2010 Vancouver Olympics

When the lottery for the Vancouver Olympics began Jamie and I were not even thinking that we would put in a bid for tickets but on the deadline day Jamie decided to give it a try. We actually had to use Jamie's dad's credit card because we did not have a Visa. Seeing as Visa is a sponsor of the Olympic Games you could only use a Visa credit card. Several months later Jamie's dad phoned and told us that his credit card had been charged for some tickets but because we all (Jamie's parents and us) had entered the ticket lottery we didn't know who got what. Later we found out that we had indeed gotten tickets for 2 preliminary hockey games however; we had no idea what countries would be playing.

I am not entirely sure when we found out who would be playing in the hockey games we had gotten but it ended up that we got to go see Czech vs. Russia and Canada vs. USA! Jamie and I were so excited to be able to go see some amazing hockey players/teams play in the Olympics. Jamie has been so busy with bball the week leading up to this past Sunday that when the day finally came we couldn't believe it and we were so excited. We knew that it was going to be a crazy day for transportation and we decided that we needed to give ourselves lots of extra time.
We headed into Surrey Central found a parking spot right at the station and hopped on the train with no waiting. For the first couple of stops we were the only ones on the train! It was crazy!

As we got into Vancouver the excitement for me rose! It was so fun to see the country flags hanging out of balcony windows. It is difficult to see the flags in this picture but they are there, I promise! We took the sky train right down to Waterfront and walked to the Olympic Torch! The crowds were starting to form around the torch but we were still able to get up to the fence to take some pictures.

I am not entirely sure if I like the design of this torch however, it was pretty cool to see up close. One the way in we talked about how fun it would have been if the boys had been a bit older to take them with. Jamie figures that Aidan would have probably really loved the experience and might have been able to remember it later on. I am sure that Aidan will complain to us when he is older that he wishes he could have gone to the 2010 Winter Olympics. But that's ok.....we will deal with that later :) Both boys are quite the sport junkies so they love to watch the different events on TV. It will be interesting what the end up doing someday.....

Here we are showing that we were actually there in front of the torch! Too bad the person that took this picture got so much of the chain link fence in there but that's OK. We were trying to squat so that they didn't get much of the fence but it didn't work. From the torch we decided that we had time to walk down to Robson to see the different things they had going on.

We headed to Robson Square where they had the zip line that goes right over Robson street and the underground ice skating arena. The line for the zip line was absolutely crazy. The news were saying all week that the average wait time is 6+hours ! When we walked by there was a section of the line where there was a sign showing that at this point the wait time was 6 hours and that was NOT even the end of the line. It definitely was fun to watch people zip across the street.

Our first hockey game was the Czech vs. Russia game that started at noon. We had some time to kill so we walked a bit farther down Robson and found the Lantern Forest and other Olympic figurines. Jamie humored me and let me take his picture in this cut-out. He didn't really want to but I kept saying that these are memories that someday we will want to look back on :)

There were several street performers out as well. They always draw a large crowd and can be entertaining to watch. Especially when you are trying to waste some time.

After our Czech vs. Russia game where Russian won we saw Maelle Ricker, Olympian snowboard cross Gold Medalist! She was signing autographs and showing her Gold Medal. We did not stand in the line for her autograph; I just got close enough to take her picture!
At the beginning of the Czech vs. Russia game our camera's batteries started to die so after the game we rushed out to find more batteries (of course I didn't bring extras) before the BIG game was going to start. We found some at the Dollar Store...which of course shocked me that you we could buy batteries for $1!. When I put them in the camera I was just waiting for them to die...but they stayed strong!

The afternoon crowds on Robson! Jamie and I don't really mind crowds like this so moving in and out was not too bad. Jamie did say it was hard to follow me because I just motor my way through. I hate being behind slow people especially if I am trying to get somewhere. When I see an opening I just go for it.

The Canadian crowds getting ready for the game. It was so fun to watch the Canadian spirit move through the streets in anticipation for the big game. When we headed back to Canada Hockey Place (GM Place) they were not opening the doors right away as they were cleaning up from the earlier game. The crowd was cheering and clapping and gearing up for the game.

We actually sat quite close to where we sat in the earlier game. They were good seats where you could lean forward a bit and not impede someone else's view of the game. We were just in awe of all of the Canadian flags that were being flown. There was one guy that came in with a bundle of small flags that he was just handing out to everyone in his section.....I believe the picture below is that area that it looks like every person has a flag.

The Canadian Spirit was definitely evident! Kind of hard to miss.

The face-off picture below. Where the US team actually scored within the first minutes of the game :) I was cheering for the Canadians but I thought it was sure funny that they got scored on so quickly. It ended up being such a great game to watch. The teams all have their best players and they are playing hard. The last couple of minutes were intense because we only needed one more goal to tie the game up. And we definitely out shot the USA team on goal and there were many close ones where we could have tied everything up. However, it just didn't happen.

After the game we really wanted to have a sit down meal instead of eating more fast food so we walked up Robson to see what the wait times would be for the different restaurants. We had a gift card for Earls so we headed there and only had to wait 5 minutes! It was awesome! We were able to have a good meal finish off the day well. After dinner we walked back to Burrard St. sky train where there were NO waits for the train. We hopped on got a seat and headed back out to Surrey. We were very lucky with not really having to experience to many waits for things. We saw lots of lines.....but that was about it!

We had such a great time, great memories and to be able to say we were at the 2010 Winter Olympics is definitely very fun and special!