On Monday we watched the Men’s Canada-USA Curling game at the Olympic Curling Centre.  It was an intense game.

Of course, no curling blog post would be complete without a photo of the famous Norway curling pants. They have two different variations… these red ones and also the white ones with blue/red checkers. Awesome.

We had a blast. I honestly think that it’s almost more fun to watching curling live than hockey. *gasp* Yep, I said it.

It was great watching Kevin Martin and his team beat the US, especially after losing the hockey game the previous night to the US team.

Afterwards we headed over to the Hockey House where we spent the entire day with a group of 9 friends.

We managed to take tons of group photos, including this one with the hosts of the Hockey House. Awesome white suits. P.S. Check out my awesome 2010 commemorative hockey stick (I got it signed by a ton of people!)…

Cam Neely was also there… what a legend!

We spent most of the afternoon watching the on-stage entertainment and wandering around the pavilion taking photos of everything.

Oh, and lots of bubble hockey was played.

We made sure to get clappers, and took this group photo…

… which we loved so much that we got them made into 9 souvenir pins! Haha.

I loved getting a photo with the sexy Hockey House babes.

It was so much fun to watch the women’s Canada-Finland semifinal there… we won handily, but every goal was a huge celebration.

And the main event… we got to watch the Triple Gold Club celebration on stage. The Triple Gold Club presentation is for the 22 players who have achieved the three most important accomplishments in hockey… winning the Stanley Cup, winning Olympic gold, and winning the IIHF world championships. As you can imagine, this is an extremely prestigious award and very, very few players ever win this.

I love this photo of Vladislav Tretiak, Rene Fasel, and Gary Bettman. It’s kind of ominous… but cool. They did the presentation to all the players.

Peter Forsberg was there..

… and Alexander Mogilny…

And Joe Sakic!

Sakic is one of my faves. My old bedroom at home still has his posters plastered all over the place.

Rob Blake too..

Here’s Brendan Shanahan, Joe Sakic, and Rob Blake on stage.

Allan and I posed inside of the hockey mask…

At the end of the night, the band Five Alarm Funk took the stage and they seriously blew the roof off the place. They were a lot of run.

We made sure to take lots of photos with them when they came off the stage and partied with us.

DJ Skratch Bastid closed off the night and he was really good. He was great at reading the crowd and reacting accordingly.

The view of our group from the stage.

Yeah, we had a ridiculously good time.

Yes! I have finally drawn a winner for the 2010 Olympics Men’s Curling tickets contest for the Canada-USA game on February 22nd. We had 180 contest entries but only 171 were eligible. Watch the video to find out who won! Please note that the winner must contact me by e-mail (allie@vancityallie.com) by the midnight this Friday, February 19th or I will have to draw someone else.

This past week, my friend Amy took my camera up to Grouse Mountain where she got the chance to meet and see Michael Bublé and Matt Lauer on the Today Show. They are up there throughout the Olympics and they have quite the set up.

Here is Amy and her friend with Matt Lauer.

She took a number of pictures while there. Check them out.

Also, it was the torch relay in Vancouver all last week. I finally made it out on Friday to see the torch in person (after a failed attempt to see Trevor Linden carrying the torch… I missed him by one minute). I teared up several times. I was so proud to have the Olympics in Vancouver and seeing the torch passed from person to person throughout False Creek and Yaletown is an incredible experience.

Downtown Vancouver was CRAZY this past weekend with the streets completed filled with people partying, dancing, and singing O Canada.

Allan, Amy and I also got a chance to watch the Omega clock countdown to the start of the Olympics before rushing back home to watch the Opening Ceremonies (fortunately PVR-ed so we didn’t miss anything). It was a real thrill to have everyone countdown to the start. Watching the Opening Ceremonies with my closest family, Allan and my friend was so emotional. I thought it was beautifully done and really spoke to who we are as Canadians. I also thought it was a very diverse ceremony. Well done!

After a full day of watching the Games at our apartment with a group of friends, we somehow managed to wake up early to head to the House of Switzerland at Bridges on Granville Island.

I was asked to provide some coverage of a chocolate competition going on. When we got there, I picked up my media pass and we posed in front of the restaurant.

We also got to see them making the chocolate inukshuk and posed in front of it.

A note to visitors: Although we were there to check out the chocolate competition, please note that the House of Switzerland differs from other houses in that it is almost purely a restaurant (open for breakfast, lunch and dinner) but they don’t have an exhibition area or anywhere where you can walk around. The food and coffee is great there, but I recommend only going there if you are wanting a dining/eating experience. We ordered the Swiss Nespresso expresso and the Raclette macaroni and cheese.

We headed upstairs to check out the chocolate competition. They had a number of judges and we were there especially to cheer on Miss604 (Rebecca) who was a JUDGE! Wow!

We also saw Keira, John and Duane there. They got to sit at a special Friends and Family table with lots of different tastings! It was great to see Rebecca and Keira again, and to meet John and Duane for the first time. It was particularly neat to see Duane as he helped me through a difficult time when I had a surfing injury last year.

We got to taste the three different chocolates made by the competitors. They were all very good (Pecan chocolate bar, chocolate mousse, and heart-shaped chocolate biscuit), but we also loved the one that won the best… the Pecan chocolate bar. John has a great photo of the three chocolate pieces here.

Then we headed to the Atlantic House where we sat on the patio and sampled free seafood tastings for the afternoon. They were surprisingly good. We had a great view on the patio.

The Maritime beers and drinks were really delicious, although the most highly recommended beer of the day by my friends was the Blueberry ale. So definitely try it out if you get a chance to go there

And that was it! A really great weekend so far and I just CANNOT believe it is only Day 4. How are we going to get through the rest of the Olympics? It was fantastic to see Canada FINALLY win gold on home soil. Congrats to Bilodeau, Jenn Heil, and also all of Canada’s other medalists! Coming up… a special announcement also coverage from the Canadian men’s and women’s hockey games!

What did you do this past weekend?