Mittens, love gloves and other Olympics memories
By Bev Schellenberg
The Olympics are over, but the memorabilia is here to stay. Vanoc reported that, by midway through the 2010 Games, it had already reached its $50 million sales goal, double the amount that merchandising brought in through the entire 2006 Winter Olympics. Three million cute red Olympic mittens alone were sold by the [...]
For the Olympic appetite
By Bev Schellenberg
McDonald’s is the official 2010 Winter Olympics fast food sponsor, as evidenced by their ubiquitous billboards and TV ads showing Canadian Olympians about to consume supposedly performance-enhancing food. But while games-goers may enjoy collecting the Olympic mascot toys and drinking from the official Olympic water bottle, their eating preferences are, literally, all over [...]
Olympics Anywhere
By Bev Schellenberg
So you don’t have tickets for any of the 2010 Winter Olympics? Consider yourself lucky. Think of it: by not going to the Opening Ceremonies, you’ve now saved the $175-1,110 ticket cost, the aggravation of pushing through the protestors, the hassle of braving the Vancouver rain, and the monotony of waiting for [...]
Pass the Olympic doobie, man
By Bev Schellenberg
“The Olympic torch came from Hitler, you know.”
I pressed my phone closer to my ear, thinking I’d heard incorrectly. “Pardon?”
“Yeah. It was his idea. I think, anyway. You can look it up on internet.”
I never thought I’d be impressed with an idea Hitler came up with, and I wasn’t about [...]
Olympic serendipity
By Bev Schellenberg
As a mom of two children in elementary school in British Columbia during the Winter Olympics 2010, I braced myself for an onslaught of Olympic-twisted curricula and information — dare I say, propaganda — coming home prior to the grand spectacle. After all, the Olympics website includes a section for teachers complete with [...]
Ambivalent at the Olympics
By Bev Schellenberg
The Vancouver Winter Olympics will open in six days, whether British Columbians like it or not. The other day I was sitting in a Burnaby chiropractor’s office across the waiting room from a white-haired lady when she suddenly blurted, “I don’t want the Olympics here. They never asked me.” I looked around, wondering [...]