OT - The All-Purpose All-Event Winter Olympics Thread

[Kalita]

No Wheaties for Sale & Pelletier? Or have they just not worked out a deal?

I'd love to see a Team Canada Wheaties box here in Canada. Though, it'd more likely be the Shreddies than the Wheaties.

[Eyes Without A Face]

For those who wonder how much getting the gold in both hockey finals mean to Canadians, well it means the world. There was the Summit Series victory over the Soviets in 1972, the Canada Cup of 1987 (which penultimate game featured the greatest hockey ever played) and now 2002.

Caption reads:
"Canadian hockey fan Patrick Swan peers through bras he collected from women who were asked to "show their support for Canada" in a downtown sports bar Montreal Sunday, Feb. 24, 2002 while watching Canada's 5-2 gold medal victory over the United States at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.(CP PHOTO/Ryan Remiorz)"

And Here's an article by James Duffy from TSN.

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Son, I'm not sure when I'll let you read this. Maybe in 2010 when you're ten, and we're watching the Olympics together.

Or maybe when you're 18 or so, and really starting to understand passion and patriotism.

Or maybe another 15 or 20 years beyond that when you have your own kids and start to get all sucky and emotional like your Dad.

Or maybe it'll just be the first time you ask me what "That Day" was really like, and you look at me like you really want to know.

Or maybe your little sister will ask me first. That'd be cool too.

(Or maybe I'm just doing this for myself, so I'll never forget the feeling.)

It doesn't really matter.

The thing is, someday, somewhere; someone will ask you where you were when Canada won the Gold in 2002. And instead of saying, "I was only two, I don't remember", you can tell them this:

February 24, 2002.

Your father was a wreck all morning. Pacing like the night you were born. Thankfully, I found John Cusack back-to-back classics on MoviePix to kill the agonizing wait.

First up, Say Anything, and one of the best movie scenes of all-time, when Lloyd Dahbler stands outside his girlfriend's house, holding a ghetto blaster over his head playing Peter Gabriel's Your Eyes (their song) after she dumped him. I instantly ponder running out on to the street, holding a ghetto blaster high above my head, and blasting O Canada.

Next up, The Sure Thing. Just the title was a good omen, I figured. We all search for omens on a day like this.

And there were more to come.

Around lunch, you come running back in from the grocery store with your Mom, carrying some special gold coin they were giving out with a carton of Coke. It was a Team Canada promotion, with a Scott Niedermayer likeness on it.

Most days, I'd chuck it in a drawer. But on this day, I delicately place it on the mantle like it was your Great Grampa's ashes or something, then decide it belongs on the TV, so it may transmit good vibes to Salt Lake in some weird Poltergeist kind of way.

(In the history books, you'll read about the famous loonie buried in the ice. In our family, the legend will be the Niedermayer Coke Coin on top of the Sony.)

When you wake up from your nap just before game time, I let you pick out a clean shirt. (Son, you have an unhealthy obsession with clothes for a two-year-old boy. Your mother thinks it's cute. I'm somewhat concerned.) When you point to your red Roots sweatshirt with Canada on the front, I almost begin to weep. You never pick that shirt. This is too good!

By game time, all the neighbors are over, 20 strong, and you're nowhere to be seen. Off in the playroom, oblivious to your father's impending ulcer.

Son, it was awesome.

I'll spare you most of the play-by-play, because I've saved you the tape. Maybe you can watch it the same day you read this (although I'm guessing VCR's are probably the 8-Tracks Tapes of your generation, so you may be screwed).

We reacted like we'd won the lottery with every Team Canada goal, and lost a loved one with every near miss. (When Mario missed the open-net, I believe I performed an exact recreation of Willem Dafoe's death scene in Platoon, when he gets shot about 50 times in the back, throws his arms in the air, and then falls face-forward to the ground in super slo-mo.

There is one image I'll never forget. The Great One (that guy I told you about so many times), after the outcome was clear and the world was lifted off his shoulders, gazing down towards the ice, pumping his fist and yelling a distinctly Canadian phrase that any amateur lip-reader couldn't possibly miss:

"F----'n Eh!"

