Skiing Whistler -- The Final Day

Eighteen months ago, I capped off the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing by taking an extra day to get out and visit the Great Wall. There was no question that we'd do the same in Vancouver, this time heading up to Whistler for some skiing, not to mention the terrific views. I've learned that the one thing you don't want to do after a major sporting event is fly out of whatever city you're in the next day. In this case, they were saying it was the busiest day in the history of the Vancouver airport and they were warning all travelers to arrive at the airport at least four hours before their depature. Thanks, but pass... Instead, Mike (my colleague and good buddy from Atlanta) and I scheduled our flights out for Tuesday morning and decided we'd take full advantage of our first day off since the Olympics began three weeks earlier.The media buses were still running from the Main Press Center in Vancouver to the Whistler Media Center, so that made transportation easy. We decided -- okay, Mike decided -- that we'd suck it up and catch the 6 am bus with our other colleague, Dave. There was only one other guy on the entire bus, so it was easy to stretch out and get some extra and much-needed Zzz's.. As I've written about, the drive up to Whistler is one of the most beautiful you'll find, but with the sun not quite up at that early hour, getting more sleep was the top priority.We arrived in Whistler just before 8 am and headed right to the rental shop -- Dave and I to get skis and Mike to give the snowboard a whirl. Those two guys headed right up the mountain, while I took a little extra time to put my contacts in and talk to the fellas at the information stand about where exactly I should start out. It had been a good 10 years since I'd last been skiing, up in Killington, Vermont, and I wasn't feeling real confident. So they directed me to take the Village gondola, get off at the first building, then head across to the Olympic chairlift and take the relatively tame Olympic run down. That seemed only fitting, so I did that several times to get my ski legs under me once again; It wasn't quite like getting back on a bike, but I got the hang of it and didn't injure myself.Mike got on the snowboard for the morning before switching to skis. I considered it very briefly before coming to the realization that spending the entire day just learning how to remain upright didn't sound that appealing...Ah, the Inukshuk at one of the lower summits. Talk about terrific views. Was a perfect place to take some photos of the entire surrounding area -- I even helped Mike climb up to take a picture sitting on top of its "head". The views were truly breathtaking. While skiing, I'd stop repeatedly throughout the day just to soak it all in...

I have to say, I think I did pretty well on the slopes. I vividly recall my first-ever skiing trip, when some buddies who will remain nameless figured it would be good to send a guy who had never before been on skis down an intermediate Killington run called "The Header." Needless to say, it wasn't long before I was hurtling down out of control, crossed the tips and did a header that left me with a red welt on my forehead for the rest of the trip. I improved afterwards, but it's hard to shake the potential disaster-realization of that first experience. But no bumps, no bruises, no falls, no broken bones... I'd say that's a success. My thigh and calf muscles were sore for the next few days, but it was well worth it.

In late afternoon, we hopped on the Peak to Peak gondola from Whistler Mountain to Blackcomb Mountain. Mike and I were actually the last people to get on before it closed, and we were very glad we were able to catch it. Talk about a cool ride. As you can see from the sign above, it's a record-setting gondola -- an 11-minute ride that crosses a massive valley. There is a gap of almost 2 miles between the last two suspension towers on each side of the valley, so in between them, the cables hang completely unsupported. For people with a fear of heights, I could see how it would be a little nerve-wracking... But talk about a view.

Both of these photos were snapped from the Peak to Peak gondola.. So being that we were the last people to catch the ride across to the other mountain, where they also shut down the lifts just after 4 pm, we were basically the last people at the summit. Talk about a cool way to end the trip -- we were essentially closing down the mountain!

I will say this, some of the tougher intermediate runs in Whistler seemed to be like the black diamonds in Vermont.. It especially seemed like it at the end of the day, when I was just totally sapped after a day of wall-to-wall skiing. I also think I started to get hit by dehydration, getting lightheaded and fatigued -- my leg muscles were totally shot -- so I had to stop numerous times on the way down. The only folks we encountered on our final descent were the ski patrol, who were shouting "Last Call!!" for anyone still out there, and the guys in the Skicats that were grooming the trails before darkness.

