Like many other Canadians, specifically Vancouverites, I woke up on Monday morning with a sense of loss and a bit of an emotional hangover. The euphoric buzz of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games, over less than 24 hours, quickly wore off. It left me with a question that I’m sure many of us are asking, “Now what?”

Photo by kennymatic on Flickr

In 17 short days Vancouver hosted the biggest extended party it has ever seen and, possibly, ever will see. I’m even going so far as to say that a Stanley Cup win by our beloved Canucks would not even come close to the carnival (as fugitivephilo says in a thoughtful blog post about consumerism & patriotism) that we saw. Wow!

A better fictional account of the most dramatic Canadian Olympic games could not have been written.

Day one started with the horrible news that Georgian Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili had been killed during a run at the Whistler Sliding Centre. There has been much speculation as to the reasons for the fatal crash and a complete analysis is yet to come. With this tragic event came the ringing true of that old adage, “the show must go on.” All but one of the Georgian athletes, the other luger, decided to continue their participation in the games.

The extended torch relay crossed Canada, traveling approximately 45,000 kilometres, and wound through Lower Mainland neighbourhoods and had us frothing like Pavlov’s dogs, tweeting madly about who was going to be the final torch bearer lighting the Olympic cauldron. The speculation was more fierce than a Next Top Model photo shoot with guesses ranging from the very possible like Betty Fox, mother of the late Terry Fox, to the extremely unlikely and downright silly, like the ghost of Mr Dressup.

Protesters attempted to thwart the torch’s progress but succeeded only in having it re-routed around them. The spectacular Opening Ceremonies were tarnished by a few ‘technical difficulties’ (which seemed to be a recurring theme with the CTV coverage of the games as they went on). Watching Wayne Gretzky (actually the most speculated final torch bearer), the great one, chased by maniacs while riding through Vancouver in the back of a VANOC pickup truck, torch in hand, off to light the Olympic flame on the waterfront seemed perfect. How Canadian.

The 17 days of the games went by in a blur. It was certainly a roller coaster ride for Canadians. Jenn Heil came ‘this close’ to capturing Canada’s first Gold Medal on Canadian soil with her moguls run, but that honour went to another freestyle skier, Alexandre Bilodeau, for his defeat of bad boy Canadian turned Aussie, Dale Begg-Smith.

Gold Medallist Alex Bilodeau - photo by John Biehler on Flickr

Things continued along the same lines for our country throughout the games. There was medal after medal by the Canadian female athletes. We learned that Canadian girls really do kick ass. After a bit of a rocky start, yes even the hockey team, the men finally began showing up and then the gold rush began. Although Canada didn’t own every step on the podium it certainly owned the gold medal podium winning 14 gold medals, breaking the all-time record for golds by any country in the history of the Winter Olympic Games by one. That one medal happened to be the last of the games, won by those dudes from the NHL and that over time goal against Team USA by the now legendary (and fellow Nova Scotian) Sidney Crosby in the most epic hockey game I can recall in my 40 years on the planet.

Here’s what that win sounded like from across False Creek. If you watch the whole video, take note of the “Loooouuuuu” Luongo cheer as he makes a save at 1:00, and then at 1:20 the entire city goes insane as Crosby scores his goal:

Nice.

Then the city celebrated…

Canada Wins Gold - photo by John Biehler on Flickr

“Booze free”, of course, as the VPD closed down liquor stores early after learning some hard lessons during the the alcohol fueled ’94 post Stanley Cup riot. I’m sure people managed to find their booze elsewhere, or just did something else. This is BC after all.

I didn’t get to see as much as I would have liked to due to massive lineups (of oddly friendly and happy people) and insanely high prices for the sporting events. Two trips to the Hudson’s Bay official Olympic store saw me go away empty handed. No red mittens or Canada hoodie for me. Oh well. I don’t need more crap anyway.

Those were the biggest downsides that I experienced.

For me, the traffic every day of the games seemed extremely light and I had no trouble with my usual commute. Translink did a very good job of scaring enough people out of their cars and onto transit to make that part of the games go off without a blip.

The protests were under reported in the mainstream media, although a group of self-accredited social media reporters, myself included, came together under the True North Media House banner and did our best to report the other untold stories and other perspectives during the games. I think we did a decent job getting the alternative word out considering our rather noisy competition.

It appears there is still some work to do before social media is the ‘go to’ place for the masses to get their news. The main flaw with any form media is that people must be tuned in to receive the message and the masses it seems remained glued to the more traditional television coverage of the games. That said, the amount of people tweeting comments during all of the events especially the opening ceremonies, hockey games and closing ceremonies proved there is plenty of crossover between the old and the new. Eventually the convergence of technologies that we’ve been hearing/dreaming about and we’ll be seamlessly commenting on events to a communal stream ticking across the bottom of our giant TV/computer screens.

Anyway, I had a ton of fun, and I think we made some new and closer friends in the process. Isn’t that was life should be about anyway?

As someone who poo poo’d the games I was pleasantly surprised by my experience. When I ask myself, ‘what now?’, today I think we had better start saving up for a trip to London in 2012 and/or to Sochi in 2014. The Olympics are coming. For now I think we’ll check out some Paralympic events. Wheelchair curling and sledge hockey look kind of cool.

**I’ll add some links to others’ awesome coverage of the games later on. This post pooped me out. I need a break. **

Carol, always pursuing the next great pin, and me on a quest for an official Vancouver 2010 mug a former teacher braved the crowds and traffic and headed downtown in to the Olympics related madness. It took over an hour to get to the parking spot Carol had for us in the building where she works. As soon as we walked out of the building onto Granville Street, this is what we saw:

There were buskers busking, clowns clowning and men in pink underpants putting on shows all along the usually traffic laden Granville Street in downtown Vancouver. There was a different type of traffic today. No cars. Just a mass of humanity aimlessly milling about watching the mass of humanity aimlessly milling about.

