We hired our good friend Duff to report to us live from Vancouver from the Winter Olympics, and he has been more than obliging. He should be, considering how hefty his paycheck is. Needless to say, being named “Best Phillies Blog” by PW has made us rich beyond our wildest dreams, and we figured it was best spent in sending reporters to the Olympics (don’t worry, we’ve also spent a fair amount of our newfound fortune on blow and disreputable women.) Here is Duff’s final report from Vancouver, one in which the Canadian rips the US for all of their 2nd and 3rd place finishes. 

The last two weeks saw Canada get the most gold medals ever in a winter Olympics. We were not able to get as many second and third place prizes as other countries (ahem) but that’s okay. You can keep all those third place trophies next to your higher-than-Cuba’s-infant-mortality rate and lack of affordable healthcare. Seems fair.  Actually, we are just not used to trying to make a failure a positive thing. Imagine celebrating a bunch of NFC championship game losses like they meant something. You get the idea.

Anyway, people here came out of the collective shells and were awash in patriotism. Not the kind where you tie a yellow ribbon to a tree and pretend that makes it okay for poor kids to go and die on the other side of the earth while you sacrifice nothing. The actual kind. The whole city was smiling for 17 days and that was pretty sweet to see. Whether it was ice dancing, women’s bobsled or even a real sporting event like men’s skeleton or hockey we supported our hometown athletes with gusto. Whenever a GOLD medal was won by the Canadians a cheer was audible throughout the city. Even for curling. Whenever a goal was scored in hockey there were air horns, cars honking and people screaming form apartment windows. An awesome feeling. I imagine Philly being like that after the World Series. lots of positive energy and little negativity. It made me wish I had been on Broad street two falls ago. I digress..

Not all was smooth – there were still insane lines for things like the zipline. I got there two hours before it opened the other day and the line was already longer than 7 hours. Not going to happen. They are reopening it for the paralympic games so I’ll go then. Should be less of a wait I am guessing. Instead I went skating at the free rink downtown. I am awful at ice skating and quit after a few teenagers (I feel old typing that word) sped by me a little too close for comfort so I retired to the general madness of the city. Lots of street performers and the like.

There were a few sad notes – Cheryl Bernard choked and got the silver in women’s curling. She is super hot and that is the bad part. I don’t bat an eye when ugly people lose since God couldn’t be bothered to make them look good on my tv. But Cheryl is a hottie (for a middle aged curler) so it is sad. If Gabe Kaplan had lost (and was Canadian) I wouldn’t have minded as much. 

Then there was hockey. This is the event Canadians have been talking about since I moved here. SIX YEARS AGO. To say there was dwarf star-like pressure on those guys is an understatement (Honestly, McNabb doesn’t know pressure like the kind Crosby was under in these Olympics). All the sports shows have been agonizing about possible line combinations and permutations since last summer. It is the sporting event that makes people here feel like they are part of something bigger than a peaceful country with lots of natural resources, plenty of clean water, a small population, and the ability to provide for its own domestic energy needs without going abroad. The bars in the city had lines snaking around the block from 9am on Sunday, even at ‘the pumpjack’. That is our equivalent of ’12th Street Air Command’. 

I saw the game in the relative safety of an apartment building as I was a little afraid of there being a Robson riot part 2. Fortunately we won GOLD, bitches!

And then there was pandemonium. I walked about in a very drunken haze for a few hours, high fiving cops and other random folks on Granville street before eventually going to bed when Alanis Morrisette started singing. Even I have limits to my patriotism. 

All in all it was a great two weeks and I am a bit sad to see it end. The city was sober and quiet yesterday. Back to being boring Canadians again. Only with more GOLD medals than anybody in winter Olympic history and the realization that we kick ass.