I am excited and proud to welcome the world to Vancouver and Whistler for the 2010 Olympics. It’s a truly magical time, as people come from all over the world, from all over our country and as Vancouverites come together to celebrate sports and the city.

For all the bad press that the Olympics has received recently and even since the bid, I still think that this is an amazing opportunity for our city and I think it’s going to do for us what Expo ‘86 did.  Although I have heard grumbling, the majority of the people I talk to wear broad smiles on their faces when they mention the Olympics. I can sense it’s starting to reach a fever pitch as people snap up tickets, make plans for parties and start to wear festive Olympic merchandise.

Myself, I could NOT be more excited about the Games. Although I did not get any tickets in any of the lotteries, I have purchased a number of tickets because I really feel that this is a once in a lifetime experience, and I don’t think I will ever get to experience an international event, or any Olympics for that matter as I can in my own home city. So, buckle your seat belts… here we go, it’s coming and it’s going to be AWESOME! Many of you have asked me what my plans are for the Olympics and so I thought I’d lay out our itinerary so far…

Thursday, February 11th: We have our dinner reservations at the Holland Heineken House and we’ll be checking out the venue and partying afterwards!

Sunday, February 14th: Attending the Valentine’s Day event at the House of Switzerland. Unfortunately we couldn’t make the media event for this Friday’s grand opening (definitely go see it if you can!), so we got our media passes for Valentine’s Day instead, and it’s going to be a sweet (har har) day of chocolate tasting, Lindt, chocolate competitions and more!

Tuesday, February 16th: We are watching the Canadian Men’s Hockey team play Norway at Canada Hockey Place (GM Place). We got pretty decent seats in the lower bowl so hopefully we’ll be able to see some great hits and the players up close and personal. I am most excited about this game… I didn’t want to let the Olympics pass me by without seeing our men play for our country! I’m pretty much frothing at the mouth to go and cheer on Luongo, Crosby, and our boys.

Wednesday, February 17th: We’ll be watching the Canadian Women’s Hockey team play Sweden at UBC Thunderbird Arena! Wohooo! We managed to score Row 1 tickets Centre Ice in the lower bowl, so we will be right beside the player’s bench. I’m extremely stoked to see the women play. This was Allan’s Valentine’s Day present… I mean, what red blooded male wouldn’t want to see the Canadian Women play the Swedish Women right?

Monday, February 22nd: We’ll be watching the CAN-USA Men’s Curling game (among other countries) with a couple of friends, and then we will be heading over to the Molson Canada Hockey House to watch the Canadian Women’s Semifinals, checking out the Triple Gold Club Celebration and partying it up all night.

Wohooo! And we’ll be all decked out in our Olympic gear for sure. And now for the contest…

2010 VANCOUVER OLYMPICS TICKET GIVEAWAY AND CONTEST

What you are playing for: 2 tickets to the Men’s Canada-USA Curling game on Monday, February 22nd from 9 AM to noon (same one we are going to). Also playing at the same time is France and Norway, Germany and China, and Switzerland and Sweden. These tickets are currently selling for over $300 so it’s a really sweet prize!
Seats: Category A tickets, Section 201 Row 11 Seats 5-6
Rules: You can be from anywhere in the world, but you must be available to go to this game. You will not be able to sell these tickets as I will be meeting the winners in person before the event since we are also going to this event. You may take whoever you like as your guest!
What you have to do: Simply leave a comment on this blog post before Wednesday, February 10th 2010 at 10:00 PM Pacific Standard Time (PST).

That’s it, good luck!

Today is a bit of a weird blog post. I’m posting the winner of one of my contests, while also entering a contest myself!

First up, this is my contest entry for the Cat Skiing at Mustang Powder Contest. I’ve never been catskiing or catboarding before, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to try it out!

The contest asks for a blog post, but I also thought I’d include a video just for fun. It’s a little silly, it was filmed and edited late at night in the midst of chaos. Still, I think I’d be a great candidate to win the contest and I’ve put together some reasons why ( in text, just in case):

- I am extremely passionate about snowboarding and I’m constantly on the hunt for deep, fresh powder lines
- I’d love to take high quality photographs and videos of the catboarding experience; I’ve got a ton of equipment such as a DSLR with fisheye and telephoto, an HD video camcorder/DSLR, and a helmet mounted or board mounted GoPro HD camera which can help capture the experience
- I’m always on the lookout for new adventures!
- I have my AST-1 avalanche certificate so I know some of the basic safety principles for the trip
- I love road trips!
- I’d love to post about the experience on my blog and Twitter

Cross your fingers for me, friends!

ALSO, I thought this would be as good a place as any to post the winner of the contest I held for the Volcom Snowboard jacket!

Congratulations to the winner. Again, please excuse the silliness, as this was even later in the night. Winner, please e-mail me at allie@vancityallie.com. If I do not hear from the winner within 2 weeks I will do a re-draw.

Thanks to everyone for entering!

