The Upsons

Today begins the final leg of my Whistler volunteer experience with 3 shifts in a row.  I’ll start today’s adventure off with one of Whistler’s best kept secrets, Austria House.  It’s off the beaten path a bit, but what makes it so great is not this metal mouse (what is up with that?) but their free beer.  Yes, that’s right.  Anytime they win a medal (which has been almost every day) they have free beer for anyone.  No pictures of that of course, I’m not supposed to do that while in uniform

Once I arrived at work for my shift I was surprised to learn of the feature for that day’s “Sneak Peak”, which is the newsletter for all the volunteers that gets printed and handed out everyday.  If you look at the bottom of the page you’ll see none other than yours truly, hard at work on a critical technical issue.

Another amusing item in our work space is a growing To Do list where we’ve come up with as many different ways as possible to explain what we do.  Hey, it’s a good thing when nothing is breaking down!  However, I do realize that I haven’t actually explained what it is I’m doing…one of these days I’ll elaborate on that mystery.

As we geared up for the HUGE game against Russia we heard the stat that the Canadian team won Gold Men’s Hockey in Salt Lake City 8 years ago today, which proved to be a good omen.  And speaking of good omens, just before the game started John Furlong (the CEO of VANOC) came by to thank us volunteers for our contributions to the games.  He seemed like an incredibly warm and genuine individual, I was quite impressed with him.

Then onto the game.  We were all hunkered down in our bunker glued to every second of action, and before we knew it is was 3-0 and we were yelling like a bunch of maniacs.  In fact, yelling so loudly we got “shoosh-ed” by the international press who could hear us out in their common area of the Media Centre.  What do they expect, they must be Russians!!!  I actually felt a bit sorry for Nabokov, but Bryzgalov didn’t do much better.  Periodically throughout the game I had to explain to some of the IT guys from India why everyone kept “booing” Luongo   All in all, what an amazing night -- it looks like that extra game against Germany is what they needed to get the line of Crobsy-Stall-Iginla firing and dangerous.  I think that 1st period might be the best 20 minutes of hockey I’ve ever seen, and I imagine the Russians must be feeling like we did in 2006 at Turino when we crashed & burned in 7th place, and looked forward to Vancouver 2010 for redemption.  You know Ovechkin is already counting down the days to Sochi 2014.  Bring on the winner of Sweden/Slovakia!

Then we booked it over to the Medals Plaza as quickly as we could, just in time to catch this classic track from Aussie rockers Jet.  I was especially amused by the official “Mosh Pit” sign you can make out in the bottom of the video.  Only at the Olympics.

And we close out the evening with one other highlight from the show…dudes in beaver costumes.  That takes some real dedication.

Another incredible day where Canada pulled down 4 more medals to add to the growing totals.  Keep up the amazing work!

Tags: Austria House, Hockey, Jet, John Furlong, Medals Plaza, Whistler
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I am gaining such an appreciation for the pace of Whistler, it really is like a retreat after a couple days of dealing with the chaos of Vancouver.  The sunshine is coming to an end, so I figured I’d try and capture some of the views of the peaks from the village.  In this clip I tried to zoom in on the Peak 2 Peak Gondola, maybe if the weather stays clear I’ll head up there for some amazing views.

On my way over to the Media Centre I noticed that they have relocated the memorial for Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili to a dedicated spot next to the Olympic rings.  Everyone is signing a book, leaving flowers, pins, candles and other items.  He is definitely not forgotten as the games move forward.

Most days it’s impossible to get from one end of the village to the other without coming across some form of entertainment.  I posted a video of these guys last week in Yaletown doing the “Human Curling” routine, they’ve now brought the show on the road to Whistler for “Human Bobsled”.  Another classic.

I’m sure these guys have a show on Treehouse that I’ve watched where they hop around in multi-coloured jumpsuits doing coordinated routines yelling things like “hup”.  Am I imagining things or does anyone else (with young kids) know what I’m talking about?

Then, this one time at band camp…before I could make it to the Media Centre I encountered this AMAZING performance from a local drum band.  Best version of Thunderstruck ever -- AC/DC would be impressed, I especially love the bagpipes.

As the countdown to Canada vs. USA moved closer I headed out to survey the scene, but never got much further than the afternoon performance of Sam Roberts.  So many great Canadian performers have come through in the past few weeks, I hope the rest of the world has also appreciated some of the great shows.

I was actually heading out for a legitimate work related reason.  One of the guys walked in and asked me “do you know how to set up a satellite phone?”  Being as handy as I am (ha ha) I said “no, but surely we can figure it out”.  I learned that one of the senior VANOC officials wanted this as an emergency backup in the event all communications at Whistler were lost for some reason.  Hey -- no pressure!  Here we are proud of our work knowing that Whistler is safe in our hands.  I wonder if we should have tested it first though…

Finally, on my way back I encountered some members of team Austria, including Gold Medalist in Downhill Andrea Fischbacher.  You might recognize her, she’s the one that was so excited and grateful for her medal the other night she kneeled on the podium.  I love athletes who express so much emotion when they are awarded their medals, but I didn’t have the heart to ask her if she had it on her or not.

