On Friday I got back into Cobourg town just in time for the 50th anniversary celebrations at
Dr. Morgan Hubbel’s chiropractic clinic. As one can see it was a lively affair with a little Olympic torch to add 
The good doctor taking a picture of his granddaughter, Ainsley
to the festivities. Fortunately, I had my PixofCanada camera with me and was able to catch some of the goings on. And the whole office was decorated with some nifty posters from early years work.
My personal favorite – Dr. Hubbel huffing and puffing indignantly
Some examples of well appreciated back-in-place love
But the real mark of a good practice is the ability to attract a good and dedicated staff.
Debra
Karen
Of course I did not miss out on the goodies – some delicious cupcakes and a quick bit of advice. Always helpful, Dr Hubbel urged me to stay the course on a hip that was fluctuating between dull and droning pain. I was a bit skeptical but heeded his advice. And a day later the pain was gone and I was back up and so pleased to be functioning whole once again.
The Winter Olympic Closing Ceremonies were such an example of new “I believe” bravado rippling across the Canadian landscape and yet a wonderful opportunity missed. Sorry, USA and the rest of the World – humble, self-effacing, meek and reliable Canadians will for the time being become more like uhhh … ugly Wall Street Banksters. Sure there were spots of the old self-effacement as VANOC’s Jim Furlong was made to read the closing statement in more broken French than a full year of ex-Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s English speeches. Now the two solitudes can get on with real communication.
And there was a brilliant touch of the witty, self-deprecating Canadian humor as the Olympic Torch with the missing 4th link was comically restored with Olympian Katrina LeMay-Done finally able to light the fire and torch for an hour more. But after that, the closing ceremonies went downhill faster than the Austrian ski team ["sorry about that" Ostreich, aber diese ist der neu Kanada].
First, there was the come back home gang – Canadians who have been successful in New York or Hollywood saying why in full projected Punch humor they retained some nostalgia for Canada. It was like a mini Travel Commercial which incidentally the Supernatural BC government is doing on TV in Microsoft fashion – i.e. copying the form and style of the real-deal California travel commercials. Martin Short, like the failed Olympic torch link, is rumored to have come up short and failed to show – and this viewer can guess why.
Next, the Vanoc team cannot be blamed for what Sochi Russia did – “a mixed pastiche of 1912 era and contemporary Russia as if the Communist hole in Russian history has still not been filled”. But Canadians then quickly did their best to imitate bad American Super Bowl entertainment – you know the kind where more time is spent doing scene changes then in the entertainers actually entertaining. Even the Vancouver Sun noting in its review the endless stream of lip-synching , one song stand of Canadian entertainers – as if quantity and no hurt feelings took precedence over a real show.
This party would vote for bringing the Maritime and Quebec fiddlers back from the Opening Ceremonies and have them lead the athletes in a series of simple riels, line and square dances that I am willing to bet every one of the athletes could could do with their eyes closed given their physical conditioning and sense of enthusiasm. Instead we got treated to Michael Buble and the RCMP Hooter girls.
Not just bad, but gosh awful – no wonder NBC decided to terminate their coverage of the Closing Ceremonies prematurely. They certainly know when the Night Show is not clicking.
And so as the Vancouver Sun noted – there were many questions to be asked about this Closing Ceremony given a)the quality of the Opening Ceremonies, b)the template for good closing ceremonies provided by Calgary and the 1988 Games, and c)the wonderful times, goodwill of the people and visitors plus the drama of the Olympians themselves. One could have taken from the many volunteers and fans at the events their impressions of the best moments of the games. Taken some of the dramatic finishes and shots of the Olympians, projected them up on the screen and then asked the Olympian and their volunteer/fan admirers to take an encore bow and/or exchange best wishes [with translator help as required].
