There is nothing quite as exciting as a friendly rivalry to spice up a game and that is exactly what made yesterday's Olympic Hockey Game between Canada & the USA such an Off-The-Chart, Over-The-Top event.
Ava B.
Photos courtesy of Team Boulanger - News story courtesy of SI.com (a CNN network site)
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (si.com) -- There's a reason we come, despite the
nonsense. There's a reason we come to the Olympics still, every two
years now, despite the fact that sometimes you get William Shatner
or the odd, massive inflatable moose.
What with all the overdone stagecraft and security hassles, the butt-covering parsing of words or the smugness of IOC officials who speak of an "Olympic movement" that never moves quite far enough when it comes to abuses committed under those oh-so-hallowed rings, it's easy to forget.
But the reason rises most clearly, every time, at the end.
It
rises during the closing ceremony, at the moment when stagecraft fades
and the simplest of human acts begins.
The athletes walk in.
Jimmy B.
That's it:
They walk into some stadium, as they did again Sunday
evening at Vancouver's B.C. Place to end the 2010 Winter Games, and the
clearest picture of what the Olympics means emerges......It happened again Sunday.
There the athletes
were, smaller and more real suddenly, snapping pictures like tourists,
waving to cameras -- "Hi, Mom!" -- milling aimlessly, mashed together
in the most accomplished mosh pit in history. Canadians, Americans,
Russians, Finns: all the stiffness, posing, pre-competition jitters was
gone, dissolved in a moment of pure fun.
There's nothing else like it in sports.
We didn't get that in Beijing. Organizers at the 2008 Summer Games ran
a minutely-controlled and choreographed farewell that looked great on
TV, but killed any hint of spontaneity; the athletes were all but
herded into pens.
But Canada is no China; it's the land of half the world's great comedians. When a faux-repairman, giant screwdriver on his belt, kicked off Sunday's festivities by "fixing" the same arm of the cauldron that so infamously failed to rise at the opening ceremony, allowing speedskating legend Catriona Le May Doan to finish the torch-lighting ceremony she missed a fortnight ago, we knew we were in good hands.
Nothing is so endearing -- and rare -- as an Olympic host that can laugh at itself.
John B.
Then again, Canada could afford such looseness.
The same Olympics that
had begun with disaster, with the death of a 21-year old Georgian luger
on the morning of the opening ceremony, and spent its early days
focused on weather problems, a massive ticket cancellation, and the
seeming underperformance of Canada's Olympians, had ended in triumph.
"Alexandre," VANOC Chief John Furlong, said during his speech to moguls skier Alexandre Bilodeau,
"your first gold medal gave us all permission to feel like and behave
like champions. Our last one will be remembered for generations."
Furlong's
delivery may have been stilted, but the response was not. The crowd of
60,600 rose to its feet, unscripted, and stopped his closing speech
cold for a good minute, cheering the biggest win in Canadian hockey
history.
Such chesty flagwaving was seen across Vancouver and Canada throughout these games, but hit new levels in the aftermath of the hockey win -- horns beeping, men hugging, a once-shy country openly reveling in its success.
Hannah B.
"That quiet, humble national pride we were sometimes reluctant to acknowledge seemed to take to the streets as the most beautiful kind of patriotism broke out all across our country," Furlong said. "So many new and dazzling applications for the Maple Leaf."
I think Sarah summed it up very well in a previous blog post when she said
... "I have to say, I have never felt this much patriotism in my lifetime. I see more Canadian flags stuck in gardens, hanging in windows, lining driveways, up on the sides of buildings then I have ever seen on any Canada Day.
On every side street you drive down they are somewhere. It is a great feeling to have such sense of pride of where you live and where you belong!! I have always appreciated where I live but have not felt this bubbling sense of pride!!
Olympic fever has caught on full force in our household and has touched many, many more everywhere we look. The idea of drawing a country and the world together in a peaceful celebration of support has definitely succeeded here.
Aside from all of the negativity these games have brought financially and the debt they will leave behind (very bad) I am glad that my children have experienced something so powerful in their country. They are proud Canadians and have been finding every opportunity to wave their Canadian flag, wear their Olympic clothing and cheer on our Canadian Athletes.
So aside from everything else at least these games will leave a lot of us with a sense of pride and patriotism that we maybe didn't feel before! SB
Well done Canada & Well done Team Boulanger
- patriotism has never looked so darn adorable -
N
