Opinion - Olympics taught life lessons
WEB EXCLUSIVE
I wish I'd had a hangover Monday morning like so many other Vancouverites, but no such luck. A bottle of wine to wash down the cheese of the 2010 Winter Games closing ceremonies and guzzling a mickey of gin for a well-timed blackout would have saved me from the nightmare of Nickelback ruining the final moments of my Olympic experience. Was that a collective chorus of "bring back Neil" I heard across the land?
What a comedown.
Couldn't they have just ended the show with the airborne beavers and moose? Or maybe William Shatner sitting astride one of the floating inflatable beavers as a show closer?
The party is over and the question on everybody's lips now is "what did we learn?"
I learned I'm not Nostradamus. My pre-Olympic prediction of a hellish commute to work during the Games was wrong I'm happy to say. Morning traffic was even lighter than in summer. The breezy drive to work contributed to an overall feeling of joy about the Olympics.
The same can't be said the morning after the Games ended. On my way through a far busier Gastown Monday morning, I stopped at an intersection for a woman and her off-leash dog to cross. She held out her right hand, in which was a toy Frisbee, in the other a cellphone stuck to her ear, to stop the cars. She safely toodled over, but her dog had other plans. I and the driver next to me waited for the pooch to follow its mistress who was increasingly oblivious to the growing gap between her and her pet. Once I saw the pooch get into pooping position on the sidewalk, I hightailed it down the road. There are some things I just won't wait for.
I learned I have a touch of demophobia.
I learned watching the Olympics turns me into a slug. Oh, the irony. While elite athletes pushed their bodies to the lactic acid limit--except for the curlers--I sat on my ass getting fat on wine, beer and chips for two weeks watching them.
It's time to get off the couch.
I learned some things are briefly more important than my children--like hockey matches with a Canadian team competing. If I had a dime for every time I said, "Sweetheart, can you move away from the TV" during the Games, I'd have been able to afford a ticket into Molson Canadian Hockey House.
I learned my two-and-a-half year-old son likes mogul skiing. It was the only event he watched--and he was forced to watch a lot--where he said in a well-enunciated, grammatically perfect sentence, "I want to do that." If it doesn't involve getting up at 5 a.m. to drive you to a practice and it won't break our bank, OK, son, I'll back you on this one. I was more worried he'd want to be a hockey player.
I learned my five-year-old daughter likes figure skating. Hardly surprising, really, given she's such a girlie girl (so unlike her mother). But I learned how much that frightened me. Isn't figure skating--like ice hockey--as draining and demanding on the parents (and their pocketbooks) as it is on the participant? I've learned to do a better sales job on the more affordable sport of soccer.
I learned CTV is not as adept at covering the Olympics as the CBC. Sorry, CTV, but the Mother Corp, which has the added bonus of radio, always covered non-Canadian athletes in a far more meaningful way than you. And Brian Williams, could you have milked the Al?xandre/Fr?d?ric Bilodeau story more than you did? Of course it's a great story, but stories like this often show up the media for its exploitative ways. When you had the entire Bilodeau family come on set for a post-gold medal win interview, you rudely ignored Alex's sister B?atrice, an up-and-coming mogul skier. She was barely in the camera shot.
I learned the local CBC Radio station doesn't know how to pick a good public spot for offsite broadcasting. The Bread Garden? Are you kidding me? That's so 1990s.
I learned that the printed word, mainly newspapers, leaves other media in the dust when it comes to in-depth coverage of events like the Olympics. I could watch an event on TV the night before, but it wasn't fully historical until I read about it in the paper the next day and could clip it out for posterity.
I learned British media are a lot more whiney than I ever imagined. Drool, Britannia--and see you in 2012.
What a comedown.
Couldn't they have just ended the show with the airborne beavers and moose? Or maybe William Shatner sitting astride one of the floating inflatable beavers as a show closer?
The party is over and the question on everybody's lips now is "what did we learn?"
I learned I'm not Nostradamus. My pre-Olympic prediction of a hellish commute to work during the Games was wrong I'm happy to say. Morning traffic was even lighter than in summer. The breezy drive to work contributed to an overall feeling of joy about the Olympics.
The same can't be said the morning after the Games ended. On my way through a far busier Gastown Monday morning, I stopped at an intersection for a woman and her off-leash dog to cross. She held out her right hand, in which was a toy Frisbee, in the other a cellphone stuck to her ear, to stop the cars. She safely toodled over, but her dog had other plans. I and the driver next to me waited for the pooch to follow its mistress who was increasingly oblivious to the growing gap between her and her pet. Once I saw the pooch get into pooping position on the sidewalk, I hightailed it down the road. There are some things I just won't wait for.
I learned I have a touch of demophobia.
I learned watching the Olympics turns me into a slug. Oh, the irony. While elite athletes pushed their bodies to the lactic acid limit--except for the curlers--I sat on my ass getting fat on wine, beer and chips for two weeks watching them.
It's time to get off the couch.
I learned some things are briefly more important than my children--like hockey matches with a Canadian team competing. If I had a dime for every time I said, "Sweetheart, can you move away from the TV" during the Games, I'd have been able to afford a ticket into Molson Canadian Hockey House.
I learned my two-and-a-half year-old son likes mogul skiing. It was the only event he watched--and he was forced to watch a lot--where he said in a well-enunciated, grammatically perfect sentence, "I want to do that." If it doesn't involve getting up at 5 a.m. to drive you to a practice and it won't break our bank, OK, son, I'll back you on this one. I was more worried he'd want to be a hockey player.
I learned my five-year-old daughter likes figure skating. Hardly surprising, really, given she's such a girlie girl (so unlike her mother). But I learned how much that frightened me. Isn't figure skating--like ice hockey--as draining and demanding on the parents (and their pocketbooks) as it is on the participant? I've learned to do a better sales job on the more affordable sport of soccer.
I learned CTV is not as adept at covering the Olympics as the CBC. Sorry, CTV, but the Mother Corp, which has the added bonus of radio, always covered non-Canadian athletes in a far more meaningful way than you. And Brian Williams, could you have milked the Al?xandre/Fr?d?ric Bilodeau story more than you did? Of course it's a great story, but stories like this often show up the media for its exploitative ways. When you had the entire Bilodeau family come on set for a post-gold medal win interview, you rudely ignored Alex's sister B?atrice, an up-and-coming mogul skier. She was barely in the camera shot.
I learned the local CBC Radio station doesn't know how to pick a good public spot for offsite broadcasting. The Bread Garden? Are you kidding me? That's so 1990s.
I learned that the printed word, mainly newspapers, leaves other media in the dust when it comes to in-depth coverage of events like the Olympics. I could watch an event on TV the night before, but it wasn't fully historical until I read about it in the paper the next day and could clip it out for posterity.
I learned British media are a lot more whiney than I ever imagined. Drool, Britannia--and see you in 2012.
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