February 14, 2010

Higher, Faster, Stronger

(now with more Dancing Indians)

Friday night, I watched the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Opening Cermonies fom start to finish. I have a few thoughts:

My first instinct an hour into the Ceremonies, was how stereotypical everything appeared to be. I mean, if you had no prior knowledge of Canada, then based on the opening segments and the parade of athletes, you would pretty much think that Canada was just Mounties and Dancing Indians. It was so stereotypical, I almost expected polar bears and beavers to come out next. And yes, I know that it's proper to call them 'First Nations Peoples' or 'Representatives of Canada's Aboriginal Communities', but when you boil it all down, in reference to the opening ceremonies, it was 2 hours of Dancing Indians.

I thought at the very least that the musical segments would be pretty strong, considering the pool of talent that Canada has to draw from. But Nelly Furtado and Bryan Adams? Ok..ok...I'll get behind that...
But then they started singing. And when I say singing, I clearly mean 'lip-synching', because that was one of the most embarrassing things I've ever seen. With the entire world watching, BOTH of them made mistakes, and made it painfully apparent that they were singing along with a recorded track. And then Sarah McLachlan performed later, and she was lip-synching too!

I never thought I would say this sentence, but Thank God for K.D. Lang. Let me preface this by saying that I am NOT a K.D. Lang fan in the least, and her music generally drives me away. And I'm not sure what she was going for with the 'David Byrne-Giant White Suit' look, but when she appeared on the screen, I just assumed the musical portions were heading further south.










But then she started singing (actually singing!), and it was awesome. Now, I'm sure it helped that she was singing one of my favourite songs of all-time, Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, but she nailed it, and it was amazing!

I enjoyed the parade of athletes, and it's always interesting to see the nations that only send a handful of athletes...or even just one, like Ghana, who sent The Snow Leopard (best nickname ever) to compete in the skiing competition.
With all the talk leading up to the Opening ceremonies as to who was going to light the Olympic Flame, I was wondering all day, but I had said that my vote would have been for Steve Nash. I have to say that I thought they did a pretty good job choosing the final 5 to light the torch together. Unfortunate that there was a mechanical problem, but it was still pretty spectacular.

Overall, I thought they were pretty good, even with the lip-synching and Dancing Indians. I'm a big Olympics fan, so it's even more exciting that they're coming from Vancouver, a place that I know so well. It should be an exciting time for the next couple of weeks.

One of the things that was very exciting about the Opening Ceremonies was that Lucas got to be there! He's in Vancouver right now with his mom for the Olympics, and he had a great time. I'm so happy he got to experience such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Here's a couple of pictures.