So let me repeat the questions raised by the Vancouver Sun -
As fireworks burst off the roof of BC Place, several questions are posed by the casual observer; Why did Cirque de Soleil never make an appearance at these Olympic Games? Why was the music so milquetoast? Why did guys like Jim Carry and Mike Myers not show up, especially when the latter is a stone hockey freak?
Amen. And I am far from alone. Chats with people find that many agree with what Calgary Herald’s Licia Corbella has to say in her review:
Beautiful Olympics, Vulgar Closing Ceremony
…After the cauldron was extinguished, however, so too was virtually any taste or decorum. The theme of the night was to poke fun at Canadian cliches, all done by Australian production director, David Atkins. It didn’t work. Instead of having the world laugh with us, it left them laughing at us and judging from comments on my blog and other sites, left most Canadians cringing….Ending the evening with K-os, a rap group with breakdancers, singing the indecipherable Eye Know Something, was so discordant I turned to my husband and said, “They can’t actually be ending with this. This is a joke, right?”Sadly, it was no joke, but the closing ceremony was. And the joke was on us.
The Games were so good, the Canadian Olympian performances were so empowering, and the goodwill of the World was to be had – why sell so short on such petty self-deprecation rather than showing off how good the games were, how well Canadians and the world performed, and how Canadians can have a good time dancing and partying? Cheesh, just when Canada Owns the Golden Podium and scoffs a good part of its national inferiority complex, one has to say – “Sorry About That” for the Closing Ceremonies. Typical Canadian, Eh?
The Vancouver Winter Olympic Games have been a delight despite the weather. And if you think Vancouver was warm at 10C on the last days of the Games, the next venue, Sochi Russia, is currently 13-15C with heavy rains forecast for 2 of the next 3 days. But one thing that has been constant has been the high level of competition as higher, stronger, faster has been on display in every event. And as performances improve, the science behind them get more sophisticated. Canada’s Own the Podium program used several studies on the physics of the games events to help give their teams and competitors an advantage.
So a perusal of the various websites covering the games found a cornucopia of great science articles available covering the Games and some of the popular events. Anybody interested in finding out how and why and maybe some of the physics and science behind an event has a wealth of articles to choose from. Here is our ranking of the top five Winter Olympic How To articles.
5th Place – Google Earth 3D Map of the Games
Use of Google Earth and its special viewing files of the Olympic venues requires a free download of the Google Earth program if users don’t already have it downloaded. But Google Earth [and Google Mars for that matter] are well worth the while because they give wonderful views of places and cities throughout the World. And Google has pulled out the stops for a great look see at Vancouver and the great BC countryside.
4th Place – HowStuffWorks How the Luge Works
HowStuffWorks is a website devoted to explaining how things work with pictures and explanations. This coverage of the Luge Event is typically thorough [although the map of the Whistler Luge Track is strangely missing given that maps of thee Torino 2006 and Salt Lake City 2002 tracks are shown]. After reading this article I have a much better feel for the equipment, speed and danger of luge racing.
3rd Place Bronze – NBC/NSF Science of the Winter Olympics
The NSF-National Science Foundation worked with NBC to put out a 16 part series of videos describing the science of some of the more popular Olympic events. What is novel is that they look not just at the physics but also the biochemistry and fluid dynamics that turn out to be crucial for the many different sports. These are wonderful learning exercises that I wish I would have had for my Science classes in grade or junior high school. Not only are they very instructive but also they are very motivational. Imagine seeing a sport up close and then getting the basic science behind the event. What a motivator for understanding and/or participation. The illustration at times is uneven, but the overall quality is high.
2nd Place Silver – NYTimes Tie – Inside the Action and Interactive Action
The New York Times has set a standard for coverage of the Games that just blows away the competition for savvy use of graphics, video and blogs. They are consistently a level above the sports media – using video window in video, graphics, direct illustration on video and competitor own dubbed commentary to add great insights into the intricacies of the sports. I looked at a number of sites including TheSTar, GlobeandMail, ESPN, CTVOlympics, NBCOlympics, BBC/Sports, LeMonde/Sports, LATimes, DerSpeigel, among others – and none offered the range of sports or the insights of the written and video coverage that could match the NYTimes.
