I had the early shift Sunday and to make it worse, it was raining. It was monsoon raining! We normally get a lift from Maurizio on these early morning shifts but since things are slow now, he has changed management shifts to more decent hours (8am-9pm). Joe and I made our way to work and I convinced him that if we stayed on the no. 6 to the bus loop and then picked up the no. 98 to Squamish (this bus also turns into our Athlete's village), we would get to work sooner, but more importantly drier. One of our team was also on the no. 6 bus and she decided to stick with the no. 10. Well, I was right on one count but I think it was the most important one. Joe and I arrived, just minutes before 6:00am, fresh and dry. Our team mate did beat us by a few minutes but she also looked like a drowned rat!
We hunkered down into our trailer and hoped that we wouldn't have to go out on the "Gator" in all that rain! Then things started looking up! The rain subsided and out of boredom we jumped onto the wet "Gator" and went for a ride. We found about a half dozen black cars in a section of the Village called "Plaza Entry." We figured these were for Nodar, our fallen Georgian luge athlete and suddenly felt uncomfortable being in this section of the village. Back to the trailer, just in time to avoid another downpour! As it turned out, all those cars were for our Governor-General, Michaelle Jean. Back out in the rain and the wet "gator" to get as close as we dared and with all the security we felt uncomfortable reaching into our pocket to grab our cameras but we did manage to take a few pictures. The entrance to the "plaza entry" has a checkpoint and while standing out of the rain there, none other than Steve Podborsky walked through. He was shorter than I had imagined!
Since Joe and I had not done much sight seeing at Whistler during the Games, we decided to go to the walking village to celebrate Jennifer Heil's silver medal. We were told to visit our Bell Store because they were handing out branded cow bells. Sure enough we got them! We found our GLC (where Much Music sets up shop) was brimming to the rafters so we turned around and went to Merlins. We did happen to get a table on the upper level and set up with a plate of their famous cheese nachos and beer. Men's Freestyle was on the tube and the place erupted when Marquis and Rousseau were leading in first and second. 
Right about then the band that was playing started the Canadian national anthem. Everybody stood up and started singing. Our Bell "cow bells" were coming in handy. There was booing when the American Bryon Wilson took first and then more loud cheers from the Australians when Dale Begg-Smith took over first. I can't describe how loud it was, not only in that bar but throughout Vancouver, Whistler and Canada when Bilodeau placed first when all was said and done! His victory speech at the bottom of the hill, extolling his older brothers drive was icing on the cake.
We decided to go back to the walking village to celebrate and see if we could get on camera someplace and maybe get some pins. Again, those branded cow bells came in handy as the race results and Alexandre Bilodeau's run was played over and over on all the TV screens throughout. The walking village was packed! In typical Canadian fashion, a hockey game broke out in the middle of the walking village. I loved the look on the little guys face when "Luonglegs" got a penalty for high sticking! We also got a picture of our Bell team on the Omega 4-man bobsleigh but I liked to call it the Canada 1 bobsleigh. I got a picture of our mens luge team in front of the CTV studio. Sam Edney (Canadian men's Luge) placed seventh in an event that is measured in the thousandths of a second. They were signing autographs and hopefully inspiring another batch of future Olympians. It just turned out to be a good day!
No comments:
Post a Comment