Winter 3 Minnesota Vikings 0

Consider the curious case of the Minnesota Vikings, old man Brett Favre and Old Man Winter.

First the Metrodome in Minneapolis ripped and collapsed under the weight of snow on Dec. 12. Fox was there! The New York Giants' flight to Minneapolis was already diverted to Kansas City. The NFL moved the game to Ford Field in Detroit on Dec 13. Detroit fans are used to the home team losing, and that's what the Vikings did by a 21-3 score.

Then the big top in Minny couldn't be mended and reinflated fast enough. The Vikings had to finish their home schedule outdoors at TCF Bank Stadium, the home of the Minnesota Golden Gophers that opened in September 2009. The arch-rival Chicago Bears beat the Vikings 40-14 and knocked Favre out of the Dec. 20 game, his first since the record 297-game streak ended the previous week.

The outdoor game was on the 29th anniversary of the last Vikings' game at Metropolitan Stadium. The Met was demolished to make way for the Mall of America, which is coincidentally the title sponsor of the sad-sack Metrodome.

Finally, to complete the trifecta, the Vikings' NBC Sunday Night Football game in Philadelphia against the Eagles on Dec. 26 was postponed to Dec. 28 because of a blizzard forecast.

This has to be Murphy's Law at its best. On Dec. 11, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies declared January to November temperatures were about to make 2010 the warmest on record. (Translation: warmest in the 131 years of record-keeping on a planet estimated to be 4.5 billion years old.)

Western Europe and Eastern North America have been pummelled with enough La Nina-related freezing temperatures and snow to remind us all that Mother Nature has the last laugh. Humans should be handling the planet with exponentially more care than already given, but to think humans have dominion over this planet is pure folly. Let's wait and see if any credible scientists can definitively connect the December 2010 northern hemisphere weather to the controversial human-caused global warming theories. During this doozy of a December, Team Skeptic has possession of the ball in enemy territory.

Let's also wait to see whether David Suzuki or Al Gore registered an uptick in book sales at airport stores while travellers were stranded because of too much snow on runways or not enough de-icing chemicals were available to defrost plane-sicles. Might travellers pondering how to kill time snickered at the celebrity zoologist and the ex-vice-president and bought the latest sudoku puzzle book instead?

The weather has cost the Vikings and NFL millions of dollars, but they're both organizations that can afford to withstand a financial storm. Smaller leagues do not. Major League Soccer has been under FIFA pressure to switch to a fall-through-spring schedule. Commissioner Don Garber announced on Nov. 21 during halftime of the MLS Cup in Toronto that the league would study the concept. That was less than two weeks before FIFA snubbed the United States' 2022 World Cup bid in favour of Qatar's.

Even if Garber's olive branch remains extended, expect any such study to return with thumbs-down on a schedule that includes Games in December (or, for that matter, January). Even if the weather were friendlier, the North American sports market is already jammed with NFL, NBA, NCAA and NHL (in that order) dominating December and January.

Getting teams, fans, workers and media safely and securely to and from games when the weather worsens at this time of year is no easy task. Expect Major League Soccer to continue going March to November for many years to come.

* * * * *
Bottom of the Basket: While Minnesota taxpayers and politicians debate a replacement for the Metrodome, British Columbians are counting the months until B.C. Place Stadium reopens from a $563 million renovation. This massive infusion of public money was made after the Jan. 5, 2007 rip and collapse at the Metrodome's 1983-opened cousin. An engineering report concluded the B.C. Place disaster was preventable. The snow-melting system was not turned on when it should have been. Wind was not a factor.

Blustery November and December weather has not made things easy for construction crews. By Christmas, 33 of the 36 roof support towers and cable nets had been installed. This phase of the job won't be done until early January. B.C. Pavilion Corporation chairman David Podmore said in a Nov. 5 tour that all 36 would be installed by year-end.

The precise opening date has not been announced, but the B.C. Pavilion Corporation construction committee was told Aug. 20 that substantial completion may not be until Nov. 1, 2011. The Nov. 26, 2011 Vanier Cup and Nov. 27, 2011 Grey Cup are the only two events confirmed. The B.C. Lions and Vancouver Whitecaps are both selling season ticket packages, based on the B.C. Place seating configuration.

B.C. Place could become the showpiece stadium in North American market for the lightweight, retractable roof technology pioneered in Germany by Schlaich Bergermann and Partner. The firm's managing director Knut Göppert told me in Stuttgart in September that the Vancouver project was his company's top priority because of the potential for both new construction and retrofit projects. I'd have to think he's watching the Minneapolis situation very, very closely.

Inside Commerzbank Arena and B.C. Place Stadium

What's it like inside B.C. Place Stadium while it undergoes a $563 million renovation to become more like Commerzbank Arena in Frankfurt, Germany?

Join me for a quick tour of the 2005-renovated home of the Bundesliga's Eintracht Frankfurt here and the past and future home of the B.C. Lions and Vancouver Whitecaps here.

6 months after Olympics, is Vancouver better?

Where were you six months ago today? Today being Aug. 28, 2010. Six months ago being Feb. 28, 2010.

It was the last day of February and the last day of the the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver and Whistler.

The biggest sporting event on the planet that day was a certain 12:15 p.m. faceoff in downtown Vancouver between Canada and the United States to decide the men’s hockey gold medal in the final event of the Games.

It ended in triumph as Sidney Crosby scored in sudden-death overtime to give Canada the last gold medal of Vancouver 2010 and a record 14 host-team Olympic championships.

International Olympic Committee marketing director Timo Lumme estimated 114 million people around the world were watching the Game. That’s a bigger number than Super Bowl.

Other numbers involving Vancouver 2010 are less impressive. Total estimated viewership was 1.8 billion, which is less than the 3.5 billion Lumme forecast during the Games. VANOC sold 1.49 million of 1.54 million tickets available, despite insisting during the Games that the inventory was 1.6 million. VANOC continues to claim it will balance its $1.76 billion budget. But only after at least $80 million in direct bailouts from taxpayers. Corporate sponsors didn't come to the table or scaled back spending, causing ripple effects and chaos behind-the-scenes.

VANOC is operating under a financial information blackout despite being a signatory to the 2002 Multi-Party Agreement that required quarterly financial reports. Clearly, the task of closing the books is harder than originally envisioned. It still must compensate owners of Whistler Blackcomb and Cypress for use of their slopes, resolve a nasty $10 million contract dispute with charter bus contractor Gameday Management and somehow reclaim $2 million from Visa and an insurer after at least three Latvians used stolen credit cards to buy thousands of tickets on the official VANOC scalping website.

VANOC will be remembered for organizing the Games amid the worst economic climate since the Great Depression. But the Games organizer’s business plan incorrectly assumed there would be no recession of any size before or during the Games.

The debates will rage for many months and years on the impacts of the $6 billion-plus Games and how politicians for the ruling B.C. Liberals downplayed the costs and overstated the benefits.

