CANADA, THE MOST EMBRASSING OLYMPICS EVER???

malmo wrote:

But they ended up being self-defecating.

I see what you did there.

I agree that the second half of the closing ceremonies were a major yawn fest with Hedley, Avril, Nickleback etc however, the humour part, I AM CANADIAN, WE WILL CLAIM YOU etc were funny.

Canadians don't take themselves too seriously...I guess the humour was not American enough for you. Would you like Chris Rock talking trash?

When in Europe do you look for McDonald's?

They are closing ceremonies. What were you expecting? Cirque de Soliel?

How much did you pay to watch?

Wet Coast wrote:

How much did you pay to watch?

Well lets see, NBC paid $820 million for the rights to televise the Winter Olympics. I don't know what they charged advertisers for time, but presumably it would be for more than the licensing fees. Advertisers collect those fees from the products that they sell, so that means that even though I didn't watch much of the Olympics I am being charged for entertainment that I didn't request and didn't use.

Q: How do you spell Canada?

A: C-eh?-N-eh?-D-eh?

malmo wrote:Advertisers collect those fees from the products that they sell, so that means that even though I didn't watch much of the Olympics I am being charged for entertainment that I didn't request and didn't use.

Oh boo f***ing hoo!

That's pretty goddamn lame.

You'll get over it.

malmo wrote:

Well lets see, NBC paid $820 million for the rights to televise the Winter Olympics. I don't know what they charged advertisers for time, but presumably it would be for more than the licensing fees.

I heard NBC lost money on the Games. $200 million? So yeah you're paying for them, but not as much as you might have otherwise.

Mind Time wrote:

Some poor little American is still angry that they got theis as*es handed to the them in Hockey aren't they?!!!!

Canada Canada Canada!

No one in the US cares about Hockey, it;s a 2nd rate sport in this country.

That being said, if you call an overtime victory "kicking our ass" then good for you. Your national sport beat our 2nd rate sport barely.

Basketball, baseball, or football anyone?

Sorry wetcoast, I respect your desire to support your local city (even if it isn't Victoria), but the closing ceremony was a yawner. The only thing I enjoyed was CLM lighting the cauldron (or whatever it was) - due to the mistake from the opening ceremony - and that too was an inside joke that probably wasn't understood by most people watching.

As for the entertainment, I happen to like Neil Young, but isn't there anyone more current? The others were also so old (Shatner, Fox and O'Hara) and really didn't add anything to the show in a vain attempt at humor(sic), self-deprecating or not - the show shouldn't be an inside joke, it is reaching out to millions of foreign viewers and foreign athletes as well (the guests that night). The whole beaver, moose thing really was a waste as well - many people already have some sense of Canadian stereotypes (eh?, Hoser, etc.). Perhaps some aboriginal totem pole stuff might have been culturally more appropriate to bring the first nations involvement in as well, like they did in Beijing and Sydney (much better closing ceremonies). I thought that the athletes might be involved more as well, other than wearing "mooseheads". I'm sure that other better ideas must have been dismissed as well, unfortunately.

I don't blame NBC either for not showing the rest of the CC, as the acts were terrible - who the heck were most of them - the only acts I knew were Lavigne and Nickelback (not a fan of either). Even taking Pamela Anderson away from DWTS for a night might have at least have been more entertaining than Catherine O'Hara.

uncle sammy.. wrote:

Mind Time wrote:

Some poor little American is still angry that they got theis as*es handed to the them in Hockey aren't they?!!!!

Canada Canada Canada!

No one in the US cares about Hockey, it;s a 2nd rate sport in this country.

That being said, if you call an overtime victory "kicking our ass" then good for you. Your national sport beat our 2nd rate sport barely.

Basketball, baseball, or football anyone?

Canada did beat the States at the 2006 World Baseball Classic. We knew enough that it didn't change anything and 9 times out of 10 the US will hand our asses to us in the sport. We enjoyed the victory for what it was, nothing more. We beat the US at hockey for what's gotta be getting up to the high double digits in occurrances, this time in OT, and suddenly you think you have something to talk about? You're right that it's a 2nd rate sport in the US, which is why you keep losing to us. All the same, we're happy to see the US getting stronger, it's great for the future of our national sport.

No you didn't take the time to read my post or absorbed what you wanted. I did say that the humour being 'inside' maybe wasn't a great idea. I also said the second half of the show was a yawn fest and that also covers the fact that better musical guests could have been chosen. Also, the ceremonies are contracted out to a company with a resume. Apparently the hydrolic faux pas also happened in Sydney by the same company. So it isn't a VANOC or Canadian mistake it is the companied that was hired, who has a long list of successes to their credit. Can't control everything.

