Dinner

Bobsleigh Shipping Crates

USA wins gold

Bobsleigh Finish Line

Bobsleigh

Concern

Bedtime

Hot Chocolate

Some group is giving out hot chocolate at the skytrain station.

Flower Ceremony

Sarah and I just posed with a bronze medal!

Pictures on the real camera so you'll have to wait.

Canadian Gold in 5k Relay

Setting up for the victory ceremony!

Short track speed skating 5k relay

Short track speed skating warmup

Pacific Colliseum

Quatchi likes phones

Bc Place and the Russky Dom

Robson St Celebration

Complete with a free zip line!

Squamish Moon

Warming Tent

Sequestering myself and Dawn in the warming tent for lunch. The ski
jumping was restarted about two thirds of the way through so we had to
abandon our plan to head into Whistler for lunch and eat here instead.

Nordic combined - ski jump

Curling

On Wednesday, February 17, Travis and I went to see women's curling. This was quite the trip, as the competition got started in Vancouver at 9:00am, meaning we had to leave Seattle at 5am. Needless to say, we got to the venue at 8:30am. The venue itself seems to be mostly an existing curling rink in the middle of a residential neighborhood which has been expanded with temporary tent structures to accommodate larger bathrooms and vending areas. There are four sheets (as a curling lane is called) and thus four games went on at the same time. It took me a while to get the hang of watching multiple games at once. Really the secret is to settle down and focus on the strategy going on in just one or two of the games, and ignore the others. Of course, the crowd was cheering for the Canadian team. So if you weren't following the Canadian team, every now and then you'd hear the crowd cheer and wonder what they were cheering about. See all the photos.

Women's Hockey - USA vs Russia

On Tuesday, February 16th Bill and I went to see the USA women's team take on Russia. The result was a solid pounding, with the US winning 14-0 (and this they took only one shot on goal in the third period). See all the photos.

Sunny Sunday in Seattle

Spending an entire day in the USA.

"Winter" Olympic Games

Cross country skiing!

Gorgeous Day on the Sea to Sky Highway

Medalists in men's skeleton

At the finish where the Canadian won the gold medal in skeleton.

Men's Gold Medal Skeleton

Women's Skeleton Finish Line

Ski Jumping!

Sarah's Olympic Outfit for Today

We are going to the ski jumping and skeleton events today.

Women's Hockey Photos from February 15th - Canada vs Switzerland

In the spirit of keeping up with photos, I have posted a preliminary (ie, unedited) set of photos from the women's hockey game on Monday where the Canadian team played against Switzerland. The crowd was very excited about their team, and as expected, Canada won 10-1. The photo above shows the Swiss team celebrating after their lone score -- they were visibly just so excited to have scored on the Canadian team. Check out all the photos, which include photos from that evening's Victory Ceremony in BC Place in Vancouver, where the first-ever Canadian gold medal in a Canadian-hosted Olympics was awarded. The view from the front row was sublime.

Women's Curling

Curling screening

Men's Luge Runs 1 + 2 Photos

From February 13: photos

Olympics Schedule Update

Due to heavy rains, general admission seating has been blown away at Cypress Mountain's Ski and Snowboard Cross course, so I won't be going on the 23rd after all. In the meantime, we scored Short Track Speed Skating tickets for the 26th, so both Sarah and I will be attending.

Although I've posted a bunch of photos to the blog from the Olympics, none of those were from my good camera. Look for updates to the smugmug site soon, though the plan right now is to post everything first just to keep up, then go back and categorize and do some rudimentary editing.

Womens Hockey USA vs Russia

Inside BC Place

Victory Ceremony

Hello impulse ticket purchase for the front row.

New wall

A new wall was built on the luge track.

Joe Biden

Just shook hands with him.

Already preparing for the next winter olympics!

Whistler

The view of Whistler's main plaza. Less busy than on a regular winter
day I'd say.

Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics - Event Schedule

A lot of folks have asked what events Sarah and I will be attending. Well, without further ado, here it is:

Saturday February 13
Just Michal is attending men's Luge (17:00-20:35)

Sunday February 14
We had tickets for Men's Biathlon 10km sprint (11:15 -12:25) but we sold these because we didn't want to pay to spend the night on the 13th and this event is in Whistler, which given the late event on the 13th, would be difficult to make work in our schedule.

Monday February 15
Sarah's not going to this one as it is a work day, but Michal and Bill will be there to see the Canadian women's hockey team face off against the Swiss (14:30-17:00).

Wednesday February 17
Michal and Travis will be going up to see women's curling (9:00-12:00) with China versus Great Britain, Germany versus the United States, Switzerland versus Sweden, and Japan versus Canada -- all simultaneously (but on different sheets).

Friday February 19
We have a full day of events here, starting with the men's individual large hill ski jumping (10:00-11:05) followed by women's and men's skeleton (15:45-20:30).

Saturday February 20
Men's Pursuit (15km classic + 15km free) cross country skiing (13:30-15:00)

Tuesday February 23
I'm looking for someone to go with me to attend women's ski cross freestyle skiing (10:30-11:30 and 13:00-14:15) at Cypress Mountain -- this is the venue which has been closed since mid-January to try and preserve snow for the Olympics.

Thursday February 25
Nordic combined consisting of the men's individual large hill ski jumping (10:00-10:50) and men's individual 10km cross country skiing (13:00-13:35). Again, I'm still looking for someone to come with me as Sarah's unable to attend this event.

Saturday February 27
We have a conflict on this date, and we're going to try and sell the women's 30km mass start classic (11:45-13:45) tickets -- although if you want to buy these tickets from us and carpool up to Whistler, we'd love to do so. We're actually attending the Men's four-man bobsleigh (13:00-15:25) event.

All times are pacific times and are event times, not necessarily broadcast times. A couple of the events are subject to change if we manage to trade with other ticket holders for events which work better with our schedule. We'll update the blog and this post accordingly. I made a shared Google Calendar of the entire Olympic schedule which can be accessed here or you can view the PDF version from the official Vancouver 2010 website.

Signs of Spring

It's been so warm and lovely in January in Seattle this year that even
the cherry blossoms have started. Usually they bloom the first week of
august.