It took over 40 minutes to get down from where we had gotten off the gondola on Blackcomb and it wasn't until about halfway down that I realized that the rental shop was supposed to be closing at 5 pm. I frantically called with an almost-dead cell phone and fortunately got someone at 4:56 who said there should be someone sticking around until 5:30 or 6 pm to close up. Big relief, since we had left our bags with our computers, etc. in the storage lockers in there...

Was definitely an exciting way to end the trip. Just an amazing day. We couldn't have possibly packed more in. I loaded up on lots of fluids and then we caught the 6 pm bus back to Vancouver, where we snagged a few more souvenirs on the way to the hotel. And of course, we finished things off with one more awesome meal -- I had to go for a surf-and-turf finale at "Coast" with filet mignon, crab cakes and sushi..

Yeah, all in all that was a pretty good way to cap off the trip.

Vancouver Games - From A to Zed

This is a basically a collection of random thoughts and observations of my three-week stay in Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics:

Vancouver is truly a remarkable city. The vibrant downtown area just feels new, with lots of tall metal and glass buildings. It's completely walkable and there's so much to see and do, not to mention one of the world's great parks right on the edge of the city. Water is in abundance, which means terrific seafood in world-class restaurants.

I think we sampled every crab cake within a five-block radius of our hotel and ate everything that could possibly come from the sea -- the sablefish at Market in the Shangri-La was absolutely tremendous. We ate there several times, including after the closing ceremonies when we saw Evan Lysacek, who became the first American man in 22 years to win a gold medal in figure skating, and Kristi Yamaguchi, who was one of the first athletes I ever interviewed when I started at Bloomberg.
Outdoor activities are in abundance in Vancouver, which is just a very fit, very hip place to live. It's little wonder its regularly ranked among the best North American cities in which to reside. These laughing-man statues were in a small park near the seawall that rings much of the city. The artist designed all of them in his own likeness.

Heading to Vancouver, I didn't expect to see dark green grass, flowers on the trees and convertibles with their tops down. The weather itself downtown was great most of the time, save for a few days of rain at the beginning and end of the trip. Notice the flowering trees behind the statue above...

It was cool to see road signs that were written in English, French and sometimes Inuit. Above is the Inukshuk, a traditional symbol of the Inuit culture that was traditionally used as a landmark and navigational aid. The Inukshuk, in addition to being fun to say, also represents northern hospitality and served as a creative symbol for the Games -- it was used in the main logo for the Vancouver Olympics. It was excellent having prime seats to the best events -- I covered hockey, alpine skiing, snowboarding, freestyle skiing, short track speedskating, figure skating and bobsled.. The one I didn't get to that intrigued me was curling, though I'm still a little confused on the rules.

The media center was a good set-up. Accessible, well-located and not a bad office-away-from-office for a short period.

They even brought in the macots in for us to visit with...

And the medals themselves. We had to wear white gloves to handle them... They're a bit unconventional, but that seems to be the case with the Olympic medals nowadays.

I was a big fan of the free massage area in the media center for overworked journalists. Our shortest day was probably about 12 hours, with days up to 16 hours, so it was nice to get the kinks worked out of the neck, shoulders and back. Lack of sleep, stress, carrying heavy backpacks and being hunched over a computer for hours on end can take their toll.

The long days made for late dinners. I don't recall once eating dinner before 10 pm and most were after 11. That said, most of our dinners were first-class… No complaints there. From Market to Town Hall to Coast -- I usually don't eat at restaurants that have a flaming rock tank out front, not to mention a Lamborghini.

It fascinated me that Canadians say "zed" instead of the letter Z. I remember interviewing some fans at one of the first events I went to -- a father with his 7-year-old son -- and he spelled his name for me. When he got to the Z in their last name, he said "Z" and his son immediately said, "Dad, why did you say "Z"? The father then stopped and explained to his son that folks in the U.S. say Z instead of Zed... So why Zed? I don't know.. But it's different.

Speaking of different, I'm intrigued by the 2014 Winter Games coming up in Sochi, but the apparel the Russians were wearing was absolutely hideous. They were decked from head to toe in garish red and white unstylish athletic garb every single day. Not a fan at all…

I was a big fan of "Canadaman." He was everywhere. Decked out in his own version of red & white with Canadian flag for a cape. Some mixed in special touches such as body paint, full hockey gear or a helmet with a siren on top... It seemed we had thousands of sightings of Canadaman every day.