1st Place Gold – NYTimes – Fractions of a Second: An Olympic Musical
Edward Tufte who is to communication graphics as Josef Albers is to Color Theory or J.K.Rowling is to childhood fiction – I suspect Tufte would give his seal approval to this musical graphic that shows in sing song tunes how close the finishes were in a number of the Olympic events [you must visit the site for the benefit of audio playback - its better than a blink of the eye]. The musical tones tell the story in sonorous fashion of just how close the finishes were. This is a gold medal triumph of Web media “illustration”.
The Vancouver Winter Olympics organizers have done something clever with the development of their website. They have added a some nifty tie-ins with Facebook.com, one of the most popular friends and social media sites on the Web. Other sites are using Twitter and other social media but not quite so cleverly.Lets look at each one and see how they turned out.
Facebook Daily Prediction
For sports prognosticators [okay, and bettors] this is your opportunity to show off your prediction prowess for the various Olympic events each day. You must submit your ten picks for questions like the four shown above before any of the events start – which is usually 9AM PST when most of the Curling games get started. Given the number of upsets in almost all of the major events, this is very hard to do. Lots of fun and a running score is provided each day. Big downside – you can’t find a menu button anywhere on the Vancoucer2010.com website for this quiz, you have to go to
Facebook Wailing Wall
I call this the Wailing Wall because it looks and acts as a wailing wall as the events unfold – particularly mass start ski races, or skiing runs when a favorite competitor wipes out. I have totally given up on the CTV and NBC website feeds and go to the Wailing Wall to get the latest news on who ahead and whose on their behind. Note the messages are short sweet just like Twitter – hmm, does this look like Twitter has some serious upcoming competition?
Facebook IOC Photo of the Day Contest
By far this has been the most disappointing of the Facebook + Vancouver Games collaborations. And there is no apparent reason for it because everybody appears to have a camera. But when I went to flickr.conm, there was not much there. Ditto for Fotki.com and Google Images.m In general, the the IOC and the Olympics has not adapted to the huge media wave – pictures and video that are avaiable on smartphones, GPS units, and uktra-thin and ultra-capable cameras.
Summary
In sum, Facebook and the Vancouver.com have done reasonably well with their co-operative ventures bringing people around the world a bit closer to the Games. However, Twitter at NBC Olympics is even a step ahead because it tracks the Twitter notes and messages of Olympic athletes and gives a forum for real [and imagined ] insights into how the athlete are thinking. I expect the next Olympic Games and possibly even the World Cup in South Africa will have even more savvy integration of social media at the event site.
Watching the Olympics, and they are very exciting easily putting Political Soap and Fako Reality TV deservedly on the backburner, is getting to be addictive and a chore. Some of the best skiing and sledding events are on in the early afternoon while the evenings push watchers in Eastern North America into the midnight hour. But the lure is there so it is easy to choose this:
Over this:
But the chore is to find places during the days task when one can get a view of the games without seeming ridiculous or having to shell out a fortune at a sports bar where they quickly switch out of the Canadians speed skating star striving to win her heat over to a bowling tournament from last year??? It is equally embarrassing having to go to BestBuys TV and electronics department for the umpteenth time “looking for a large screen TV ” when clearly the only thing I am shopping for is a view of the Mens SuperG run featuring the Canadian Ski Cowboys.