Despite all these exciting distractions, I just made it back in time to see the start of the game…but with team USA scoring within the first minute, I should have just stayed out in the village.  Although as the game progressed, I think it was best to stay hidden and depressed in our little room on our own

I’ve never seen Brodeur play a worse game.  Every time he touched the puck he looked panicked, and he paid dearly for it.  I think every goal was a direct result of him being all over the place and out of position, trying to recover from a sloppy puck handling play.  I know it’s a big, pressure filled game but your Martin freakin’ Brodeur, holder of 3 Stanley Cups, an Olympic Gold medal, and the winningest goalie of all time!  Was he trying to hard or something?  Who knows, but it was totally out of character and he lost the starters job that day as far as I’m concerned.  This caption and picture from Yahoo! Sports sums it up.  I wonder if Niedermayer is saying “dude, are you OK?  What is going on with you today?”

The Canadians put forth an admirable comeback attempt but Miller was insane.  I actually really like Miller (I have him in my lifetime pool!) but I was not to pleased with him on this day.  With the team clawing back to within one goal with a few minutes left, they were applying so much pressure that I was feeling confident of a comeback.  Then came Corey Perry’s lazy defensive play, but kudos to Kesler for scoring what is likely the best empty net goal ever (although I hat to admit it).

All in all, a complete bummer of a game that had memories of our bitter Canada Cup loss to the US back in 1996.  Hopefully we will have a chance to avenge (and repeat?) the outcome of Salt Lake City 2002!

A final pic of the night was captured on our way back to the bus at the Omega Bobsled display.  The lines had finally disapated enough to capture this fantastic action shot.  It takes real concentration to be a true champion.

Tags: Hockey, Olympics, Whistler
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Another beautiful day up at Whistler and everyone’s focus in on Game 2 this afternoon against Switzerland.  But first, start the day off with a famous Zog’s Dog, I of course opted for the jalapeno smokie.  Zog’s is a great “shack” right at the base of Whistler that has dogs, burgers and poutine with sausages, which I managed to hold back on.  I especially loved the “self serve” fried onion wok.

As I said, all eyes were on Game 2 against the Swiss.  There was lots of talk that it was 4 years ago to the day Canada was beaten by Switzerland in a 2-0 upset.  In that game Canada outshot Switzerland 49-18…this time it would be an eerily similar result of 45-20.  The game, however would thankfully have a different outcome.  As I headed out into the village to watch the start of the game there were so many fans, flags, and freaks it was amazing to see.  This one was my favourite – the dude wearing the score clock hat (helmet?) with working goal light.  Gotta get me one of those.

Everyone was feeling pretty confident with Canada up 2-0 in the second period so I headed over to Swiss House (or Maison de la Suisse) to gloat but just as I arrived they tied up the game so I headed back with my tail between my legs.

In the end our boys prevailed and I did return to Maison de la Suisse after and took a bite out of the world’s largest (only?) chocolate Inukshuk, made by Lindt.

I can’t imagine how insane things are going to be Sunday afternoon when Canada plays the US in Game 3.  In fact, the press started talking about the US game as soon as this one was finished.  Here’s an interesting article from CTV that explains why it actually might be a good thing if Canada loses to the US.  A bit of proactive damage control to our national pride perhaps?  Can’t wait for Sunday to watch this game.

At the Medals presentation that night I witnessed something that initially confused me.  As I watched the RCMP raise the flags for the 10k biathlon, I was perplexed why there were two flags on a single flag pole (there’s always 3 separate flags in a row for Gold, Silver, Bronze)

I realized that Norway and Belarus tied for Silver (to the thousandth of a second!), which is why their flags were together on the same pole.  This also answers the question of “do they make extra medals?”  They must, since they have to account for ties in Gold, Silver, or Bronze.  If I can ever get into the Canadian Mint pavilion I’ll be sure to ask this.  It is also worth noting that every Medals Ceremony I have gone to includes the Norwegian national anthem -- I really should have taken them in my Olympics pool

Then the night ended with a performance from Canadian DJ Dedmau5, who is famous for performing in a bit of a “costume”, as you’ll see in this clip.  You’ll also see right at the end of this clip some of the Norwegian Horn Heads that are always around the village.

All in all, it was a different vibe in Medals Plaza to have an artist like this performing instead of the more traditional “rock” fare we’ve had so far.  Who knew we could have an Olympic rave-like atmosphere at Whistler.

Finally, I’ll share this story with you that gives a good overview of how unique it is up here at Whistler vs. Vancouver.

Tags: Deadmau5, Hockey, Victory Ceremony, Whistler
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