By Ian Haysom, Special to Times Colonist February 6, 2010
I was at the International Media Centre at Robson Square this week picking up my Olympic accreditation and witnessed, within three minutes, both the stupidity and ecstasy of the Games.
First, the stupidity: I had gone outside, with one of our reporters, to check on our broadcast location.
It has a good view over the square, which has been transformed into a winter wonderland of excitement, complete with skating rink, Olympic murals and thousands of lights. A zip-line will take thrill-seekers across Robson Street.
As we were standing on the broadcast platform, two young people dressed in official garb came by and began using masking tape to cover anything that resembled a logo.
Not big logos. But teeny-tiny logos, such as two-centimetre-high marks on the inside of the canopies. These weren't so much logos as the names of the maker of the tents. Small battery packs were censored. Any name that wasn't an official sponsor was obliterated.
The kids were working for the Olympic Secretariat, a name that fills me with dread. It has a Soviet ring about it, like the Central Commissariat. The party shall dictate everything. Do not doubt us.
It turned out the site was to be inspected the following day by members of the International Olympic Committee. It had to be, in Olympic parlance, "clean."
It all felt like overkill. Yes, protect the sponsors, but this was taking it to ludicrous lengths. The IOC feels too often like the Politburo. The Boxing Kangaroo flag flap at the Athlete's Village shows they don't have a sense of humour.
A few minutes earlier, I'd witnessed the positive vibe of the Games. Mary McNeil, the minister of state for the Olympics, was standing outside a door at the media centre, checking her BlackBerry.
I walked up and said hello. I've known her for many years and always liked and respected her. She's a smart and immensely capable woman, but a rookie MLA thrown into a tough portfolio.
She is also the minister in charge of the Olympic Secretariat. I guess that makes her Big Sister.
McNeil told me she had been in Powell River the previous evening for ceremonies as the torch passed through town. It was, she said, one of the most memorable evenings of her life.
The crowd was the biggest ever to gather in the town. Local native bands were front and centre in the celebrations. "They even cheered me," she said, delighted, noting it's an NDP riding.
"You know, I've never felt so proud to be a Canadian," McNeil said. And she meant it. It wasn't political-speak. Everywhere, as this torch moves across this country, there's an outpouring of pride and joy.
As the torch went by Squamish Thursday, people were singing O Canada in the streets. The crowds are growing by the day. If you aren't touched by that Royal Bank ad showing the flame moving across the country, uniting us all, then you have veins of ice.
There is a buzz in downtown Vancouver that I haven't witnessed in years.
But yes, these are Games of truly mixed emotions. We know the Vancouver Olympics only have 50 per cent support in this province, though that will likely grow over the next few weeks.
We in the media have done, I think, a balanced job of showing the good and bad of the Games, neither becoming overly jingoistic nor negative naysayers. We've given room for the boosters and the protesters.
We've shown those who have been hurt by the Games and those who have been helped. We've told the heroic stories, and documented official heavy-handedness. We've doggedly reported the costs, and hidden costs, of the Olympics to the taxpayers.
We've told how Vancouver and the suburbs will be transformed into a wondrous array of free pavilions and live entertainment sites and we've reported how Olympic road rage is now de rigueur in this increasingly suffocating city.
There's still a lot of this story to be told. We have to keep asking the tough questions, holding officials' feet to the fire. And we have to celebrate the victories.
It's a great story, full of twists and turns, drama and emotion. And a happy ending? We'll know soon enough.
Ian Haysom is news director of Global News in Vancouver. He divides his week between Central Saanich and Vancouver.
"We've told how Vancouver and the suburbs will be transformed into a wondrous array of free pavilions and live entertainment sites".....
Ian, if you think any of this is free, you're in the wrong business. I recommend that you need to immediately move from the News Department, to, say, Promotions, where disingenuousness is considered an asset...
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