Barely covered at Cypress

Below I posted a photo showing the snowless state of Cypress Mountain these days. This shot is what the Olympic moguls run looks like just below that grass-covered peak.

Photograph by: Mark Ralston, AFP/Getty Images

Vancouver digital media takes on the giants

Very interesting article on the dualing media getting set for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. The world’s first truly digital games are starting in 4 days. We’ll soon see whose voice carries the farthest.

Huffington Post column here.

… we might not find out what’s going on simply by watching television or reading the papers, as these media forms also behave quite peculiarly during an Olympic Games. It is common for a host city’s national media to report considerable anger and anxiety about an Olympic Games on its approach, as these are the headlines that generate the most attention. However, as the Games begin, this agenda shifts towards being the good host, welcoming the world and celebrating the sports achievements. Indeed, given that the mass media pay for this privilege, nearly all of their resources are dedicated to sports stories and very little else can catch their attention. To this end, the disenfranchised communities of Vancouver will need alternative media allies if they hope to reach the attention of both their local and global audiences.

btw, W2 Culture + Media House opens this Wednesday and Thursday with a 9:30am ribbon cutting ceremony with Mayor Gregor Robertson on Wednesday.

“W2 is all about using intelligent tactics to provide a place for Vancouverites to tell their stories”, says Irwin Oostindie, executive director. Although partially embedded in the Olympics in their relationship with the Cultural Olympiad, they are comfortable with the dialogue that will result from the games. “We’re an independent cultural institution that provides guaranteed access for its citizens for training, access, broadcast, and sharing their stories,” says Oostindie. With partners in alternative, independent, and citizen journalism, they expect to be here long after the Olympics leave.

Full article here in Vancouver Observer.

Boxing Roo to stay!

I love the stand our Mayor took on this issue. From facebook:

Gregor Robertson

glad the aussie team flag will fly at olympic village – no need to make room for it on city hall now!

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The giant boxing kangaroo flag will continue to fly in the athletes’ village in Vancouver after Australian Olympic bosses reached an agreement with the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The IOC wanted it removed but Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) president John Coates says he has reached a compromise and it can now stay in place for the duration of the Winter Olympic Games.

“But we will need to register the boxing kangaroo with the IOC as the third identification we have,” he said.

While it is already an Australian Olympic trademark, the boxing kangaroo will now be registered with the IOC along with Australia’s national flag and the coat of arms.

The IOC initially asked the Australian team to take down the banner because it was deemed too commercial.

Read the whole article here.

When the temperature hits 13C in the city

This is what Cypress Mountain’s non-Olympic runs looked like on February 6. That’s what the snowcross and freestyle organizers are up against. Remember that when you see the white runs they compete on during the Games. Today it was sunny and 13 degrees celsius in downtown Vancouver. Usually there’s a 6-8 degree swing between temperatures in the city and temperatures on the city’s north shore peaks. Hard to keep snow from melting when the temperatures have been consistently a few degrees above freezing.

Vancouver timelapse

Phenomenal video.

Alpine Canada sends 19 to Whistler

Named to the team today are:

WOMEN

• Brigitte Acton, Mont Tremblant, Que.
• Emily Brydon, Fernie, B.C.
• Marie-Michele Gagnon, Lac Etchemin, Que.
• Anna Goodman, Montreal
• Britt Janyk, Whistler, B.C.
• Shona Rubens, Canmore, Alta.
• Erin Mielzynski, Guelph, Ont.

MEN

• Julien Cousineau, Lachute, Que.
• Robbie Dixon, Whistler
• Jeffrey Frisch, Mont Tremblant
• Erik Guay, Mont Tremblant
• Louis-Pierre Helie, Berthierville, Que.
• Jan Hudec, Calgary
• Michael Janyk, Whistler
• Tyler Nella, Toronto
• Manuel Osborne-Paradis, Invermere, B.C.
• Ryan Semple, Mont Tremblant
• Brad Spence, Calgary
• Trevor White, Calgary

Vancouver 2010 Pavilions & Hospitality Houses

Great post from Miss604 today. Easily the best part about any Olympics is the people you meet from around the world. If you’ve ever been in an Olympic city or to a Cultural Olympiad before, you have memories of everything from giving directions to the nearest hotel or bar to striking up friendships that can last for years …

The Olympics are a time for the host nation and city to shine brightly but they are also about bringing the world together.

Vancouver will be a temporary home for athletes and visitors from dozens of countries during the 2010 Olympics and there are many who have rented spaces around town to showcase their culture, cuisine, and hospitality for visitors and residents a like.

Read the whole blog post here.

dancer

dancer, originally uploaded by inklake.

Taken during a performance of the Arts Umbrella dance company on Granville Island, Vancouver today.

Paradis picks up silver in Wengen

The Wengen course is a fear-inducing string of steep fall-away corners, and especially treacherous near the peak. It’s regarded as one of the most dangerous downhill courses in the world.

