Double Gold -- Live!

Thursday was such a busy, long and exhilarating day that we took advantage of the rain and no scheduled events on Friday morning to sleep in.

We met Leena's sister from Toronto for lunch at a local mall. After lunch we parked the car near our SkyTrain station and headed out in a different direction on the bus. At a different SkyTrain station on a different line VANOC was running express buses to the venue. Everything ran well for a Friday.

Friday evening we were at the Pacific Coliseum, the old home of the Vancouver Canucks before GM Place (Canada Hockey Place) was constructed. The Pacific Coliseum is the venue for figure skating and short-track speed skating. We were excited that we were going to see three short-track events: the men's 500 m, the women's 1,000 m, and the men's 5,000 m relay.

On the march from the bus to the Coliseum we passed an Event Services volunteer on a lifeguard chair. This set up has been part of crowd control at all venues. It has been my experience that the volunteers in the chair generally have a sense of humour and help entertain the crowd in addition to moving them in the right direction.

The chairs were made at a woodworking shop that was set up by VANOC and Rona (a Canadian home improvement store and a Games sponsor) for a few years before the Games. They took troubled kids in Vancouver and taught them valuable skills while building necessary items for the success of the Games such as these chairs and the podiums on which the medal winners stand. The changes in their lives that this program brought to these kids will be one of the legacies of the Games.

Once inside the Coliseum, we watched the warm-ups. During the 90 minutes before the start time, the athletes for each of the three events for the evening were given separate warm up times.

The old arena looked great decked out in its Vancouver 2010 signage, flags, and decor. 

We had good seats in an upper corner section. We have had aisle seats for all our events except when we had standing room "seats" in Whistler. I guess this was one of the benefits of having tickets from the original lottery pool. Leena, in her Team Canada jersey, is in her seat while I am across the arena on the concourse.

Judging by the cheering, the flags, and the clothing the crowd was predominantly Koreans, Chinese, Americans, and Canadians. 

These Korean fans seemed to be part of a group. They all arrived together and had a guy running around getting them all food, drinks, then souvenir merchandise while they stayed in their seats. Strangely, they all left before the medal ceremonies even though the Koreans won multiple medals (just not gold.) 

There were lots of empty seats for the preliminaries and quarter-final races, but all seats seemed to be filled for the finals. I guess there is a class of "fan" that can't be bothered with anything but the finals.

There was lots for the volunteers to do in grooming the ice after each race and laying out the track markers. This guy poured buckets of water on the corners after every race.

One Smurf was responsible for moving the skaters skate guards from one end of the rink where they entered to the other end where they exited.

There were plenty of media, press and photographers. This was just one of a few sections filled with photographers.

This all-white camera man perched himself in the middle of the ice for all the events other than the 5,000 m relay. He would have been risking his life to stay on the ice for that event.

Things proceeded at a good clip through preliminary races, quarter finals then finals of the men's 500 m and women's 1,000 m.

Of course while all this racing was going on Canada was playing Slovakia across town in men's hockey. Many of us were getting text message updates from friends and relatives but the guys sitting behind us actually had a portable TV that they used to watch for scoring.

My heart has a tough time watching short-track speed-skating on TV when the Canadians are racing. I was not sure how I could take live races particularly with the men's 500 m in which Canadian Charles Hamelin is the current world champion.

The crowd is asked for silence before the start of each race so that the skaters can hear the starting gun.

The men line up for the start of one of the preliminary men's 500 m races. Charles Hamelin, the eventual gold medalist is on the left.

The finish to the men's 500 m was a heart-stopper as two racers crashed on the final curve including the leader at the time. Charles prevailed and won the gold and Canadian Francois-Louis Tremblay finished in third place. It was a crazy finish. I know my heart skipped a beat.

There was a huge ovation at the end of the race then the arena went quiet as the judges decisions on the race were awaited. It was an incredible outcome and it meant we would get another chance to sing O Canada.

After winning, Charles skated to the side to embrace his girlfriend, Marianne St-Gelais, a silver medalist for Canada.

The men's 5,000 m relay is a crazy event with so many people on the ice at one time all moving on their own timing.

Canada had the lead, lost it, then regained it with 20 laps to go. We were all on our feet, waving our flags and cheering for all 45 laps.

Near the end, whenever Charles Hamelin took a turn he poured on the speed and widened the lead. On one heart-stopping turn he wobbled a bit but was able to regain control and carry on. The finish was incredible and a clear win requiring no waiting for a judge.

The Canadian men take their victory lap.

Because Friday night was the last night of Victory Ceremonies at the Stadium, the medals for our events were presented at the venue. How lucky we were to see gold medal performances and then get to experience the medal presentations.

The men  receive their medals for the men's 500 m race.

And the flags were raised while we once again had the thrill of singing O Canada.

We then repeated the fun with the men's 5,000 m relay team. After they all received their medals, they posed as a group for a picture.

It was so incredibly exciting and breathtaking to see our country take two gold medals in a single hour of competition. It was a great way to cap our Olympic sporting events.

During the medal ceremonies they announced that Canada had won the hockey game 3 to 2. Whew. 

After it was all over, we boarded the express buses back to the SkyTrain and headed downtown in the rain so that Leena could see the cauldron lit up at night and again see the Olympic rings in Burrand Inlet. Of course they were a double shade of gold for Friday night.

It had been an electrifying night.