While Canadaman was a popular phrase for us, the word from the Olympics that will stick with me is a simple one, but the way it was uttered was truly memorable.

I went to the short track speedskating events at the Pacific Coliseum to see Apolo Ohno and the rest compete in one of the most entertaining winter sports you can witness in person. Pure chaos. But the starter may have been my favorite part -- just before the start of each race, as the skaters would glide up to the line and take their positions, he would issue his deep-voiced, slightly drawn-out and accented "REAADY" that echoed through the stadium. Awesome. And then the gun would sound, the racers were off and the controlled chaos ensued..

Unquestionably the most popular item at the Games were the knit red mittens made by Hudson Bay. They sold for just $10 a pop and were the must-have item for fans visiting for the Olympics. Unfortunately, they sold out extremely quickly. I walked into the store at the media center to send postcards on my second or third day there, right when a shipment came in. I didn't pick any up, figuring I'd wait until later, and there were no more to be found... I had several requests come in for the mittens and searched and searched, but to no avail.

I was more successful searching for an elusive beer made by a Vancouver brewer R&B. Cirullo told me about it right after I got out there -- R&B Ravens Cream Ale, on tap. I did my due dilligence, searching restaurants, bars and pubs, but had no success. At one point, I'd tried 16 different establishments without being able to locate the brew. Then a helpful waiter at one of the excellent restaurants said he'd heard of it and inquired with the bartender, who gave me the phone number of the brewery. I called and left a message. They got back to me that afternoon and I asked if there was a place in the Gastown District that might have Ravens Cream Ale..

Sure enough, about eight blocks from the media center there was a restaurant called Chill Winstons that had it on tap.. I searched it out in the far reaches of Gastown, just across the street from the statue of Gassy Jack, as seen above. The district was apparently named after him. Why he was gassy, that I don't know...



But the beer was damn good. And the search was a fun one, allowing me to sample different regional ales along the way. Quest completed..

The Game that Stopped a Nation

I'm admittedly not a big hockey fan. But if there's one event I really wanted to see during the 2010 Winter Olympics, it was the gold medal hockey game.

Canada coach Mike Babcock was spot on when he said hockey isn't just the national sport in Canada, it's a religion. While the Olympics stretched over three weeks and Canadians were excited about the Games and their success, the main topic of conversation would always be the men's hockey title game -- in bars, restaurants, taxicabs or on the street.

The demand for seats was so overwhelming that when tickets first went on sale -- well before the start of the Olympics and before anyone knew the gold medal participants -- organizers said they could have filled Canada Hockey Place 18 times over! By the time Canada and the U.S. advanced to the final -- setting up the matchup everyone was hoping for -- some tickets were selling for as much as $5,000. For one seat, to one game..
But this wasn't any game. This was The Game. One that 2/3 of the entire Canadian population stopped to watch. Two-thirds!

Even the demand for media seating was overwhelming. Bloomberg had two credentialed seats, but we didn't get a third one for me until the morning of the game. Needless to say, I was quite psyched when I found out I'd be witnessing history from rink side instead of on a TV in the media center. Leaving the hotel to head over to the main press center, you couldn't help notice this was a special day. At 9 am, downtown bars had lines of hundreds of people stretching along the sidewalk. Police in uniform were playing street hockey with fans.

Fans with a giant Canadian flag which was passed around the lower bowl of the arena.

Drop the puck! And we're underway...

The game itself lived up to the buildup. After Canada took a 2-0 lead, sending the packed house into delirium, the U.S. fought back. With 24 seconds left in the third period, Zach Parise scored the tying goal and you could feel the air come out of the building, a stunning blow for the home crowd that was counting down the seconds to a gold medal. Overtime.

You couldn't ask for anything more. And when Sid the Kid, Canada's favorite hockey son, ended it by flipping the golden goal past U.S. goalie Ryan Miller, the place absolutely exploded in celebration. Pure pandemonium that stretched across an entire nation and provided a fitting conclusion to the Games. It was amazing to watch.

Luongo reaches into the air as Canadian players throw gloves and sticks into the air..
From celebration to devastation. The U.S. players can only stand on the ice and watch Team Canada celebrate...

Mike prepares to send in his game update from press row as the players congratulate each other after the game..