The Sea-to-Sky Highway is a safer, smoother ride. A tunnel would've been nicer than razing the Eagle Ridge Bluffs forest and swamp, however. The Canada Line is the rapid transit downtown to airport link Vancouver has always needed. The Vancouver Convention Centre is a world-class convention centre that is already bringing big meetings and events downtown that previously would not have fit.

Too bad all three of the above cost more than $3.5 billion combined. Once upon a time, the price tag for all three was estimated to be under $2 billion.

The Vancouver Olympic Centre’s pool is open. Yes, taxpayers built a recreation centre when what the International Olympic Committee ordered was a curling rink. Where the curling rink was will be a hockey rink. Killarney and Trout Lake got a fine new hockey rink each, but not additional ice sheets.

Likewise the Richmond Olympic Oval, where a pair of hockey rinks will open after reconfiguration of the ice plant. The speedskating oval ice surface is hidden for possible future use. The key word is possible.

The Vancouver Olympic Village is a ghost town. The social housing is not open and not enough luxury suites have been bought and occupied by those that can afford them. The community centre is open, the Urban Fare and London Drugs are coming soon. Who knows about the brewpub that was supposed to occupy the Salt Building. The big, red heritage shack is empty. The seawall and man-made island in False Creek are popular with walkers and rollers.

Across the way, B.C. Place Stadium is undergoing a pioneering $563 million post-Games renovation that was supposed to cost $365 million. Let’s hope its retractable roof doesn’t malfunction like the one at Olympic Stadium in Montreal after its post-Games installation.

Robson Square, the biggest free public magnet of the Games, is closed for renovations. Who knows when the GE-sponsored public ice rink will reopen.

The Olympic Streetcar came and went from its False Creek South line between the Canada Line’s Olympic Village Station and Granville Island. Bombardier was willing to leave the two Brussels streetcars there through summer, but city hall had other priorities. Like homes for chickens, more bike lanes and an expensive renovation to Mayor Gregor Robertson and city manager Penny Ballem’s offices.

General Motors Place was Canada Hockey Place for the Games, but is now Rogers Arena. The automaker that drove through bankruptcy last year was under pressure to drive out of its naming rights deal early. The Toronto telecommunications company, a minor partner in the Canadian Olympic Broadcasting Consortium, took over.

The Countdown Clock at the Vancouver Art Gallery still displays zeros, but its days there are numbered. The Olympic half is destined for B.C. Place Stadium's B.C. Sports Hall of Fame. The Paralympic half is going to the Whistler Olympic Park's day lodge. Will there be a permanent memorial to Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, the 21-year-old who died on the Whistler Sliding Centre track on opening day of the 21st Games?

The Downtown Eastside remains Canada’s home for the homeless. An urban ghetto like no other in North America. The Woodward’s complex has breathed new life into the neighbourhood, but the area remains full of people who are ill and addicted, wandering aimlessly, in need of help.

The Games were, essentially, a strategy to improve the real estate and tourism industries.

House sales boomed for a few months after the Games, until hitting the brakes in July with a 20.1 percent drop in Vancouver.

Have you seen all the “for lease” signs outside offices and warehouses in Metro Vancouver? The city’s vacancy rate for the first half of 2010 was officially under 5 percent, but the suburbs are suffering.

Burnaby’s 13.08 percent vacancy rate is 6 percent worse than 2009. Richmond’s 17.58 percent is 5 percent worse than the previous year. Yes, there is new supply on the market that has yet to be absorbed, but there many companies big and small companies downsizing or disappearing.

The Microsoft Canada Development Centre in Richmond is shutting down this fall and remaining employees are moving to downtown Vancouver. That's a 73,000 square foot space for lease and it's not the only one in the Knight Street corridor in Richmond, which is rapidly becoming a lonely place to locate.

Metro Vancouver Commerce, an economic development campaign drive by Vancouver, Richmond and Surrey, claims it created $60 million to $70 million of new business to the region because of the Olympics. But the MVC publicity bumph is easily dissected. Two of the deals announced were worth $52 million combined and involved existing partnerships. The promotion
took credit for the six-and-a-half-year, $27 million contract extension between Lockheed Martin of Maryland and Abbotsford-based Cascade Aerospace, even though Abbotsford was not an MVC participant.

Organizers won't disclose the names of the 100 businesspeople they wined and dined during the Olympics. In fact, MVC appears to have been a sly strategy for staff of the city-funded Vancouver Economic Development Commission to get free Olympic tickets while helping VANOC boost its slumping sales after sponsors cut back.

Tourism Vancouver says overnight stays are up 4.8 percent through June, but that’s in comparison to 2009 which was not a banner year. The February figure of 547,357 was the best February ever, breaking the 2008 mark of 507,199. January showed a year-over-year drop, but March, April, May and June showed improvements over 2009. Except February, all months measured were below the annual averages since 2005.

July and August are the bread-and-butter, million-plus visitor months for Vancouver tourism. Those numbers, when tabulated, will tell us whether the $38.6 million taxpayer-funded You Gotta Be Here tourism ad campaign was worth it.

Federal and British Columbia politicians spending billions of your dollars on economic stimulus projects want you to believe in an economic rebound and a post-Olympic boom. Could the opposite have happened: A minor, post-Games recession, perhaps?

It will take more months than just six to fully assess the legacies of the biggest event in British Columbia history. In some cases, it will take years.

Nobody can deny that it was the city's greatest party. But was the hangover worth it?

Bottom to TOP

The economic recovery may best be described as "fragile," but yet another sign of progress will become apparent on Wednesday. That's when Procter and Gamble is expected to become the newest member of the International Olympic Committee's TOP sponsor roster in London, site of the 2012 Summer Games.

VANOC could have used such an alliance. It had to buy a heckuva lot of toilet paper, shampoo and soap for the Olympic Village. Ivory Soap and Colgate toothpaste, and Hain Celestial's Jason and Avalon Organics products were on the shelves of the general stores at the athletes' villages.

Meanwhile, Cinncinati-based P&G was already in Vancouver as a U.S. Olympic Committee sponsor. It took over the Simon Fraser University Wosk Centre for Dialogue and transformed it into the P&G Family Home for athletes and relatives from the Excited States. It included a Pringles Room, Tide Laundry Centre and Pampers Village kids play area.

The IOC doesn't release details of the TOP program, but it's believed to be in the neighbourhood of $100 million per Games. The IOC paid VANOC $22 million in compensation after it failed to add two sponsors to the list of nine. The decrease in global activation hit VANOC hard. When the IOC made its bailout offer, the governments of Canada ($30.7 million) and British Columbia ($50 million) also bucked up with bailout funds.

On July 16, Dow became a sponsor through 2020. Dow was a VANOC sponsor and would have become a global sponsor sooner had the recession not happened. Environmental sustainability is the IOC's third pillar, after sport and culture. Dow walks a fine line. Many environmentalists are quick to remind those who listen that Dow bought Union Carbide. A December 1984 leak at the company's Bhopal, India pesticide factory killed almost 3,800 people, according to a government estimate. More than half-a-million people were injured. Dow claims no responsibility because it had no stake in Union Carbide at the time. It was a disaster waiting to happen, according to investigators.

Another disaster waiting to happen, according to the New York Times, was that British Petroleum oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The biggest waterborne environmental catastrophe in United States history involves a company that became a U.S. Olympic Committee sponsor before Vancouver 2010. BP is also an official sponsor of London 2012. Rogge said that it would be welcome to remain, so long as there is no proof that the oil rig disaster was caused by negligence.

Vancouver 2010: more modest than believed

The snow is almost all gone from Cypress Mountain. Yeah, the snowboarding and freestyle skiing venue that needed truckloads of snow from almost 200 kilometres away in February had a March and April dump that kept the slopes white in May.

Something else is melting. The superficial political sloganeering that Vancouver 2010 was the most successful Winter Olympics ever.

Do you believe? I don't and you shouldn't.

Let's be realistic. A recession happened on the way to the Games. VANOC assumed no recession, big or small, would happen before the Games. Oops. The fact that Vancouver 2010 happened, had few empty seats at ice events and filled the streets of Vancouver with revellers should be celebrated. IOC president Jacques Rogge couldn't have chosen better words to describe the Games than "excellent" and "friendly."

But they weren't as excellent as IOC marketing director Timo Lumme speculated at a Feb. 23 news conference in the main press centre. Lumme grandly estimated that 3.5 billion people -- half the population of the planet -- would watch Vancouver 2010 by the time it was over.

That 3.5 billion figure was taken for gospel by the world media and became the rallying cry for politicians like Premier Gordon Campbell.

Well, the July 6-published IOC Marketing Report for Vancouver 2010 tells a different, more modest story. The potential audience for the Games was 3.8 billion. That's the number of people with access to televisions with channels containing coverage of the Games.

But the real number that Mr. Campbell should start using is 1.8 billion. That's the actual viewership globally.

Of course, Premier "Red-Ink" Mittens is used to reality checks and smaller numbers. He is, after all, plummeting in popularity on the strength (weakness?) of the HST, which is being used to pay the debt for being host of the 2010 Games.

By comparison, 3.5 billion was the IOC estimate for actual viewership of the Beijing Games in 2008.

The wildcard, however, is Internet viewership. The IOC doesn't count that because there is no similar means of measuring ratings scientifically. In North America and Europe, we know that TV viewers often surf the web simultaneously on their laptops or mobile phones. One person is one viewer, even if they're looking at two screens.

While the IOC revised downward its estimate of how many watched the Games, it finally disclosed how many tickets were used at the Games. I call this liberating information from the dreaded VANOC virtual waiting room.

VANOC has held onto such numbers so tightly. After a May 19 news conference, I approached both deputy CEO Dave Cobb -- whose portfolio included ticketing -- and chief financial officer John McLaughlin. They both played the "I don't know, ask him" game. Not very convincing. They knew the number, but didn't want it to be public until late fall when VANOC's audited final report is expected.

The IOC offered the real numbers and they're not record breaking. Vancouver 2010 claimed a 1.6 million-ticket inventory on the closing day of the Games. Meanwhile, the actual sales were 1.49 million out of 1.54 million, according to the IOC.

General admission tickets had been cancelled and refunded for Cypress Mountain events. Thousands of tickets were unsold for skiing and sliding events in Whistler.

In November 2009, the third Canadian phase was delayed because of the embarrassing programming malfunction of the hated virtual waiting room on the Tickets.com website.

The IOC reported $257 million revenue, which is just $3.4 million shy of the target.

At Salt Lake 2002, organizers reported in June of that year sales of 1,525,118 of 1,605,524 available tickets for US$183 million. At the time, the U.S. dollar was so strong that the Canadian equivalent was more than $290 million.

McLaughlin reluctantly admitted on July 20 that the IOC numbers are accurate. He also said efforts to resolve the $2 million loss from a Latvian Visa card fraud scam with an insurer and Visa itself were "slow" and likely to take months.

Remember when VANOC said in September 2008 that the public would get 70% of tickets and the Olympic family 30%? The scales tipped further to the public as a result of reduced activation by sponsors. The IOC report shows 71% of sales in Canada, 16% of sales internationally (including the U.S.), 11% to sponsors and broadcasters and 2% to the IOC and international sports federations.

Soul on ice

Could Dustin Byfuglien save hockey in Atlanta?

While Vancouver Canuck Henrik Sedin was celebrating a Hart Trophy, Byfuglien was quietly enjoying his Stanley Cup summer in Phoenix until he found out he was traded.

The Fugly One was a Chicago Blackhawk until June 23 when he was dealt to the Atlanta Thrashers. The 25-year-old from Minneapolis had 11 goals and five assists in the Hawks’ Stanley Cup run. He certainly got some votes for the Conn Smythe Trophy and was unpopular in Vancouver for getting in the way of Roberto Luongo so often.

Atlanta is the eighth-largest media marketplace in the United States and it is rich with sports, where the Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Falcons dominate the pro sports scene and the Georgia Bulldogs are the college mainstay. Basketball’s Atlanta Hawks are a bigger wintertime draw than the Thrashers, who averaged only 13,607 fans last season. That’s the third-worst attendance in the league.

Atlantans never did relate to Russian Ilya Kovalchuk, but they might just come to know and love The Fugly One.

While much was made of the Blackhawks marketing to African-American fans in Chicago, it’s a demographic that the Thrashers need for their survival. More than half of Atlantans are African-American.

Byfuglien, whose father was African-American Ricky Spencer, could end up playing on the same line in Atlanta with Vancouver Giants’ product Evander Kane. Kane was picked fourth overall last year by the Thrashers and is named after Atlanta heavyweight boxing superstar Evander Holyfield.

Atlanta is also the birthplace of Martin Luther King, who led the civil rights movement.

It's a long climb to the hilltop that is the Stanley Cup, but 2010-2011 could be the year Atlanta is spared from becoming the first city to lose two National Hockey League franchises. Thanks to Evander Kane and Dustin Byfuglien.

No Vancouver 2014

There will not be a Vancouver 2014.

Who would organize it and who would pay for it? VANOC is dismantling itself and, well, you know all about the British Columbia government's budget problems and the HST in the former Host-province.

Rumors swirled during Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Olympics that the Russians wouldn’t be ready to host the 2014 Winter Games because work had barely begun in Sochi.

Sochi 2014 president Dmitry Chernyshenko tried to thwart the rumors at a Vancouver news conference at the end of February by calling his hometown the “world’s biggest construction site.”

It wasn’t spin folks, it’s the truth. I was there last week and saw the massive amount of work to build venues, hotels, tunnels, bridges, port facilities and power plants. Some $30 billion of public and private money is being spent. It’s nothing like we saw in Vancouver because the Russians are building from scratch. It’s actually the winter version of Beijing. Chernyshenko wants the sporting venues to be finished two winters before his Games.

Work hasn’t begun on the 40,000-seat Olympic stadium near the shores of the Black Sea, but the Bolshoi Ice Palace hockey rink (below) is on-track to be finished by the end of next year. Sochi, like Vancouver, has a year-round, construction-friendly climate.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin didn’t come to Vancouver, but he hosted a dinner in Sochi for International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge on June 7. These are Putin’s Games. He is on a mission to make Russia a super-power again and not just in the realm of sports. This is also a second chance at hosting the five-ring circus. Thirty years ago, the Soviet Union hosted the 1980 Summer Olympics which were boycotted by 65 countries in the wake of the invasion of Afghanistan.

The peaks around Sochi, 2 kilometres high, still have snow from last winter. Despite the subtropical Black Sea coastal climate that gives Sochi-proper bananas and tea plantations, the mountains are snow magnets. Several resort villages are being built to accompany the alpine and nordic venues. There are 19,000 workers at 58 sites. They live in portables stacked three-deep in villages dotted along the banks of the Mzymta River. Mzymta means “crazy” and the level of work done to divert the river would probably not pass a Canadian environmental assessment.

With almost three-and-a-half years to go, the Games should also be built on-time, unless the doomsday predictions of Sergei Volkov come true. The consultant to Sochi 2014 quit and fled to Ukraine. He said a lack of engineering assessment has taken place and works are being conducted in a seismically active area with unstable slopes.

Ultimately, Sochi’s greatest weakness could be its lack of international sporting events and lack of English and French speakers. Organizers are scrambling to create a Russian volunteer culture. They already have a few quality people -- some 70 who participated in the June 7-10 Vancouver 2010 Debrief at the Krasnaya Polyana resort. But they will need more than 20,000 by Games-time.

The organizing committee has people with competent English language skills, but the same can’t be said for restaurateurs and cabbies. The frontline of the tourism industry.

While Sochi readies itself, June 22-23 in Lausanne, Switzerland will be the next chapter in bidding for the 2018 Winter Games. Representatives of Annecy, France, Munich, Germany and PyeongChang, South Korea will submit their applications. The IOC executive board could rubber stamp all three or make a short-list of two. The 2018 host will be decided next year at the IOC congress in Durban, South Africa.

There are already whispers of a Canadian bid for the 2022 Winter Games from Quebec City and a group in Calgary is preparing a challenge.

Are you tired of the IIHF?

International Ice Hockey Federation public relations czar Szymon Szemberg says he’s tired of Sidney Crosby and various, twentysomething hockey players claiming they’re too tired to play at the World Hockey Championship.

Well, I’m tired, too. Tired of Europeans who govern the Great Canadian Game holding a world championship that clashes with the Stanley Cup playoffs and calling it a world championship. It really is the “annual European springtime invitational.”

I’m tired of the IIHF forgetting that the NHL, whose fans pay players like Crosby, compressed its schedule in 2009-2010 to accommodate the Vancouver Olympics. Surely the IIHF must’ve noticed an increase in its Swiss bank account after the most-watched hockey tournament of all-time.

I’m tired of the IIHF neglecting opportunities to develop the game outside North America and Europe. Dear IIHF: did you hear about the economic boom in China and the construction of ice rinks all over Asia in the past decade?

I’m tired of the IIHF spending little time or money to develop women’s hockey and sledge hockey.

Most of all, I’m tired of the IIHF running its affairs like a secret society with a rule-breaking ex-referee as its president.

Rene Fasel was outed by a Swiss newspaper last year for alleged kickbacks. A Deloitte probe paid for by the IIHF was never published. Finally, after the Olympics, the International Olympic Committee said “tsk-tsk” to Fasel for favouring a friend, but it didn’t send Fasel to the penalty box.

Tiresome, isn’t it?

Cool Britannia or Tool Britannia?

It didn’t take long on May 19 for someone in cyberspace (do they still call it that?) to compare the phallic, one-eyed London 2012 mascots Wenlock and Mandeville to penises (can we say that on radio?).

What would you rather have? A union jack-draped bulldog named Winston with bad human teeth, wearing a bowler hat and monocle while hoisting a mug of room-temperature beer with his paw?

The mascots will be $30 million souvenir sales drivers for the next Summer Olympics and Paralympics, which already have a cubist logo that someone likened to Lisa Simpson getting ahead, if you know what I mean.



Can’t wait to see what kind of torch they’ll come up with in the new, Cool Britannia. Certainly it can’t top Vancouver’s joint-shaped torch.

The design of the Olympics, as we learned in Vancouver, is something that can never please all the people, all the time.

The least-controversial and perhaps most-popular element VANOC delivered was the look of the Games itself. Directed by the late Leo Obstbaum, the multi-layered, wavy green and blue, mountains and sea textured collage is almost all gone. You can still see some of it on the northeast side of the Pacific Coliseum.

Of course, VANOC had a rocky start in 2005 with its Ilanaaq the Inukshuk logo inspired by the English Bay inukshuk left over from Expo 86. Original artist Alvin Kanak never got recognition. Many people pointed out that there is no Inuit tribe in British Columbia, so why use a symbol of the north? The answer was easy. The federal government wanted to tell the world Canada was flexing its muscles in the Arctic. Don't trespass on our frozen tundra, eh!




The man becomes mountain-themed Paralympic logo was perhaps more suitable, but it was for the lower-profile Paralympics.

Mascots Miga, Quatchi and Sumi were one-part First Nations mythology and one-part cute Japanimation. Orange-toqued sidekick Muk Muk -- based on a real Vancouver Island marmot -- was never given the life-sized treatment.

Cuddly miniature versions are available at bulk liquidation sales for a fraction of the price paid by tourists at Games-time. (Hey, I thought sales records were set?)



So, welcome to the world, Wenlock and Mandeville. Because you’re British, someone probably told you already to keep a stiff upper lip. I’ll just tell you this from personal experience: A reader called me a dick once and I laughed at him.

While you’re ridiculed at home, you’ll be replicated by the millions in Chinese toy factories for the next two years. Just hope your bosses at London 2012 do what Vancouver 2010 executives failed to do: show and tell people where those factories are and how the workers are treated.

Make transparency a legacy of London 2012.

Vancouver 2010 didn’t have the heart and mind to be so bold.

Asia's sporting goods industry converges on Taipei

Treadmills, elliptical bikes, foosball tables and even baseball caps with magnetic sunglasses are on display at the Taipei World Trade Centre Nangang Exhibition Hall.

The April 29-May 2 TaiSPO -- Taipei International Sporting Goods Show -- has drawn 385 manufacturers, including 147 in the lucrative fitness equipment sector.

Taiwan counted more than $1 billion of exports in sporting goods in 2009, including $405.25 million in exercise and fitness equipment. Brands like Johnson Health and SportsArtFitness are exhibiting the latest in treadmills with screens that transform the exercise machine into a virtual reality tool. Johnson’s products include a screen that offers images of the Olympic National Forest in Washington State, for example.

The Lausanne, Switzerland-based World Federation for the Sporting Goods Industry used the occasion to stage its first manufacturers’ forum in Taiwan.

One foot in front of the other

Former Adidas executive vice-president and director Michel Perraudin pinch-hit for Frank Dassler, the general counsel for Adidas and part of the famed German sporting goods clan. Perraudin was the World Federation for the Sporting Goods Industry president from 2004-2007. Now a private consultant, he serves on the board of the Lausanne, Switzerland-based WFSGI.

Here's what he had to tell the media at the Taipei International Sporting Goods Show April 29 about how the industry is evolving.

“There is a shift now from working conditions to environment, to green products. This is something that is going to stay with us. Puma announced a couple of weeks ago that they would get rid of the outdoor boxes and replace the boxes with bags that are totally recyclable.

“You now have the bio-cotton which is coming, natural fibres which are evolving. However it is interesting, if you make an ecological balance between natural fibres and synthetic fibre, the synthetic fibre has strangely enough a better ecological balance than the natural fibre.

"If you were to decide tomorrow to replace all the synthetic fibres through wool or cotton, it could not happen. Our world would not have enough surface to generate all this and feed the population.

“Recyclable material is used for outsoles, to do sporting surfaces, playgrounds, it is obviously something where innovations will continue to evolve.

“However, there is one truth which is inescapable, the consumer at the end of the day until now in the vast majority of the cases is not buying because it’s ecological, but is buying because of the price, because of the look or the perceived quality of the product. It’s only up to now a minority of consumers that are making a buying decision which is based on ecological considerations.

“What is driving the industry is style and innovation, innovation on the hardware side. When we talk about footwear, it’s more innovation in the fabrics than it is innovation in technology. The footwear industry has not seen many technological innovations in the last 20 years. Nike is still using air, Asics still using gel. No real revolution in the footwear side of things. Much more development on the fibre side, the fabrics of the apparel side.”

Towards a no-sweat world

While it took western countries took two centuries to go through an industrial revolution, former Adidas executive vice-president Michel Perraudin says China is amid a 20-year industrial revolution.

Low wages and high productivity are China's hallmark and the reason why the biggest brands source their goods from mainland factories. Many of those factories can trace their heritage to Taiwan, where Asia’s top sporting goods companies are exhibiting their wares at the Taipei World Trade Centre through May 2 at TaiSPO -- the Taipei International Sporting Goods Show.

The convention kicked off April 29 with the World Federation for the Sporting Goods Industry’s 2010 manufacturers’ forum.
Executives from major retailers and brands spoke to an audience of manufacturers representing companies from Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China.

The world may be a long way from being sweatshop-free, but the international campaigns by various non-governmental organizations have made the issue of working conditions in sportswear factories top-of-mind among both consumers and the WFSGI.

Here's what two executives had to tell the manufacturers.

Intersport International Corp. business unit manager Markus Rist:

“No matter the size of the brand, it’s a requirement of the market that you have to fulfill. It’s not only a trend, it’s an absolute given fact. We are forced to comply with those unique regulations... the EU, the U.S., every market has more and more regulations. The sole objective of those regulations is to protect the consumer. This is nowadays so sensitive that nobody wants to burn his fingers. If you want to be a supplier to any of us, it’s a minimum requirement that you have to be able to fulfill and guarantee.

Vice-president of sourcing, quality and logistics New Balance Jim Sciabarrasi:

“The biggest issue that we have seen in the small manufacturer is a reluctance to embrace the compliance requirements. The requirements are not costly. For example, many small manufacturers believe the best scenario is to work many, many hours a week, but a very basic compliance requirement is to limit the amount of hours a week. When that happens, productivity goes up because quality goes up and there’s less retraining of workers who leave the small factory because they don’t like the life of working every single day, so many hours... The productivity more than makes up for the other requirements.”

* * * * *
One of the world’s biggest athletic footwear makers is Taichung, Taiwan-headquartered Pou Chen Group. The 1969-founded company uses its home base for research and development. It’s forecasting production of 250 million pairs of shoes in 2010, up 50 million from 2009, for brands like Adidas, Nike, Reebok, New Balance, Rockport, Asics, Timberland and Puma. PCG and subsidiary Yue Yuen Industrial Holdings have a workforce of 400,000 people at factories in China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Mexico and the U.S. PCG claims it makes one-in-seven pairs of branded shoes in the world.

PCG, by its sheer size, has been criticized by various non-governmental organizations for treatment of workers. Corporate social responsibility executive Eric Chi claimed the company has made progress with ventilation fans and air conditioning in factories, daycare centres and “spiritual consulting centres”, birthday parties for employees and ergonomic furniture “to reduce the fatigue and exhaustion of employees.”

Peacock plucked in Vancouver

Speaking of NBC, the Peacock network lost $223 million on its Vancouver 2010 coverage, according to the April 16-released quarterly report.

That’s $27 million better than the worst-case scenario, but $23 million worse than the original $200 million estimate of GE CEO Jeff Immelt.

NBC paid $2.2 billion for the Vancouver/London package in 2003 when the advertising market was rosier. A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to Vancouver, called the recession. The last time the Olympics were in a North American time zone was Salt
Lake 2002 when NBC made a $70 million profit.

The Games did bring $800 million in revenue to GE and the ratings were 14% higher than Turin 2006.

ESPN/ABC and FOX are readying to bid for Sochi 2014 and Rio de Janeiro 2016. Will NBC match their offers? s

Scranton 2010

I don’t know how much it costs to get your product mentioned on The Office.

That's because the going rate was censored from a document obtained under Freedom of Information. But it did reveal the cost of the British Columbia Olympic tourism campaign on NBC was $17.255 million.

The You Gotta Be Here campaign starred Michael J. Fox, Sarah McLachlan and Steve Nash. I revealed that it also included a product placement on The Office.

The Feb. 11 episode began with Michael Scott calling a Vancouver hotel to confirm a reservation for the Olympics. The Office also produced a web-exclusive video with a special song about Canada in general and B.C. in particular.

This is the new normal, folks. Because of digital video recorders, commercials are being skipped and advertisers’ money is being wasted. The only way to ensure bang for the buck is by being inside the content.

No peeking: VANOC hiding finances until the fall

VANOC has stopped issuing quarterly reports, which is contrary to the pledge made in November 2002’s Multiparty
Agreement. It said, should Vancouver win the Games, the organizing committee “will provide the parties with quarterly updates to the business plan within 60 days after the end of each quarter of each fiscal year, including forecasts of revenues and expenses."

CEO John Furlong said the rapidly shrinking VANOC workforce has no time to do reports anymore. Its last was for the quarter ended Oct. 31, 2009. The next and final report is coming in October.

“We’re in a completely different frame of mind, we’re trying to reconcile everything, we don’t have the time for that now,” he said after an April 16 Vancouver Board of Trade speech. “We need to get everything sorted out, you’ll get a full final report.

“We’re down to the smallest team we can have, we need to get out of business so that we have the best financial legacy that we can. Our team is infinitely smaller, we don’t have the resources we had through the Games to do that.”

The Games were a creative success that looked spectacular on TV. Even Mother Nature allowed the sun to shine for several days. But VANOC isn’t willing to let the sun shine on its financial figures until the fall. Until then, we can only speculate on the size of the International Olympic Committee and British Columbia government bailouts to make the books balance.

When we peel back the curtain, we’ll find that the recession made this the least successful Games since Montreal 1976.

Coming atcha in 3-D!

Why did I not line-up with the masses at the VANOC asset sale in Delta?

The 200,000 items were bought by the provincial government as part of its bailout of VANOC and Games-used high definition TVs were listed at $199 for Sharp 19-inch and $499 for Panasonic 40-inch.

HD TV is a relatively new innovation in North America and it will already be obsolete by this Christmas when 3-D high definition TVs will be among the must-have items.

In fact, 3-D is the next revolution in movie and TV experience. You can thank Fox and its Avatar. We've come along way from Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Stewardesses.

NCAA Final Four games are being offered in select movie theatres around the United States in 3-D.

An April 3 match between Manchester United and Chelsea was shown in 1,000 pubs around the United Kingdom in 3-D. Sky TV, which is owned by Fox, will offer a 3-D channel with English Premier League soccer matches to 2 million homes this fall.

Coming this June - in time for the FIFA World Cup - is ESPN's 3-D network. Only in the United States? Pity.

Broadcasters and film producers have solved two problems with 3-D. It'll allow them to generate new revenue with premium ticket and subscription prices from viewers who want a better experience. 3-D also gets them one step ahead of counterfeiters. Hardware makers like Panasonic, Sony, LG and Samsung are also salivating at the potential for the next generation of the boob tube.

Panasonic's pavilion at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics showcased Olympic ceremony footage in 3-D. Vancouver's Olympics were the first Winter Games in full high definition from the source. Sadly, they will also be remembered as the last of the 2-D broadcast era.

Canucks' tri-centennial not legit

The Vancouver Canucks are a marketing juggernaut and have cornered the market as the number one professional sports property. They have made General Motors Place the number one destination and Canucks' games the number one local TV draw.

Not so difficult to achieve with little competition, except for outdoor sports and recreation. The Canucks are Vancouver's only connection to a big continental sports league during dark and stormy winters. The sport is Canada's national winter pastime. Many Vancouverites are from points east of the Rockies where hockey is life. Just wait until 2011 when the Vancouver Whitecaps enter Major League Soccer and challenge the Canucks for the finite pool of ticket and sponsor money available in this market. You will quickly witness why Canucks' owner Francesco Aquilini was bidding against Greg Kerfoot for an MLS franchise.

The Canucks will be celebrating their 300th consecutive home sellout April 3 when the Minnesota Wild visit. I'm a stickler for statistical honesty and I won't be sending the Canucks a 300-candle cake.

Only the beancounters inside 800 Griffiths Way know how many tickets have been sold and distributed over the last 299 games.

I do know that on March 15, 2007 -- when the Canucks beat St. Louis 3-2 in overtime -- there were 18,325 tickets scanned by GM Place staff at the arena entries. The NHL scoresheet falsely reported the arena was at 18,630 capacity and that was also the attendance figure announced in the arena. I asked Canucks Sports and Entertainment for comment but never got a response.

The 18,325 figure comes from a Bunt and Associates study for the City of Vancouver's Olympic transportation office. The same report said 16,653 season ticket holders attended the game. Capacity was increased to 18,810 with the Best Buy Club for the 2009-2010 season.

The Canucks' average $62.05 ticket price is third highest in the NHL -- a portion of that revenue is shared with the league's struggling southern franchises including the Phoenix Coyotes. But most of the money stays here to support a franchise that still hasn't delivered a Stanley Cup to its fans after almost 40 years.

Fans love the franchise too much. One could argue it doesn't have the incentive to make a Cup run because the organization is not desperate for revenue. Cup-winners like Tampa Bay, Carolina and Anaheim were. The proliferation of spring concert tours and big events like the Ultimate Fighting Championship fill GM Place dates and keep the Aquilinis flush with cash.

Stadium casino deal: more questions than answers

British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell and B.C. Pavilion Corporation chairman David Podmore gave themselves a pat on the back March 26 for finding some revenue to pay for the $563 million B.C. Place Stadium renovation.

Less than a week later, the deal began to look rather underwhelming.

Paragon Gaming announced March 26 that it planned to build a $450 million casino and hotel complex in a parking lot west of the stadium. The land was put up for lease by PavCo, the taxpayer-owned Crown corporation that operates B.C. Place.

The stadium closes April 4 and the air-supported fabric roof will be deflated May 3. A $458 million retractable roof will be applied in time for the stadium to reopen in summer 2011. The B.C. Lions will play in a temporary stadium at Empire Field in 2010.

Tourism minister Kevin Krueger, whose ministry is responsible for PavCo, told a budget hearing on Wednesday that Paragon was among just two bidders that responded to the request for proposals in spring 2009. He refused to name the runner-up. The B.C. Liberal government has a problem with credibility and transparency, so skeptics will wonder if there was really a runner-up. But I'll give Krueger benefit of the doubt for now.

Could the tiny response to such a lucrative opportunity be because banks are reluctant to lend to developers who do not own the land they are building on? That is the basic reason behind the City of Vancouver bailout of Vancouver Olympic Village developer Millennium. Wall Street hedge fund subsidiary Fortress Credit Corporation took the risk that no mainstream bank wanted to and then walked away when the recession hit.

Paragon has a 70-year lease at $6 million annually. It'll be adjusted for inflation after 10 years. PavCo wants to sell the name of the stadium, more advertising inside, book more events and lease more land. The business plan and financing formula, however, are shrouded in secrecy. Both Campbell and Podmore told me that it won't be published. Cabinet secrecy is the reason. The government doesn't trust taxpayers (shouldn't it be the other way around), so you and I are unable to learn about the most-expensive stadium renovation in Canadian history.

Krueger also confirmed that T. Richard Turner phoned him to discuss the Paragon proposal. Turner is a director of VANOC, chairman of ICBC, former chairman of the B.C. Lottery Corporation and frequent donor to the B.C. Liberals. He is a minority shareholder in Paragon's Canadian subsidiary which operates Edgewater Casino at the Plaza of Nations in downtown Vancouver.

Krueger said Turner “called me to make sure that I knew that the retractable roof was if not a deal-killer, at least Paragon wouldn't be able to make the same proposal that it had made to (PavCo), and that was our only conversation.”

PavCo CEO Warren Buckley claimed Turner did not participate in negotiations or influence the content of the lease. But the optics are certainly odd.

Why is PavCo relying on a casino company part-owned by a friend of the Premier when the Vancouver Whitecaps' ownership group and B.C. Lions' owner David Braley have deep pockets and stand to gain because of the renovations? This is, after all, a government that privatized B.C. Rail and has entertained all manner of partnerships with the private sector.

The governing Liberals were dead-set against gambling expansion when they were the opposition and the NDP was considering "Monaco-style" casinos in the 1990s. A B.C. Medical Association study called Stepping Forward: Improving Addiction Care in British Columbia was published. It says alcoholism and gambling addiction are more prevalent in B.C. than drug addiction. An estimated 159,000 people in B.C. are addicted to gambling -- that's more people than attended the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics and the men's gold medal hockey game!

Until Campbell and Podmore realize they're playing a high stakes game with taxpayers' money and taxpayers deserve transparency, I will wonder if this is another Fast Ferries or Convention Centre scandal waiting to happen.

Paralympics lost in a sea of big-time sport

Filipino Manny Pacquiao, the pound-for-pound best boxer in the world, won the first fight at the new Cowboy Stadium.

Michael Schumacher started his Formula 1 comeback in Bahrain.

The IndyCar season started in Sao Paulo.

David Beckham suffered a World Cup dream-ending achilles injury.

Curling’s Brier was on in Halifax, so was Grapefruit and Cactus League baseball and NFL free agency.

The March Madness bracket was released for the NCAA men’s basketball playoffs.

The Vancouver Canucks played their first home game after a six-week, Olympic-imposed vacation from General Motors Place.

Winter sports athletes who starred at the Vancouver Olympics in skiing and snowboarding finished their world cup tours.

Oh yeah, the Paralympics began.

Para-what?

Sure, we know that the Winter Games for athletes with a disability are a magnificent spectacle of amateur sports because the event is happening in our backyard until March 21. But what about the rest of the world?

Not so much.

Paralympians from 44 countries are enjoying their own stage, but it’s a small stage that is getting little attention from the rest of the world because of the sheer volume of bigger events with recognizable names. As long as this continues, the Paralympics will always be the add-on to the Olympics and the athletes will have little chance at stardom.

International Paralympic Committee president Sir Philip Craven fails to realize that his stubborn stance is actually stunting the growth of sports for people with disabilities.

Dr. Robert Steadward of Edmonton, the IPC’s founding president, boldly stated on March 10 that the Winter Paralympics should be held simultaneously with the Winter Olympics in the same city and venues for the sake of efficiency and to increase the profile. People with disabilities want equality.

There were 2,803 accredited written and photographic press personnel from around the world at the Vancouver Olympics.
There are less than 600 at the Paralympics and most of them are from British Columbia outlets. Most of the world media has gone home and turned its attention elsewhere.

“We believe that Paralympians compete at the Paralympics and there’s no real need for them to compete at the Olympics,” Craven said at a March 12 news conference.

“It’s not my idea of progress, we’ve got a good formula now with the Winter Games and Summer Games,” Craven said. “This is the way it is, and I don’t believe in changing formulae when they work.”

But it doesn’t work because the Paralympics have only two major sponsors -- Visa and Samsung -- and even the big Olympic broadcasters like NBC in the United States and CTV in Canada pay lip service to coverage. If Paralympians could compete in their events during the Olympic period, they would naturally have huge attention.

I was reminded of the power of the Olympics at the Paralympic opening ceremony when Rick Hansen captivated the nearly 60,000 fans in B.C. Place Stadium with his moving speech about the power of sport.

Hansen wheeled around the world from 1985 to 1987 to raise funds for spinal cord research and to campaign for access and equality for people with disabilities. In 1984 Hansen raced in a 1,500 metre event during the Los Angeles Olympics in Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It was broadcast worldwide. The kid from Williams Lake was a global star because he was on a global stage.

If he competed in a second-tier event seen by few after those Olympics, would Hansen’s Man in Motion world tour have been so successful? Would he be one of the most-trusted, most-inspirational Canadians?

Just asking.

Integrate the Paralympics and Olympics. Celebrate the spirit of athletes of all abilities in the same event. The time has come.

Mulling marketing with IOC's Lumme

International Olympic Committee marketing and TV services director Timo Lumme spoke to media at the Main Press Centre in Vancouver on Feb. 23 about economic conditions now and in the future for the five-ring circus.

On The Olympic Partner sponsor program:

“We have nine at the moment and the level of financial contribution is higher than it was for the previous quadrennial (US$883 million vs. US$866 million). We have the opportunity now that some of the partners for varying reasons their industries have changed or their structures have changed or they’ve been taken over by other companies, they’ve moved away...

"We have the opportunity to look to have an internal scorecard, just like you’re choosing your friends, we want to be in a position to choose the best. We want them to understand the Olympic brand and fundamental values.”

On the cost of IOC rights fees and whether broadcasters may decide to pay less in the future:

"The IOC has never forced any broadcaster to pay any money. At the end of the day, through a bidding process the broadcaster who wishes to pay the most gets the deal. And that's the way it's been, and that's the way it's going to be in the future.

"We are very confident that the Olympic Games will retain a premium status as a world event and I think it will command a premium price."

On whether the IOC might consider changing the clean-venue policy that prohibits advertising in venues:

"We speak to our partners regularly about that. They have always consistently said, 'No, keep the same, we want a clean venue policy, that's what makes the Olympic Games special.' There's no plan whatsoever to change that policy."

On the impact of social media and its potential economic benefits and drawbacks:

“That allows people to engage more with the Olympic brand, what we’re seeing is really a phenomenon where people are able to have more touch points. That’s a huge boost to us. Then if you put the video coverage aspect in the middle that for us carries a greater value.

“It’s a symbiotic, complementary relationship. What we want to achieve is not just the great experience for 17 days but we’d like Olympic fans to feel that they’re connected 365 days of the year even outside the Games period.

“Generally we’ve done gatekeeper deals where we do all means and media, then it’s up to the rights holder in that territory and they decide how to partition and create the coverage across different platforms.

“In Brazil, new media rights were sold first with Terry by Telefonica, then we did pay TV, satellite and standard. This just reflects that it’s a fast-evolving marketplace.”

On Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, two sponsors whose flagship products are seen as unhealthy by critics:

“Both are longtime Olympic sponsors. On the one hand they’re completely committed to the Olympic values, they will promote our brand and make sure that they are reaching young people trying to aspire to better themselves through sport.

“The financial assistance they provide to us, 92 cents of every dollar we get goes towards various programs we have to put on the Olympic Games and help athletes at the grassroots and elite level train. We feel very comfortable with those partnerships, we know that they have the best interest of the Olympic movement at heart,

“They’re very aware in their own sectors how they have to position themselves, obviously to an extent they use the positive values of the Olympics to position themselves, we’re more than convinced they will continue to provide through their sectors the best products and services to their constituents.”

Record numbers forecast for Vancouver, but not record profits

The International Olympic Committee’s marketing director estimated 3.5 billion viewers would experience some of Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Olympics.

