Opening Ceremonies

The Opening Ceremonies are underway!  I am, of course, watching the NBC broadcast.  They actually went on the air at 4:30pm (PST) with their "pre-game" show, which included a news segment on the tragic event of this morning.   Tom Brokaw (former anchor for NBC News) did a really nice segment on the relationship between the USA and Canada, touching on everything from WWII and D-Day to Afghanistan, including our support in taking flights after 9-11, as well as our cultural and economic ties.  Then they ran a "teaser" for the Opening Ceremonies that showed the scenery of BC in unbelievable aerial footage.  I was tearing up just watching it - we are so lucky to live in a country like Canada.

Unlike previous games I have been to, there was only a brief opening sequence (pretty cool with the snow boarder starting from the top of the mountain and then jumping through the rings into the stadium) before they began with the parade of athletes.  In part this was so that the athletes themselves would be able to sit in the stands and watch the rest of the ceremony.  I think this was a great idea for the athletes.  I wonder what this did for TV ratings, as I suspect that many people turn the TV off once the parade begins.

If you did turn the TV off, you missed a pretty good show.  It wasn't necessarily as spectacular as the Opening Ceremonies in Beijing, but I don't think anybody thought it would be.  It started with Nellie Furtado and Bryan Adams...

And continued with many theatrical segments celebrating the various regions of Canada...

I liked the video effects on the stadium floor, especially the whales, and then the maple leafs during the segment on Eastern Canada...

Strangely, I also really dug the poetry segment that ended the theatrical portion of the night.

The Olympic flag was carried in by eight Canadian icons:  Bobby Orr, Julie Payette, Anne Murray, Romeo Dallaire, Barbara Ann Scott, Donald Sutherland, Jacques Villeneuve, and Betty Fox.   After Governor General Michaelle Jean declared the games open, K.D. Lang (wow, haven't heard from her in a long time) sang a moving rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah....

Rick Hansen (the "Man In Motion") brought the torch into the stadium, and the last four torch bearers were Catriona LeMay Doan, Rick Nash, Nancy Greene, and Wayne Gretzky.  After a technical glitch in which only 3 of 4 "ice pillars" rose from the floor, and in another unusual move, the torch cauldron was lit by all four simultaneously.

It was Gretzky, though, who took the torch from the stadium to its outdoor location, which, as it turns out, is right outside the IBC!   I should be able to get pretty close to this in the days to come.   I hope you were able to watch and that you enjoyed the show.   Let the games begin!