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!

First of all, let me say that I am a HUGE 2010 Olympics supporter. I love the Olympics. I’m stoked that they are coming to Vancouver. I’m excited about the infrastructure the city is finally getting that it has needed for a long time. I’ve been a proud Canadian my whole life and I’ve never been so proud as a West Coast girl before to have the world see our beautiful city, our spectacular mountains and ocean… and watch Canadians compete in my favourite sports.

Now, I’m very much aware that I wouldn’t be writing this post if I got tickets. I would be writing about how much I love the Olympic ticketing system. So yes — this post is entirely hypocritical, bitter, and jealous. Don’t say I didn’t warn you

I don’t need to explain that I’m a huge hockey fan. You all know that. As for the Olympics — I’ve been watching the Olympics for as long as I can remember. I’ve always been mesmerized by the skiers, and then the snowboarders when boarding got introduced in 1998 in Nagano, Japan (despite the Ross R. debacle). I went to GM Place during the 2002 Olympics and cried and sang the National Anthem along with the rest of the crowd as the seconds ticked down and the Canadian Men’s Hockey team won their much deserved Gold Medal. I cried when I found out that the Olympics were coming to Vancouver. I signed up to the 2010 mailing list as soon as the website went live. I watched the days and seconds count down eagerly every single day as we drove by that overpriced Olympic clock at the Vancouver Art Gallery. I even convinced my boss to bring stuffed Olympic mascots with us as presents for our coworkers-hosts in Korea. I marked the day tickets went on sale on my calendar as soon as I found out and set my phone, Blackberry, and computer alarms to remind me not to miss it. I signed on and dutifully bought my tickets just like everyone else in Canada. And then I waited with baited breath every day, checking my credit cards and hoping I got a pair of tickets to the Gold Medal Hockey game.

So I couldn’t help but be disappointed today when I find out that all tickets in the lottery had been allocated and my ticket request was not fulfilled. My heart sank and I teared up at work. I was so upset. I should have known, and I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up… but I thought that somewhere out there I’d get a lucky break.

Meanwhile, I hear on the radio about people who maxed out their ticket requests and requested 40 tickets. I log onto eBay and Craigslist and see people trying to sell their tickets right away. No surprise there. So I e-mail someone on Craigslist and he tells me he wants $7500 for each ticket. I replied saying that was unfair, and he responded by saying, “Well, I have the chance to pay back $30-50k on my mortgage, wouldn’t you?”.

Wow.

I don’t know whether I’m more upset or jealous. There will be some lucky people making enough money to pay for a new car or pay off all their debt. But there are also thousands and thousands of people out there, like me, who just wanted to go to the game. We didn’t want to sell our tickets. We just wanted to proudly cheer on our Canadian boys and have a memory to last a lifetime. Couldn’t they have capped it at 2 per person? Or made it so the tickets weren’t resaleable somehow?

*sigh*

Well such is life. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t. If you got tickets out there, I’m really happy for you! And jealous! I hope you keep them and go partake in history. I’m hoping I can find some out there for a reasonable price.

Life goes on. If I can’t get tickets, i will DEFINITELY be glued to my TV watching all of our amazing Canadian athletes compete in possibly the most meaningful sporting event of all time — at least to me.

Did any lucky buggers get tickets?

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On another note, tomorrow night I start my long-anticipated AST-1 Avalanche course. It’s just an evening theory 3 hour classroom course to start, but then the following weekend we’ll do 2 field days (Seymour and then Whistler) for a total of 21 hours of instruction! We will be learning about technical snowpack, terrain observation skills, rescue techniques, and safe route finding skills. We’ll also learn how to use essential avalanche equipment. I’m so excited! I’ll definitely have videos and photos from the field days the following weekend to post and I’m sure it will be an experience to remember.