The crowds are on a scale you’d expect to see during a New Year’s Eve bash at Times Square. Except it’s every night, and people don’t want to stop partying. Is this the aloof and oh-so-cool Vancouver? Is West Coast attitude tossed aside for a full-on Olympic rave? Something’s going on.
Inch slowly along Granville or Robson Streets and you’re greeted by high-fives or drawn into another chorus of ‘Oh Canada’ (although ‘Oh Cannabis’ was also heard wafting from the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery). You won’t hear griping about Canada not "Owning The Podium" either. It’s not even a conversation starter with these 150,000 people who are elated to just be in each other’s company.
Olympic enthusiasm seemed to go viral when the torch slipped through Kicking Horse Pass into southern B.C. from Alberta. As the flame and its sponsored entourage blazed a trail across B.C.’s landscape, it ignited a passion smouldering just beneath the surface. Of course, many British Columbians are angry about the cost of these Games; others despair at how most benefits seem to be flowing to Vancouver and Whistler. Ever since the journey to the Games was launched seven years ago, we’ve also heard deep concerns about our ongoing homelessness crisis in the city. But right now, the masses can’t seem to get enough of the Olympics and various free events. Thousands stand in line for hours for a peek inside a pavilion or to defy gravity on a zip-line high above Robson Square.
Walking along False Creek near Canada Hockey Place is to step into an endless stream of red toques, sweaters, Canadian flags and painted faces. It’s almost like our missing sockeye are coming home. On the adjacent shoreline, a strange sight: hundreds and hundreds of miniature Inukshuks that have been neatly stacked, creating a stone forest. I spotted two kids assembling another one, their creation a riff on the much larger “official” Inukshuk at nearby English Bay. There’s something refreshing and contagious about this spontaneous sculpture-making. No sponsors required either.
As a daily commuter into the city, I’m surprised at how smoothly things have been flowing. Some locals who feared mind-numbing gridlock have disappeared on vacation, but record numbers have hopped aboard transit. Others are hoofing it to work or cycling into the city. There’s a powerful lesson here: give people enough buses, trains and cycling lanes, and a commuter revolution could be in our near future.
A personal highlight during the first week was meeting 83-year-old Gordie Robertson, who played on Canada’s gold medal-winning Olympic hockey team back in 1952. Gordie arrived for his CBC interview wearing a white cowboy hat, shades, a Team Canada sweater, a mile-wide grin and carrying his gold medal. He gleefully passed it around the crowd under the watchful eye of his son. This Olympian from Trail, B.C., wasn’t invited to any official events, but when Coquitlam’s Ed Rogers heard about this oversight, he offered to take Gordie to the Canada-Switzerland hockey game. Gordie had a great time, but lamented the "damn shoot-out format." As for ‘Own the Podium’? "To hell with ‘Own the Podium.’ To the athletes… just do the best damn thing that you can.”