Here is what I would have done with the musical guests. Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman, who were the two main people for The Guess Who and no they wouldn't have to play American Women, as they had another 10 - 15 top 10 hits. As for current acts, the hyper-patriotic Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip would have been way more appropriate than Nickleback, who by the way were boo'd by about 300 people on the upper deck of the local ferry we were riding on when we were coming back. It fizzled from there.

The two Brian Williams's met and visited each other's on-site studios. CTV's Brian William's studio was beautiful with CDN wood, nice fireplace, hardwood floors, stunning view (on a sunny day) the American Brian Williams from NBC had a big tent. $820 million for poor coverage from a tent? Sad.

Anyway, the Canadian coverage with CTV was massive, awesome, seemless and nearly mistake free...or was mistake free, I can't think of any - very well done with something like 1800 people involved.

Anyway for the most part the games were a very big success from a cultural and financial standpoint. In fact we did have much native involvement at the opening ceremonies and they had their own street downtown. Also just form international visa charges (not Canadian) there was $100million USD dollars charged.

Instead of focussing so much energy on 30 - 50 minutes of sub-par performance, I like to focuss on the 2-week of drama and excitement - it was epic!

Vancouver is a nicer city ten fold than any of the shit holes you call cities in the US.

Yet another Canadian,

Why is it that several Americans come on here to tell us Canadians that Hockey does not matter to Americans? We do not care. It would be nice, but it is not significant to us, what you like or don't like.

Europe also has hockey down the list to number 3 or 4 behind soccer of course and 'others'.

Hockey is our sport, at least in terms of us enjoying it with 10% of the population of the US we do well. Consider your Hockey hotbed areas of Minnesota and the Northeast, you still out-populate us by a very large margin. I think one state has as much or more population as all of Canada - NY does. Shouldn't the US be in the Gold medal game? The team played well and I felt bad for Kesler as he is one of the most well rounded players in the NHL - being an American on a team where only 3 or 4 players would be good enough for the Canadian or Russian or Swedish teams, he carried his team emotionally to play for his country right to the end - he deserved GOLD as did Miller - the best goalie in the tournament.

You may grow up throwing a football around, playing catch or shooting hoops, Canadians do too, but where there is ice that is where you find CDNS playing hockey or when it melts we play ice-hockey.

So I am glad you tell me Americans don't like hockey, are you happy now that I am telling you that we don't like NASCAR, for the most part? eh? You like that? Is that significant information?

Exactly. My sentiment is we can't hear and see you, too much gold glare and widespread happiness up here.

ha ha.

Q: How do you know when you've done something really well?

A: When it gets bashed at letsrun.

These were the most successful Olypic games ever. Better than Atlanta, Syndney, Salt Lake, Greece and Beijing. If you were in Vancouver it would change your perception of how a party should be. Greatest Olympics of all time.

Likely or not, it happens.

One year I skied the top 2/3s of the mountain Saturday of the May 24 weekend in shorts, drove to the airport, took the red eye home east and started the following day at my friend's cottage in 80 degree weather.

This is to say nothing of the glacier on which one can ski pretty much all summer.

REALLY?? wrote:

Oh - don't forgot the bomb that went off and killed one person and injured 111 others. That's pretty embarrassing.

And don't forget how they pinned the bombing on a guy there (security guard, I think), destroyed his name in the press...

and then realized he wasn't the culprit. Well done.

Wet Coast wrote:

No that was not embarrassing or anything else. A good sense of humour is a sign of possible intelligence, but you can be smart and humourless too.

The closing ceremonies were very tongue-in-cheek and meant to be self deprecating.

The organizers hoped that people would get it and most did, some can't and that is their loss.

William Shatner was brilliant. Perhaps the Canadian jokes were inside jokes - maybe that wasn't the best move, but as a Canadian, him and Michael J Fox were awesome.

I live on the same soggy coast, just a couple hours south of BC. I feel much more at home in Vancouver than New York or Nashville and have always thought Canadians were great. That said, in terms of the closing ceremonies, What Were You Thinking?!!! After the inspired opening bit with the flame it went downhill fast. All I could think of was an SCTV parody of a Canadian Olympics Closing Ceremony with Eugene Levy in the Bob Costas chair, although Eugene would have lent the whole affair more dignity. All that was missing was Red Green to wrap the whole thing up in duct tape. I think we just have to attribute it to Olympic fever which raised its head in a few other places. Not letting foreign athletes practice on the Olympic sites. Wet Coast, that's just not the Canadian way.

Don't feel bad. The last time we tried to host something down here we got the WTO riots.

I'm sure you all will soon be back to normal as will be your terrific city.