Heads will Roll" if the country doesn't pick it up, from Vladimir Putin to the Moscow Times.

In the U.S. (and on tape delay on NBC), in the halls of VANOC and CTV, they're singing: The Olympics beat American Idol.

At thestar.com's fine photoblog, Randy Risling has a post on the unsung hero of Team Star here: all-rounder Jim Byers.

And finally, here's Steve Nash, making a pitch to join Team Canada (via Fourth-Place Medal):

Medal projections: Nate Silver likes Canada AND curling

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight numbers-crunching fame is at it again. Silver made his name in baseball sabermetrics, then took his calculator to the '08 U.S. presidential election (49/50 states correctly called isn't bad at all) and last year's Oscars, landing himself on several top-geek lists along the way. Now he's in the Vancouver 2010 medals projection business:

What I've done is to compile the projected medal winners in the 86 Winter Olympic disciplines from five six nine sources that forecasted individual winners; these are the Associated Press, USA Today, Sports Illustrated, McClatchy-Tribune, Examiner.com, Canwest, and (for some events only) ESPN.com and betting odds at Ladbrokes and bwin. Nothing terribly fancy here: I've taken a simple mean of the number of medals that each country was expected to win in each discipline, as averaged across the nine sources.

He's also a curling fan, which along with his latest medal projections has to warm a few Canadian cockles. As of the latest numbers - as of this writing, anyway; the figures are being updated daily - here's how Silver's got it working out:

Canada 32.4 medals (13.5 gold)
Germany 31.4 (9.6)
USA 30.4 (11.6)
Norway 20.4 (6.9)
Austria 18.6 (5.1)

Colbert feels the love, Vancouver sends it back

UPDATED, at 6 p.m. Pacific

 

"If it were today," Stephen Colbert asked 1980 U.S. Miracle on Ice hockey hero Mike Eruzione, "and Al Michaels were Twittering, would it be called the OMG! on Ice?" 

Here at the Twitter Olympics, the thousands on hand at False Creek this morning roared (and more than a few of them, including me, immediately tweeted the line). Sure, it was (mostly) scripted, to be edited and carefully packaged for future consumption. And sure, Colbert, out there in his U.S. speedskating team sweater, flashed his mock-outrage a few times. When the cameras were finally turned off, though, the U.S. TV comedy host stood in front of thousands of his “syrup-sucker” fans on (finally) a beautiful day and saluted them.

“This is a welcome that we couldn't have imagined in our wildest dreams,” said Colbert. “I want to take back everything I've said about Canada.”

I rather doubt that. But everyone bought it, at least for the moment, and sent the love right back with chants of “Ste-phen” and “Ride the Moose!” The prop list on stage included a stuffed moose and beaver, battered skis, a totem pole, a Frosty the Snowman, snowshoes, a penguin (a penguin! sheesh!) and a fan blowing fake snow into the air.

The Colbert Report, in town for two days of taping at the Vancouver 2010 Games, has made a living out of lampooning Canada and Canadian “Iceholes”. Colbert's right-wing talk-show persona flashed, albeit a little muted, as he taped segments with Canadian singer Michael Buble, Eruzione and NBC Olympics TV host Bob Costas. They waved signs - "Stewart Colbert 2012"; "Canuck You, Stephen!"; "Bring Back the Jets" - they chanted, their feet got really wet in the mud.

Buble, the Burnaby native, turned the tables some as he waited to be “interviewed”. "Let's not lower ourselves to Stephen Colbert's, er, lowerness!" he joked, the led the audience into a few bars of Stompin' Tom Connors' The Hockey Song.

At an Olympics where even David Letterman is ripping the organizers, this was a love-in. Colbert lauded Vancouverites as “friendly people, and incredibly easy to pander to” - they gave it right back to him.

“We would have died if we weren't up front,” said 27-year-old Monica Shree, who along with Armin Navabi (that's them in the photo above) was at Creekside Park by 5 a.m. staking out a spot. “He's great satire, great comedy. And he's such a positive person, you really felt the energy.”

Related: Colbert Nation to the Rescue (wsj.com).

UPDATE: Colbert and Michael Buble sing O Canada to the tune of the U.S. national anthem: