Proud to be Canadian!

Well, as the saying goes, "All good things must come to an end".

Today, Day 17, is the last day of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. It's bittersweet, I have really enjoyed watching various events over the last seventeen days, but, it will be nice to start going to bed on time again!

I guess it means I can take this down...



This is the giant, 2 foot by 3 foot, Olympic schedule that Curt printed at work.

I know that I will always remember certain parts of these Olympic Games, and they will be good memories. Four years ago, the Olympics were hosted by Turin, Italy...I know that Jeffrey Buttle won bronze in Men's Figure Skating (the only Canadian medal in Figure Skating), but I have no memory of his skate. And then there was Salt Lake City, eight years ago. Unfortunately, the only memory I have of those games is an embarrassment to Figure Skating. A major judging scandal saw Canadian Pairs team, Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, robbed of their gold medal! It was obvious, even to people who knew nothing about figure skating, that they deserved the gold...but, it was awarded to a Russian pair. The ISU, in a lame attempt to rectify the situation, awarded Sale and Pelletier a second gold medal...so they shared with the Russians.

My top three Vancouver memories...

#1. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir winning Gold in Ice Dance!!!
#2. Joannie Rochette winning Bronze, skating only days after her mothers sudden death

and

#3. Watching the Men's Hockey Team defeat the USA for gold. I know, you're surprised one of my top three memories has to do with hockey :) It's hard to ignore the hockey fever though...and, we had six friends over the watch the game, so it was FUN times! I have to say though, I wish Iginla had scored the winning goal...or, anyone other than Sidney Crosby (I have managed to avoid 'Sid the Kid' fever).

Coming into these games, we heard a lot about the 'Own the Podium' campaign; the goal was to bring home the most medals of the games. Technically, that goal was not met, Canada coming in third in the medal standings (behind the US and Germany), BUT we have plenty to be proud of! Most notably, the fact that we set a new record for the number of GOLD medals won by a country...we won 14 GOLD medals...yup, that's FOURTEEN!!!

With results like that, we will anxiously await the Sochi (Russia) Winter Olympics ...too bad we have to wait until 2014 :)