Your Grandma won't be happy with me, and I'll probably have to yell at you if you repeat it (unless you're, like 32 now), but trust me, at that moment, it was Shakespeare.

You see, right or wrong, we'd always been known as this polite, conservative, insecure nation. The U.S's timid little brother. And 50 years without a gold in Our Game didn't help the fragile ego.

We needed to kick some ass for once.

And on that day, we did.

With three minutes left, I came and pulled you out of the playroom (you came reluctantly I might add; if you had your choice you would have spent the greatest sports moment of my generation doing a Franklin The Turtle puzzle), and sat you on my lap on the floor. Even if you had no chance to remember it, I wanted you to be able to tell your friends you did watch it.

I even stuck the video camera on top of the TV, shooting back at us for our reaction. Upon reviewing it later, I realized that when Sakic scored, I leaped up and almost pile-drived you into the hardwood. Sorry.

We shouted down from ten, and you just looked around, giving us your patented "I believe these people are aliens" stare.

And then it was over. And neighbors jumped on furniture, and hugged, and sang O Canada, and you ran around the room high-fiving every single one of us.

And it was the same scene in just about every family room in the country.

Downtown (every Canadian city's downtown), they rushed out of the bars and ran, and screamed, and honked, and sang, and cried, and lept into the arms of strangers, and hung out of car windows, and shut down major arteries, and played street hockey until the wee hours of Monday.

I thought more than once about jumping in the car and joining them.

Instead, I just sat on the floor with you, paralyzed with glee, watching the Canadian players holding their kids, letting them play with their Gold Medals as if they were some cheesy coins they'd gotten out of a carton of Coke.

Afterwards, when everyone had gone home, you sat on my lap, and we watched the endless shots of people cheering from coast to coast.

Then all of a sudden you pointed at the screen, and blurted out one of the newest words in your tiny, but ever-expanding vocabulary.

"Happ…eeee!"

Son, you have no idea.
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Wallpapers
Illegitimi non carborundum!

[This message has been edited by Eyes Without A Face (edited February 26, 2002).]

[SiWangMu]

Wow... I don't know what my problem is, but that about made me cry...
I'm not Canadian, or a hockey fan... I'm American, and don't even usually know who won the World Series (why is it called that, anyway?)

But that father's story is unbelievably sweet and touching.
:: sniff ::

(Edited: sigh, I am never gonna learn not to make accidental smileys)

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"I think this line's mostly filler"

"Tara: I do not know in other things concerning everyone, but, the chicken is loved."

[This message has been edited by SiWangMu (edited February 26, 2002).]

[tyche]

No idea if this is the most appropriate place for this or not, but I found a really interesting Salon article about former US figure skating champion Rudy Galindo, the first male skater to come out as gay. He has lots of interesting stuff to say about the public perception of male ice skaters.
Anyway, the article is here.

[Eyes Without A Face]

The issues regarding the sexual orientations and disclosure (or lack therof) by many figure skaters can be found discussed at length here.

"According to Toller Cranston's autobiography Zero Tollerance, Curry confirmed that he was gay at a 1976 press conference, and the information was published in a German tabloid, although it was not discussed widely at the time."

That disclosure by John Curry would be 20 years before Mr. Galindo.

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Wallpapers
Illegitimi non carborundum!

[This message has been edited by Eyes Without A Face (edited February 28, 2002).]

[stacey_bourgeois]

quote:

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Originally posted by Eyes Without A Face:
Then all of a sudden you pointed at the screen, and blurted out one of the newest words in your tiny, but ever-expanding vocabulary.

"Happ…eeee!"

Son, you have no idea.

---

I must be really sappy today or something but that made me teary eyed.

And that story was really how we all felt and acted. Everyone who doesn't even watch hockey was glued to the set that day. I had my grandmother cheering along with me. It was a great day and I think everybody in the whole country was in a good mood. quote: