At the Paralympics, patriotism kicks in
By Bev Schellenberg
Already the patriotic glow has started to fade for some, but not for the 60,000 people who filed into BC Place Stadium for the Paralympic Opening Ceremonies.
My 12-year old daughter, disappointed at our not being able to afford the $175 minimum price tag per person for the Opening and Closing [...]
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 [...]
8.8. And that’s not an Olympics score
By Jodi A. Shaw
For the last week, Canadians have been shaking with excitement over Canada’s triumphs in the Olympics in Vancouver. And over the past few days, I’ve found it difficult to have a conversation with anyone that doesn’t involve talking about hockey. Today at the grocery store a complete stranger cornered me [...]
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 [...]
Pairs skating: the CBC and the National Post
By Frank Moher
Hmm. What is this doing on the website of our public broadcaster?
Vancouver protestors fall silent.
The article I have linked to on the CBC site is a product of its agreement with The National Post to jointly cover the Olympics. It appeared in the Post first, and from there was syndicated to the website [...]
More Olympics double-standards
By Alison@Creekside
On Valentines Day, 2,000 to 4,000 people marched through Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside in the annual Women’s March for Missing and Murdered Women. A memorial march — not a protest — it is organized and led by women of the DTES to remember the hundreds of aboriginal women who have gone missing or been murdered [...]
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 [...]