The customary post-game handshake. Neat to see. These guys wanted to beat each other more than anything during the game, but they're all NHL players and many of them are teammates..
Raising the flags after the game. Finland took the bronze medal -- a game which we'd seen in person the previous night -- by beating Slovakia.

The Canadian celebration didn't end when the game did. It stretched far into the night. Downtown Vancouver was packed with fans who had been watching the game in bars and on giant screens in the streets. Horns honked, cow bells rang incessantly, people yelled out windows... And this was at 11 pm -- hours after the game ended -- as we left the Olympics Closing ceremony. We had gone right from the arena after filing our stories to BC Place for the big close-out to the Games. But at just before midnight, the celebration continued.

For me, one moment summed things up pretty nicely. Several of the streets downtown were blocked off and full of fans in full celebration. As we came to one popular intersection, there was a full-fledged street hockey game going on -- five on five and they even had their own nets. We stopped for several minutes to watch as fireworks shot into the sky from several blocks over. It was almost midnight and these guys were playing under lamplight in the middle of a downtown that was packed with people still delirious from the victory -- it was one of those moments that made me stop and say, "Now this is why Canada won the gold medal.."

Eagle Eye -- Biking Through the Park

After taking a walk along the seawall earlier in the week at Stanley Park, there was no question I wanted to get back and see more of the place. About a block or so away from the park itself, just off the main street, is a series of bike shops, so I rented a mountain bike for a few hours. I took a loop around the entire 1,000-acre park on the seawall, then headed into the thick of the forest and rode those paths for a while... When I'd climbed up to the highest portion of the park, just before reaching Prospect Point, I finally saw them... I'd been keeping my eyes peeled for bald eagles and sure enough, there they were. Absolutely unbelievable.

I came around a bend in the path, riding solo through an area in which the trees had been thinned out, and there atop one of the tallest tops were a pair of bald eagles in all their glory. They were pretty high up, making me wish I had one of those super-powerful camera lenses, so I had to make do with my point-and-shoot. Just incredible though. I went to a couple different spots nearby to keep watching them for a good long while, even listening to their call echo across the forest. Just a terrific way to start a morning. And to think the spotting of our national symbol came just hours after the U.S. hockey team's preliminary-round win over Canada...

Lots to see and do around the park -- this was a statue of a dragon along the seawall, with the Lions Gate Bridge in the distance.

The lady on the rock, a sculpture created for the park by a local artist to symbolize Vancouver's reliance on the water. In the distance you can see the ports that are a significant part of the city's industry, with $43 billion traded annually in goods from grains to potash.

A shot from under the Lion's Gate Bridge, which is the way the buses head out of Vancouver on their way up to some of the other Olympic venues at Cypress Mountain or Whistler..

A shot of Siwash Rock along the seawall.

One of the beaches at Stanley Park. Pretty, but not a beach you'd lounge on and catch rays,

I stopped by the Lawn Bowling club near the far entrance to the park, unfortunately they weren't open..

Either was the pitch-and-putt, which had an 11 am opening on this morning thanks to a frost delay.. While the sun was shining, patches covered by the treetops would still be frosty. As I rode up into the forest itself, I came across sights like the Hollow Tree..

And found another smaller bridge over Georgia Street that had some silent stone lions that made a good foreground for the Lions Gate Bridge.

On the drives up to Whistler, I kept scanning the treetops for bald eagles, to no avail. So was an incredible sight when I rounded a corner on the bike trail and spied a white dot at the top of one of the tallest trees in the area. As I got closer, I saw that sure enough, there was not only one eagle, there were two up there... They were pretty far away, as you can see from the photo above -- barely visible on the treetop. Made it all the way to Prospect Point, which overlooks English Bay as it comes into the Barrard Inlet. Very impressive views..
In all, I spent about 2 1/2 hours riding around the park -- made for a great start to a slow day at the Games and was nice to get out for some exercise after bouncing from venue to venue and being tied to the computer.

An Olympic Surprise

At the Olympics, it's natural to gravitate to the stars, the big names like Lindsey Vonn, Shaun White, Apolo Ohno and Bode Miller. Heck, I've done it already… But there are so many more Olympians at the Games, and many of them are relative unknowns.

I had the good fortune to meet one of those guys, 36-year-old U.S. bobsledder Bill Schuffenhauer.