Timo Lumme said more than 300 broadcasters in 200 territories delivered the first all high-definition Winter Games to TV viewers. He said the total amount of content delivered was 50,000 hours, which is more than Salt Lake 2002 and Turin 2006 combined.

“In four short years from Torino to Vancouver we’ve had a continuing digital explosion,” Lumme said. “We now have the same amount of hours globally covered on digital media, Internet and mobile, as we have on the old media, broadcast.”
In Canada, a record 22 million people were watching when Sidney Crosby scored the gold medal-winning overtime goal in the hockey final. CTV reported average prime time viewership of 5.8 million.

The ratings were in record territories, but the recessionary Games won’t translate to record profits because of the advertising slump. NBC parent General Electric already announced in December that it would lose $200 million because of Vancouver 2010 and is being coy about its post-London 2012 plans. NBC Olympics chief Dick Ebersol is bearish about Sochi 2014, mainly because it's eight hours ahead of New York. Fox and ESPN have mulled bids.

Also in December, CTV Olympics president Keith Pelley said the aim was to break-even. CTV bid US$153 million five years ago for 2010 and 2012 rights, more than double the CBC contract for US$73 million for 2006 and 2008.

"We've said what we're going to say about the economics leading into the Games. Now we're totally focusing on the actual Games and we'll address the consolidated numbers shortly thereafter,” Pelley said during the Games.

The IOC promised VANOC a roster of 11 global sponsors, but it stalled at nine and no new deals were announced in Vancouver. Last summer, the IOC pledged to help VANOC with losses up to $22 million unless the gap could be narrowed through other means.

The B.C. government is the ultimate guarantor and launched a $38 million tourism ad campaign before the Games. The You Gotta Be Here out-of-home ads took up substantial space in the Olympic city and at transit stations, filling space that would have been used by private sponsors had the recession not happened.

Golden smog to spoil VANOC's green spin

Watch out for the inevitable golden smog when Vancouver gets a stretch of sunny weather. It will not look good on TV.

VANOC and its partners have turned the hype machine up to 11 in their bid to sell the world on the idea that these will be Greenest Games Ever. They will, in fact, be brown. Petro-Canada-supplied diesel -- six million litres, to be exact -- is fueling the Aggreko-provided generators that are providing power to venues. The Aggreko generators are hidden from public view, behind the look of the Games temporary hoarding. They’re supposed to be there for backup only. The three clusters around B.C. Place Stadium are providing the dome primary power. B.C. Hydro did not instal a system upgrade.

And then there are the diesel motorcoaches. The fleet includes full-size buses all the way from Capital Trailways in Montgomery, Ala., and Cowtown Charters in Fort Worth, Texas while B.C. companies are stuck on the outside, looking in after being fed government propaganda for years claiming the Games would benefit all.

These buses were driven across the continent and are plying streets of Vancouver mostly empty for the benefit of media schedules. The 1,100 whale-sized buses in the VANOC fleet are a big reason why severe measures were enacted to create Olympic lanes that have removed curb lanes and parking from public use in the city’s busiest areas.

VANOC sustainability vice-president Linda Coady liked to talk about how VANOC would be “right-sizing” transportation vehicles to balance supply and demand. Coady’s department is attached at the hip to the VANOC communications department, but apparently has no connection with the all-important transportation group that actually manages supply and demand.....

How tragic that it was that a 21-year-old athlete died on the first day of the 21st Winter Games. Expect one of the legacies of the Games to be a wrongful death lawsuit by the parents of Nodar Kumaritashvili.....

Will Cypress Mountain’s reputation forever be harmed? Boosters of the Games loved to wax poetically about it being the first Olympic venue with a view of the Pacific Ocean. A blessing for TV cameras but a curse for the sport. At its best, weather at Cypress can change from bad to worse and back to good in 15 minutes. And then there was the poor VANOC planning for food service and crowd flows. What were those 2008 and 2009 test events about?.....

There are only three bidders for the 2018 Winter Games: Annecy, France, Munich, Germany and PyeongChang, South Korea. PyeongChang is hoping it’s third time lucky, after losing to Vancouver and Sochi.

Munich hosted the 1972 Summer Games, forever tainted by the hostage-taking of Israeli athletes who were later killed. What happens during and after the Vancouver Games will have great impacts on the Munich bid that not even the ageless beauty of Katarina Witt can overcome.

Vancouver is the biggest Winter Games host and it has a globally important sea port and airport. That is a big reason why the security bill is $900 million. The Vancouver Games have been a logistical nightmare behind the scenes with a transportation plan that was never properly tested. It was supposed to have been completed by the end of 2007.....

Funny that the first gold medal of the Bailout Games belongs to Montrealer Alexandre Bilodeau. He wasn’t born when Canada didn’t win its first gold medal at home in the 1976 Games but his name is pronounced like “bill-o-dough.”

Here it is

Where were you 345 weeks ago?

General Motors Place and Whistler Village were abuzz bright and early on a spectacular day after Canada Day when the International Olympic Committee chose Vancouver to host the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Now it’s almost here.

For 17 days Vancouver will be the world’s sport and media capital. It will be memorable and it will be costly. The Vancouver Games will be the least-successful since Montreal 1976 once the Games are over and the bills tallied.

It will be a Games of contrasts.

The world will find out how rich and poor the city is, with peaks of opulent wealth and valleys of poverty just blocks apart in downtown. Many First Nations people will feel a sense of pride and belonging like never before; others will feel greatly disenfranchised.

Locals will wonder where their Olympic payday is. The security overkill and transportation tie-ups will deter visits to downtown and some businesses will struggle to stay open.

The most-anticipated non-sporting event of the Games won’t be the parties at Holland Heineken House, Club Bud at the Commodore or Molson Canadian Hockey House, but the Feb. 19 auction of Whistler Blackcomb-owner Intrawest.

The VANOC transportation plan will become apparent as the weakest link of its planning. Order will come from the chaos in the second week.

The Wall Street media will be watching with an eagle-eye to make sure sponsors spend responsibly amid the continuing economic malaise that has greatly curtailed sponsor spending and caused governments to buck up even more than anticipated.

There will be no Barack Obama or “London Liz” on stolen native land. Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean will become the world’s most famous native of Haiti and John Furlong will trump Bono as the most famous Irishman with a microphone.

The Olympics are a decade of politics and economics and 17 days of sport. The agony of defeat and thrill of victory will make new stars.

American skier Lindsay Vonn is driving for five gold medals. The headline is already written: Vonn-couver. Canadian cross-country skier Brian McKeever is aiming to be the first to compete in both the Winter Olympics and Paralympics. Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, the Snow Leopard from Ghana via Scotland, will be the Vancouver equivalent of Eddie the Eagle. He won’t win gold, but the broadcaster who can pronounce his name flawlessly more than once could.

The success and failure of the $110 million Own the Podium program will be gauged daily when Canadians analyze the medals standings.

Canada could win every gold medal available but if one of them isn’t men’s hockey, then the Games could be deemed a puckin’ failure.