This past Saturday, Allan and I headed up to Whistler Blackcomb for a gorgeous, sunny blue bird day of snowboarding fresh powder. It was quite busy up there, but we still managed to find our stashes of powder.

We also brought along our new GoPro HD Hero helmet camera to capture some of the action. For those of you who have been following my blog for a while, you know that we had the regular GoPro camera before. I can say that the HD is a real nice upgrade. Much clearer photos and videos! Hopefully I’ll be able to edit the videos into a little movie soon.

Here I am wearing my new Volcom jacket and pants (both Gore-tex)… I’m loving how the wide angle really captures everything!

Powder spraying up on the sides.

Riding down one of the bowls on Blackcomb.

Even Allan got into the fun of it and attached it to his helmet for a while.

You’ll notice most of the shots are from the back of my board… we used the suction cup that we normally use for surfing to attach it to the back of the board… but be warned… sometimes it falls off in the deeper powder and you really have to keep an eye on it, or tether it to your board

All in all, a really fun day… and really nice to get back onto the mountain for some boarding. And, I thought this would be a great time to give away a BRAND NEW Women’s Volcom Snowboard Jacket on the blog! It’s the same jacket I am wearing in the photos above, but of course brand new with tags. All you have to do is leave a comment below, and I’ll pull a random winner on Sunday evening. If you remember my last contest, we gave away a snowboard outfit. Here’s the winner Rosy, who sent me a photo of her in all her new gear!

2010 Volcom GORE-TEX Satellite Snowboard Jacket Contest:
Sponsored by Volcom

Prize: 2010 Volcom Satellite Nimbus Women’s Snowboard Jacket in Bluebird, Size Medium
Value: $500 CAD
What you have to do: By Sunday, January 24th before 10:00 PM PST… just leave a comment on this blog post!
Who can enter: Anyone! You can enter for yourself, or for a friend, significant other etc etc…
Details: I will draw a random winner Sunday night, and I will ship the prize to the lucky winner anywhere in the world!

About the jacket: Yup, it’s totally GORE-TEX so awesome waterproofing. It’s got the works… fully taped seams, pant-to-jacket zips, Recco® avalanche system, Riri® waterproof zippers, a hood, a chin guard, vents, a powder skirt, a goggle pocket and audio pockets. My two favourite features? The built-in face mask and the Lycra hand gaitors to keep your hands warm in your gloves (you can see these in one of the photos above over my hands). Plus… I love the liner pattern!

That’s it! Good luck to everyone

It’s been dumping snow here in BC, and for the past 3 weeks I’ve been DYING to strap on my board and get out there for some snowboarding… but I’ve been sick and low on energy lately. After waiting 3 weeks and just not being able to stand it anymore, Allan and I finally got up to Whistler Blackcomb on Sunday for some FANTASTIC boarding. Although I couldn’t do more than 3-4 hours on the hill, we definitely made the most of it.

It has snowed 259cm in the past week at Whistler, and even though it’s been snowing all the way through the week, we still got an extra 20 cm for our first day of the season yesterday. And it shows.

The runs were ridiculously powdery, even the groomers… although we ended up riding knee-deep untouched powder in the trees all day.

Allan had a great time too… he didn’t get a chance to ride his new board, but he was wearing a perma-grin on his face all day… despite this very sombre-looking gondola shot.

I was stoked on the new Westbeach outerwear this year, although my new white helmet hasn’t come in yet so it looks kind of funny with my green helmet from my old outfit of past years. I rode my new Burton Supreme boots and my new Burton Malolo… and let me just say…

… riding my Malolo in the trees all day let me know that the ‘Lolo was definitely the right choice for me. Oh man.

Here I am in the trees… far, far away!

Did I mention that it was sunny and blue skies for most of the day? We really lucked out! Even the birds came out to play in the snow.

For the readers of VancityAllie.com, I am happy to present a contest to win some brand new spankin’ outwear from a fantastic local company:

WESTBEACH LADY RACER JACKET AND RENDEZVOUS PANTS CONTEST NOVEMBER 2009:

What you are playing for (either for yourself or a friend, girlfriend etc):

• A Westbeach Women’s Lady Racer Jacket Insulted Jacket in the Twilight Zone colour shown in my photos, size Medium
• A Westbeach pair of Women’s Rendezvous Pants in the Breezer colour shown in my photos, size Medium

Total value of the contest: $420.00 CAD

Both the jacket and pants are waterproof, rated to 6,000mm..  and are coated and seam sealed.

What you have to do:

• By Sunday, November 29th at midnight Pacific Standard Time (PST), leave a comment on this blog post
• I will do a random draw (I will video tape this) of anyone who left a comment between today and the contest deadline
• The lucky winner will win the full set of Westbeach Women’s Outerwear, which I will ship to them anywhere in the world.

That’s it! Good luck. By the way… I will have some HD video from yesterday’s snowboarding up, hopefully by Wednesday!

You can follow me on Twitter… and you can also follow Whistler Blackcomb and Westbeach on Twitter as well!