He quit his job about two years ago to train and compete for another spot in the Olympics, only this time he was trying to do it with a family -- a fiancée and 4-year old son. Without the money from sponsorships that big-name athletes have, he had to pay out of pocket for a lot of his training, travel and medical expenses. When Ruthann's salary couldn’t cover those and the family's day-to-day expenses, they lost their house and one of their cars. While Bill was away in Europe training, the family was forced to move into a small apartment with the financial support of her family. Bill ultimately realized his dream of making the Olympic team, but it soon dawned on him that there was no way he could afford to bring his family in to share the moment.

In stepped one of the sponsors of the U.S. Olympic team, Procter & Gamble, which has a Family House for U.S. athletes and their families here in Vancouver. The 5-story "house" is loaded with P&G brands and has everything from a Pringles room with Wii games and a Pampers playroom for kiddies to a full-service spa with their cosmetic products and a full internet cafe.
P&G decided to surprise Bill by flying in his wife-to-be and his son Corben and putting them up in a hotel. They asked Bill to stop by under the guise of doing a few interviews, then brought him upstairs for the "reveal" after his family got in from the airport. It was a very cool moment. Tears were shed, hugs were shared.
It was a terrific reminder that for every Lindsey Vonn and Shaun White, there's a bunch more Olympians like Bill Schuffenhauer.

A great story and a great guy. Here's a piece I wrote on him afterwards:
http://tiny.cc/Vt8aL

Bode and Bobsleds

They pretty much broke the mold when they made Bode Miller. Man, the guy is fun to watch ski and he's almost as entertaining to listen to because you never know exactly what's going to come out of his mouth. After claiming a bronze and a silver medal in Whistler, Bode capped his medal set by finally winning the gold in the super-combined and erasing the painful memories of the 2006 Games, where he spectacularly flamed out in all five of his races.
Bode was seventh after the downhill runs and then blistered the slalom portion to snag the gold. Above is him shooting across the finish line as the crowd went nuts. Interesting thing about the Games in Canada is that while the Canadians have this seeming inferiority complex when it comes to competing against the U.S. -- almost like a little bro-big bro relationship -- they root hard for the Americans (as long as there are no Canadians in the mix). So Bode was getting a load of support from not only the loads of Americans in the crowd waving flags and ringing cowbells, he was getting love from the Canucks as well.Raising the flowers on the victory podium after the race..
And heading out of the media center after finishing his post-race news conference, which per usual Bode, was entertaining, rambling, tangental and existential all at the same time. The guy is out there, has that rebel quality and really couldn't care less what anyone thinks about him. I likened him a little bit to a James Dean on the slopes...

After the race, it was down to Whistler base, where the party was going strong -- bands, music, food, drinks, you name it..
Grabbed a great lunch in Whistler before heading up on the gondola for the bobsled competition in the afternoon. For several days now, I've been searching for a brew on tap that Cirullo ordered me to try called R&B Ravens Cream Ale... I've now asked at 11 different restaurants, bars, dives with no luck. Only one place even had it in a bottle. The search continues,
Up at the bobsled track, which is on Blackcomb Mountain, one chairlift and a gondola away from

the Alpine events. Now I've always wanted to take a ride down a bobsled track, but I'll tell ya what, it's not much of a spectator sport. The sleds are flying by so fast, they're gone in the blink of an eye. If you look closely, you can see the Polish sled blurred in between the light stanchions just before the V in Vancouver...

Here's what I did not know about bobsledding, luge, skeleton, what have you...

The track at the end actually has a serious incline to slow the sleds down. It makes sense of course, but I never could really tell that whenever I happened to catch it on television. After crossing the finish line, the sleds race up a hill and start slamming on the brakes, jettisoning a large cloud of snow and ice from behind.

As I watched the last few bobsledders finish up from the warmth of the media center, Team USA knocked off Canada in a men's hockey preliminary game, sending a shockwave throughout the entire country. (Needless to say, this was one game in which the Canadians definitely didn't want to see any U.S. success) After getting back to Vancouver more than 2 hours later, it was amazing how subdued folks on the streets were. The night before, people were chanting, drinking, yelling -- yet on this night, there was little revelry.. Amazing how much significance one preliminary round game can have. We found out the next day that it was the most-watched television event in Canadian history...