Here’s another shot:

I’ll do a post tomorrow about Carol’s pin mission and my quest for the mug. For more you can read Carol’s post about our day out and about.

I’m pooped, but what a load of fun.

Yesterday a team of us from DOXA Documentary Film Festival headed down to Creekside Park to see day one of taping for the Colbert Show in Vancouver. We were hoping we would be able to get a camera package for our upcoming EXPOSED! Celebrity Camera Auction fundraiser to Stephen Colbert. We passed our package off to an AD and hopefully Mr. Colbert will get the package and agree to participate.

I took Carol’s camera and got a ton of great shots from my vantage point back stage and running around through the crowd snapping away.

We weren’t the only ones to show up. There are estimates that over 5000 people were in attendance and the patriots were out in force.

The place went nuts when Stephen Colbert arrived and he did not disappoint. I was especially impressed with his improv. He is more charismatic in person than I thought he would be.

Oh look, Colbert must have seen me in the crowd as he waved right at me. He was actually counting down from five, but hey, a guy can dream can’t he?

Here’s a slide show of the best shots I snagged of Stephen Colbert, his guest Michael Bublé and eTalk Canada’s Ben Mulroney, as well as a few other lucky shots from a great day.

Many thanks to Carol Browne for letting her camera out of her sight for the day and to Miss604 for posting a couple of my photos .

Showing appreciation is nice. “And that’s the word”.

I have been working at DOXA Documentary Film Festival as the Social Media Coordinator / Blogger for the past two months. The office is on Commercial Drive, one of the funkiest neighbourhoods in Vancouver. One of my favourite things about this block is the number of fantastic coffee shops I have to choose from.

Yes, I can go to the most recognized, corporate shop with the green awning and mermaid in the logo if I wish, and often do. This morning rather than heading there for my usual latté and an apple fritter I was introduced to Fratelli’s bakery by my co-worker Desirée.

While I was eating two ham and cheese croissants and drinking a dark roast coffee at my desk I got to thinking. I realized that some folks, perhaps in town for the 2010 Olympics, may be looking for a more authentic Vancouver coffee experience. So, here I am dioing a quick post about Fratelli’s and the other two fabulous coffee shops nearby Continental Coffee and Café Calabria.

Literally two doors down from Fratelli’s is Café Calabria where if it’s authentic Italian coffee, cuisine, atmosphere and service you want, this is the place to go.

Years before the airing of The Sopranos series on HBO, my wife Carol and I had an argument about the existence of the Italian mafia while drinking coffee and eating paninis at Café Calabria. She has since become a believer. The argument had nothing to d with the family that owns and runs Calabria who happen to be very nice folks, it just took place there.

Finally, kitty-corner to Fratelli’s is Continental Coffee. I am drinking a latté from there right now. It’s pretty tasty, but they are best known for their amazing café mochas made with with real chocolate and lots of freshly whipped cream.

In the above photo you can see the aforementioned green awning of the evil corporate giant directly across the street. As well, is the fine young gentleman who, upon seeing me taking photos along the Drive, called me an “Olympic rat-bag”. That’s him in the red baseball cap with a skateboard at his feet drinking water in front of the shop. I am unsure what would have set him off other than my camera as I am not wearing anything even remotely Olympic. And if you look at me lately athletics are clearly not something I’ve been participating in.

They can’t all be winners.

Today makes only 30 days left until the start of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. Being in a position to blog as a Vancouverite during the upcoming games is kind of cool. Especially interesting is that these are going to be the most covered games of all time with every second of every event available either on TV or streaming online.

I wasn’t exactly sure I wanted to participate at all after seven years of listening political blather about infinite subjects relating to this fast approaching event. All the negativity has left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. However, the closer we get, the more I feel myself being drawn into it. After all, there are thousands of athletes who have worked basically their whole lives to come here to compete. I am looking forward to seeing that.

Without a doubt our day to day lives are going to be impacted. Things that we take for granted like commuting to work, going out for lunch, even shopping and picking up groceries are probably going to change. The sheer number of people coming to the city from all over the globe is going to put a massive strain on our infrastructure. Getting around Vancouver under normal conditions (like most cities) tends to have its moments of frustration for commuters. But this is going to be a gong show.

We’re being told to walk, bike or take transit into work during the games as there are going to be road closures around venues as well as lane closures specifically for Olympic vehicles, all starting on the 15th of January 2010, this Friday. Walking and biking are pretty much out for us as we live far enough in the burbs that transit is the only viable option, unless of course we want to get up and go three hours before we have to be at work. No thanks.

Transit? Yuck. It can have that third world I am a sardine in a can feel on a good day. I am looking at all of this as an adventure. I’m sure we will figure some kind of routine. It is only temporary after all. Maybe travelsmart2010.ca can help to put my mind at ease about the transit situation.

Finances are such that we won’t be attending the Men’s Gold Medal Hockey game (tickets are $2500+ per seat) or any other sporting event. We will most likely head downtown for a bit of fun on a Saturday or Sunday to watch celebrations and maybe meet some people. Carol will be more likely to get photos during the week as she will be sporadically heading to the downtown core to work.

I’ll be blogging during the lead up to and throughout the games as well as, I am sure a bit about the aftermath. There a strict guidelines for bloggers to follow according to VANOC and the IOC, but thankfully places like True North Media House have put a ton of work into providing detailed resources for people like myself who are interested in covering the games.