Quite an accomplishment for North Vancouver’s Manuel Osborne-Paradis to claim silver here today.

Photograph by: FRANCK FIFE, AFP/Getty Images

Very good article by Stephen Brunt here.

But the course itself is really the thing, the longest and fastest downhill on the circuit, and the kind of crazy layout that a kid might come up with. “They’d never let you design a course like that now,” says the Canadian team’s men’s head coach, Paul Kristofic, and he’s right about that.

Before they get to the finish nearly 4.5 kilometres from the start house, the skiers will have passed through a narrow rock passage (the Hundschopf) followed by a precipitous drop that makes it seem as if they’re falling off a cliff, navigated a wild chicane, gone through a tunnel and over a bridge, and passed through sections named for incidents and people past: the Russi jump, after its builder, Bernard Russi; the Minschkante, where in 1965 Joos Minsch suffered a terrible crash; the Austrian Hole, where during a single race in 1954 a large number of Austrian skiers fell (which in Switzerland counts as a very good day indeed); the Kernen-S, named after 2003 winner Bruno Kernen; and the Canadian Corner, where Dave Irwin wiped out in 1975.

Festivals help Vancouver forge a shared cultural identity

Keep an eye out for this series of articles in the Vancouver Sun. On the verge of a massive Cultural Olympiad and the celebrated contemporary PuSh festival, this series offers a little perspective on the cultural importance of festivals to Vancouverites. Some of us build our holidays around local festivals …

Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival

“… we continue a series of essays that aim to deepen our understanding of the world in which we live, and offer provocative and informed views on cultural issues.“

Veda Hille performing at the PuSh Festival

VANCOUVER — As the city anticipates the opening of the PuSh Festival on Wednesday, with the massive, eight-week Cultural Olympiad hot on its heels, it makes sense to reflect upon how we chronicle the most social expression of artistic culture: the festival.

Vancouver’s lively arts scene and rich festival tradition are hallmarks of the city’s cultural identity.

summer days at the Vancouver Folk Festival

A raft of arts festivals sprouted up within a few years of each other in the 1980s and early 1990s, a very rich time for Vancouver culture: among them, the Vancouver International Fringe Festival in 1985, the Vancouver Queer Film Festival in 1989, and the Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival in 1990. The Vancouver International Jazz Festival was first mounted in 1986, and the International Folk Music Festival goes back even further, having been founded in 1978. With their long histories, these festivals have become traditions that many Vancouverites have grown up with.

To read the entire article, click here.

Will Vancouver meet Olympic promise of helping the poor?

PETER BATTISTONI / VANCOUVER SUN

We can expect the world’s media to follow this story closely when the Games begin in a month. Here is an article from the Seattle Times picking up the topic of Vancouver’s poor.

By Kristi Heim
Seattle Times business reporter
VANCOUVER, B.C. — When the Winter Olympics kick off next month, visitors will see the snow-capped mountains, sparkling coastline and international culture that elevated this city to the ranks of the most livable cities on Earth.

But local activists are planning to showcase another side of Vancouver: chronic homelessness, open drug dealing, mental illness and prostitution that mar the neighborhood only blocks from some Olympic venues.

A few days before the official Games begin, advocates for the poor will stage a “Poverty Olympics,” aiming to push the city’s social problems into the global spotlight. The parody, which claims to “reflect the unique local flavor of the host city,” has a cockroach, a bedbug and a rat as mascots.

“In the Downtown Eastside, the street scene isn’t so pretty,” said longtime community activist Jean Swanson, referring to the neighborhood that a U.N. official called one of the worst slums of a wealthy city.

Read entire article here.

Sings like the Grinch but he Must Be Santa

Or is that Shane McGowan of Pogues reknown he’s channeling?

Rollicking good Christmas offering from Bob Dylan.

Canadian Cowboys facebook site

Funny image to post right after the last Christmas image, but … this is the icon from the Canadian Cowboys (Alpine Canada ski team) facebook site. The FB site is here.

Even though the team has lost 5 members to season ending injuries in the last month, they still have some very strong medal contenders among them. North Vancouver’s own Manny Osborne-Paradis comes to mind.

The First Christmas

The First Christmas, originally uploaded by believer9.

Merry Christmas everyone!! Frohe Weinachten!! En riktig God Jul!! Joyeux Noel!!

Cycling fans name Hesjedal best of decade

Photograph by: Martin Bernetti, AFP/Getty Images

Congrats to Ryder!

BY CLEVE DHEENSAW, VICTORIA TIMES COLONIST

VICTORIA — The 2000s began for Ryder Hesjedal on the mountain bike, continued on the road and conclude with the Victoria rider being named Canadian cyclist of the decade.

The quietly intense Hesjedal, 2003 world mountain biking silver medallist who in 2008 and 2009 became the fourth Canadian to ride in the Tour de France, was given the honour in balloting by Canadian fans conducted on CanadianCyclist.com.

