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.

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!