
.:.
Cover photo by Professor Andy Miah, used under Creative Commons license
.:.
Cover photo by Professor Andy Miah, used under Creative Commons license
So, uh, that happened.
Sorry for the delayed editorial response, but it’s basically taken me a week to recover from the off-key shit show that was the closing ceremonies. With that cleansed from my memory (a simple what now?) I find myself looking back fondly at what were, for me anyway, the greatest winter games ever. Highlights for me:
My one regret about these games was that we weren’t there in Vancouver to experience them. If I knew in 2003 what I know now I would have started buying tickets and booking flights immediately upon the games being awarded to Vancouver-Whistler. I’m not sure when Canada will ever have another games (Toronto seems to have used up its chances at landing the summer games and isn’t a viable venue for winter sports; Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver have all had their recent go. I suspect Quebec City is our only hope now.) and so I worry that I’ve missed my chance. But it’s become so commonplace to watch live events on TV that we sometimes forget how lucky we are to be able to witness such events in real time, along with two thirds of the country, and jump up and cheer and, in our case, run up the middle of the world’s longest street high-fiving strangers. That doesn’t happen every day.
Now, a week later, I miss that feeling terribly.
I hope I never stop.
There is a special layer of hell reserved for people so vain and ridiculous that they ignore whatever sporting event they’re supposed to be watching, stand up and flap their arms at a camera they know must be pointed at them. I curse these people every time I watch a hockey game on TV. It’s usually a guy (but not always, as we’ll see) and he’s usually yelling into a cell phone. As annoyed as I get for being distracted from the game by some idiot fame whore, I can only imagine how it feels to sit beside or behind a douche of that magnitude. But fine, it’s one of 41 home games, and you scored great tickets from some scalper, and you can’t wait to show off to your buddy how close you are to the ice for the game you’re not even watching, so you call him and make him watch as you prove your dickishness to the world. Whatever.
But to do this at the Olympics? Something that happens every four years, and you’re one of the privileged few who’ll get to witness it? And — maybe worst of all — at a medal ceremony while the fucking flag is being raised?!!!!??!?
It’s kind of tough to make out the fuckass in this picture, but go ahead and watch the clip on YouTube. You’ll see her waving her be-bangled arms in the air like she just don’t care about the momentous outpouring of national pride happening right be-fucking-hind her. For Christ’s sake, if you can’t process what a special occasion this is and how lucky you are to be in the arena, then at least be respectful of the national goddamn anthem, you pathetic, oblivious slab of narcissism.