The Canadians LOVE their hockey. In fact, it is one of the first things I heard when coming to Canada. I know I have written about this once before, but it pervades the air here at Whistler.
Wednesday was my last day of work for volunteering. It was especially busy that day with a number of people coming in for the finals of the women's bobsleigh where the Canadians were favored to win. Between my colleague, Taylor and I, we checked in nearly 400 volunteers and paid staff in about 6 hours. In between times, we would talk about family and friends and plans to which events we were going to see for the rest of the games. Of course, people all day were talking about how they were going to watch the Canada versus Russia game which started at 4:30 that day.
As a volunteer, we received gifts at the third, sixth and ninth days of our shifts. On the last day, we received a silver medalion, a swatch with the Olympic logo, a key chain from Birks (the equivalent of Tiffanys in the US) and a tuque. We had fun today with the final gifts. Sheila, one of the other volunteers was also working her last shift, so we presented each other with our parting gifts and said a great thank you to each other for all of the help and support each of us had given to these Olympic games. It was a statement that we had given to others upon their last shifts and departures, and now we were giving it to each other. I have really gotten to enjoy Sheila. When she is not a volunteer, she works in palliative care with children who have lost their parents, mainly to cancer or other diseases like ALS (Lou Gehrigs). We had a lot in common. Her smile and genuine authenticity made her very easy to like. We enjoyed talking to one another during our times together.
So, we gave each other our parting gifts, exchanged email addresses and she had to go and help on the platform to support sleighs at the start or finish lines.
So, Taylor and I finished working our shift. He still had time left to work, as it was not his last shift. Taylor has his own commercial real estate business in Toronto, and owns a home in Whistler. He decided to take 2 weeks off of his business to come and work at the Olympics. He and his cousin are partners in the business which sounds like is going well despite the downfall of the market last year. They were one of the survivors.
Since every person who worked the sliding centre had to be checked in, we met them all. From track crew to physicians, to anti-doping personnel, and there were a lot of those. The ant doping team would show up when the athletes showed up to be monitored for any substances banned by the IOC. So far, there hadn't been any issues in our area, but there is also very close monitoring. The anti-doping team have a state of the art lab for monitoring all substances that could be considered enhancement drugs. The people they send to do the testing are all very nice, down to earth easy to be around people. In my head, and when I think of anti doping, I think of the Gestapo, standing by in uniform with death grip stares and a side arm ready to pull. But this is not the case. The blood doping personnel are just people like the rest of us who are funny and intelligent and easy to talk to. I liked the anti doping people....Of course I like everyone anyway, but they didn't look like what I expected...
So, it was my last shift, and Kate, my manager, came up and said, "it's quitting time", and put her arm in the air and pretended she was pulling down the quitting horn, like on the Flintstones right before Fred Flintstone rides down the back of the dinosaur he is working on. She says, "Did you get all of your gifts? Here come to the box and lets make sure you have everything we are giving away, because you get everything". There was a tuque and a pin that I hadn't received yet, so she gave those to me, and a great big hug and a big thank you for everything. There were tears and it was hard to leave. This had been my little home for a couple of weeks, and I had come to really like my workmates and environment. The same people would come in everyday, and I was used to greeting them and saying hello, and started to know things about some of those people who checked in. I was going to miss coming in everyday. But it was time to go.....
I texted to Rod, who was on his way back up to Whistler, and he said he was at the trailer. He had driven up that morning, and had just arrived. We decided to meet some place to watch the Canadian/Russian hockey game. So, we met at Earls, which has come to be one our favorite places for the food and atmosphere. We luckily got a seat right in front of the TV and hunkered down with more interesting people. We sat first with two women from San Francisco who came to watch the bobsleigh. We had another woman from Connecticut join us who was staying behind after 2 of her friends had to go back to work in Connecticut. She was here on business, as the marketing director of Coca Cola and had been heli skiing the day before and had a great time. Everyone has a great time here.
So the Canadian/Russian game starts, and the entire restaurant goes into upheaval...yelling cheering, waving flags and hooting. It is all good clean and fun cheering...and the game begins. It is not long before there is a Canadian goal, and Earls goes from noisy to an eruption that makes it feel like a compression has occurred. The Canadians LOVE their hockey!! I find myself swept up in the fun. I know how much this game means to my new Canadian friends, and I'm just as excited as the rest. We had also been sitting by a man from Ireland and his Canadian son, who looked like a hockey player, and even had on what looked like a letterman's jacket from Canada...I wonder if he played?.....We should have asked him.
The Canadians score another goal, and another, and the Russians look like they are chasing red uniforms all over the ice....Rod and I decide to leave since it looks like the game is in the bag, and because unfortunately, I am feeling like I am coming down with a cold....a really bad one...
I was sick all day on Thursday, and slept nearly all day. Rod went into the village and went shopping watched women's hockey, where the US women lost to Canada. I was totally oblivious and lost in dreamland.
Friday morning we had ticket to the women's slalom. The Americans didn't fair all that well in slalom. When Lindsey Vonn came out of the gate, she attacked the course with a vengeance. She was fast, on pace, and looked like she was a top contender. The slalom course was set up so that the top was a fairly easy start, it was a bit flatter, but then about 12 gates into it, there was a knoll. It was the knoll that separated the skilled from the non-skilled, the women from the girls, and today, it took Lindsey Vonn out. She came over the knoll with a very fast time, and then, suddenly, without any warning, she straddled a gate. Unfortunately ski racing is 100% or nothing. There is nothing for a 99% run. All gates must be passed. Lindsey didn't quite pull it off, but she is also not best known for her slalom. She is the speed queen, the woman who I wouldn't want to race down the hill on her worst day. Lindsey walked away with 2 Olympic medals, and has nothing to be ashamed of. She has a broken pinky finger that she broken crashing in the GS and walks away giving it her all. You can't fault that.
There is another story about this race that is interesting. There is a woman here racing from Iran. Her name is Marjan Kalhor. Her picture is above above the one of Lindsey Vonn. She is the first woman Olympian ever from Iran and we were standing next to her support system. There are 3 athletes here from Iran, one woman and two men. As we understand the story, she was requested to wear her burka during the race by her "country", and I didn't hear exactly "who" that was, but she was supposed to wear it at all times as to not be a disgrace to her country. She said that she would dress as the rest of the girls did for racing and then go back to wearing her burka. Marjan was 55th out of 55 finishers. The little cheering section next to us cheered as she came down the hill as she worked her way slowly through the course. She didn't look like the top of the line ski racers, the Maria Reischs (1st), Marlies Schild (2nd) or Sarka Zahrobska (3rd). In fact, she was probably more like one of our slower master's racers, but she was here, the first from her country, coming down the hill, dressed like the rest of her racing group, and taking a risk that she could be disowned from her country. It is unknown what will happen to her when she gets back to Iran. She is a very brave woman in my eyes.
It is the stories like this that intrigue me about the Olympics. It isn't always about the medals...but it is the stories of people who sacrifice possibly their lives for being a participant here. I am in awe of their bravery and strength....and I don't think we always understand, being from a free country, what it would be like to break free......free of what seems to be oppression.
My cold seemingly lasted for only a day or so, and I was better. Rod and I went to dinner at Umbertos, and it was fabulous.
The time is coming to an end here, and I find myself starting to transition from being here to starting to think about what I will encounter when I get back to work. It is only a couple of days until I get back home, to my normal life.....yet I still find myself hanging onto this place until it is done.
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