However, if you are living in the Port Hope to Cobourg area let me recommend an Olympic viewing respite that is an oasis in the desert of “how to get a discrete peek at the Vancouver Olympics.” The Port Hope Public Library is offering:
the Vancouver Olympic Games with excellent TV and audio, a little spare accommodations, but fountain and bathroom for no charge. In fact for some events like the Women’s Downhill, there is a good crowd and lots of discussion on who can do what. Speaking of which here are the best “discrete” drop by times for key events coinciding when the Library is open:
Fri Feb 19th at 2:30PM – Mens Super G with Crazy Canuck Ski Cowboys
Fri Feb 19th at 4:00PM – Womens 30K Pursuit with Turin medal winner Sara Renner
Sat Feb 20th at 1:00PM – Womens Super G Britt Janyk and Emily Brydon on home course
Sat Feb 20th at 3:30PM – Large Hill Ski Jumping, watch men jump through the air with the greatest of ease
Mon Feb 22 at 12:00PM – Mens Curling Canada vs US
Mon Feb 22 at 1:00PM – Team Ski Jumping
Tues Feb 23 at 12:00PM – Womens Curling showdown match Canada vs Britain
Tues Feb 23 at 12:30PM – Mens Giant Slalom
Tues Feb 23 at 1:30PM – Ladies Ski Cross freestyle
Wed Feb 24 at 1:00PM – Womens Giant Slalom with Emily Brydon and Britt Janyk
Wed Feb 24 at 4:00PM – Womens 5000m Speed Skating with Clara Hughes and Kristin Groves
Thu Feb 25 at 12:00PM – Curling Womens Semifinal
Thu Feb 25 at 1:00PM – Nordic Combined SkiJump then Cross Country race
Thu Feb 25 at 5:00PM – Curling Mens Semifinal
Fri Feb 26 at 1:00 – Womens Slalom heats
Fri Feb 26 at 4:00 – Mens 4-man Bobsleigh
Fri Feb 26 at 6:00 – Womens Curling Gold Medal Game
Sat Feb 27 at 1:00 – Mens Slalom Skiing first run
Sat Feb 27 at 2:00 – Mens Snowboard Parallel Giant slalom
Sat Feb 27 at 3:00 – Mens Speed Skating Pursuit
There is lots of medal action for Canadians in all of these events with the exception of the ski-jumping. So sneak on by – grab a view of your favorite Olympic event – and then check out the books, movies, games, audio CDs and audio books that the library has available on loan [Port Hope Residence required for free borrowing , otherwise pay a nominal annual fee]. Stay and use the free Wifi service on your laptop. Read the magazines and newspapers in a comfy chair or at a worktable. It really is a great library.
Now that Canada has gotten the Golden Olympic Monkey off its back with Alexandre Bilodeau’s
Alexandre Bilodeau
spectacular victory in moguls skiing – let us also hear 4 great big cheers for Le Québec Air Force – Alexandre Bilodeau 1st, Vincent Marquis 4th, Pierre-Alexandre Rousseau 5th, and Maxime Gingras 11th – what a show they put on for Canada.
There is no doubt that Alexandre Bilodeau has a special relationship with his older brother Fredrique who has Cerebral Palsy. One can see both a mutual devotion and respect which has acted both as a base and a motivation for Alexandre. But let me suggest that on the ski slopes, Alexandre and the other 3 members of Le Québec Air Force are a motivational team as well.
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| Pierre-Alexandre Rousseau | Maxime Gingras |
All of the Québec Air Force are fighters. Maxime Gingras in 2008-2009 was demoted down to the Development squad; but by the end of the year had moved right back up to the full team with several wins and has a world ranking of 10th. Pierre-Alexandre Rousseau is the hard-bitten veteran of the team having missed the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics with a neck injury and then 2006 Turin Olympics with mononucleosis. So Pierre, after putting down a superb run in the finals, was justifiably jubilant.
Vincent Marquis
Vincent, a quarterback in football, knows all about injuries and has had to battle back twice from knee and leg surgery. And Vincent was just 0.21 and a slight aerial waver from a Bronze medal in Vancouver. But this was not a fluke showing because twice this year the Québec Mens Mogul Air Force had unprecedented sweeps of the podium in World Cup events. So the World should not be surprised by Alexandre’s gold medal – he had an Air Force behind him. Tres bien fait par tous.
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