Hesjedal received 31.4 per cent of the vote, in the results released Monday. Runner-up was Marie-Helene Premont of Quebec City, 2004 Athens Summer Olympics mountain-biking women’s silver medallist, with 16.6 per cent of the vote. Roland Green of Victoria, two-time world men’s mountain biking champion and 2002 Commonwealth Games gold medallist, was third with 14.6 per cent.

“It’s a recognition of ten years worth of hard work and a big honour,” said Hesjedal, in a phone interview from a training camp in Maui.

“I’m 29 and feel I have several good years left ahead of me. Maybe I can get the award for the next decade, too.”

Over the summer, the two-time Olympian became the first Canadian to win a stage in the Tour of Spain, which with the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia comprise the Grand Tour of pro cycling. It was the first Grand Tour stage victory for a Canadian since Steve Bauer of Fenwick, Ont., in the 1988 Tour de France.

Read entire article here.

iPhone blur.

How To Not Get Sued: Vancouver-Based Lululemon Has “Cool Sporting Event” Clothing Line

An alternative to the official Zellers-wear on offer …

Erin Geiger Smith|Dec. 19, 2009, 12:44 PM | 371 |4

Cult athletic clothing company Lululemon, whose perfectly-cut pants are worn by Pilates moms everywhere, is Vancouver-based.

They therefore are perfectly positioned to launch an Olympics-based clothing line in time for the 2010 winter games to hit the slopes of Whistler.

Except they aren’t an official sponsor, making any such clothing line lawsuit bait for the Vancouver Organizing Committee.

They introduced a winter clothing line anyway on Monday, but they definitely put some time in with their lawyers first.

The New York Times Rings blog reported that the line of sweatshirts and the like, offered in the national colors of the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Germany is called the “Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 & 2011 Edition.”

The organizing committee is not happy, but knows it cannot sue.

“They have done a lot of homework to avoid strict repercussions under the letter of the law,” Bill Cooper, the director of commercial rights management for the Vancouver Organizing Committee, said. “That’s a large part of what we find disappointing, that the only standards they held themselves to was the letter of the law.”

Whether one thinks this is offensive to the Olympic spirit (of tightly held marketing) or just good, cheeky fun, we’re pretty sure the lawyers had a good time giving their stamp of approval to this one.

Business Insider Law Review.

Manny wins Val Gardena

DECEMBER 19,2009

Manuel Osborne-Paradis won for the second time early in the 2009-’10 World Cup season, taking the classic Saslong downhill in Val Gardena, Italy, on Saturday (Dec. 19).

The Whistler Mountain Ski Club alumnus, who won the Bombardier Lake Louise Winterstart super-G last month, is the first Canadian to win twice in a season since Thomas Grandi won two giant slalom races in three days in December 2004.

“Before Christmas normally I don’t ski that well,” Osborne-Paradis said in an Alpine Canada Alpin statement. “But I have been getting better and I am figuring out these courses more and more, just becoming so much more confident on every course.”

“This is the first year that I have had a game plan on every course before I have got here, just with the experience that I have. I have put in my time and now it’s just paying off with me being able to know the courses,” he said.

Osborne-Paradis, the ninth racer of the day to leave the start hut, won with a time of two minutes, 01.27 seconds. Austria’s Mario Scheiber put up the day’s greatest challenge to the Canadian, finishing 13 hundredths of a second behind. Ambrosi Hoffmann of Switzerland was third in 2:01.52.

Osborne-Paradis now has eight career World Cup podium results and has become the fifth Canadian male alpine ski racer with more than two career World Cup wins.

Read full article here.

A day of extremes at Lake Louise

Manny Osborne-Paradis won his first World Cup Super G today in Lake Louise while team leader John Kucera was airlifted off the mountain with a broken leg that will almost certainly keep him out of the upcoming 2010 Games.

Photograph by: Andy Clark, Reuters

LAKE LOUISE, Alta. — John Kucera’s 2010 Olympic dream likely ended in a high-speed crash Sunday during the super-G slalom at the Bombardier Winterstart World Cup.

The 25-year-old Calgarian, one of the favourites in the race, suffered a broken left leg when he went off the steepest part of the course as he attempted to complete a C-turn and crashed into a catch net.

He was airlifted off the mountain by helicopter and transported by ground ambulance to Banff hospital for X-rays. An Alpine Canada spokesman revealed that Kucera’s injury will require surgery but didn’t specify which bone was broken.

“It’s a tough day . . . I mean it’s a good day but a tough day,” frowned a concerned teammate Jan Hudec when he learned of the extent of the injury. “He was skiing so good . . .”

The good day were first-, fourth- and fifth-place finishes for the seven-man Canadian team.

Read the whole article here.

Always read the fine print

“Could we ever know each other in the slightest without the arts?” – Gabrielle Roy.

Fantastic message from the Greater Vancouver Professional Theatre Alliance.