February 2010 Archives
- February 28, 2010 8:16 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
It will be replayed like Paul Henderson's goal, or Mario Lemieux's, and it will be carved into this country's memory. Parents will tell their children about it; it will become myth, here. So, too, will the game. Canada 3, United States 2, on a Sidney Crosby goal in overtime that won us the last gold medal of our Games. Some hockey, this.
- February 28, 2010 7:44 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
It was an elephantine endeavour, a great work, a wonder. And it is not easy to wrestle with what it meant, precisely, to Vancouver, to Canada, to the world. If you lived through it, you felt something. You felt something new.
- February 27, 2010 12:09 AM
- By Bruce Arthur
When asked before this game what Slovakia had to do to defeat Canada in the semi-finals, Slovak pillar Zdeno Chara simply said, "Everything." Even in the anything-can-happen arena of Olympic hockey, it was as good a description as any. Canada's powerhouse had begun uncovering its vast potential, so that was about right. Everything.
- February 26, 2010 8:54 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
We are nearing the end now, and everybody is getting a little punchy. And by everyone, we are talking about certain journalists and athletes and officials and so forth, who have been on this Olympic voyage for what feels like a while now.
- February 25, 2010 9:07 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
In the Olympic standings, where Canada is trying to win the race for gold, this gold medal will be counted alongside those of Alex Bilodeau, and Christine Nesbitt, and Ashleigh McIvor. This gold medal, in the end, counts the same as all the others. Except because it's women's hockey it doesn't. Not quite.
- February 25, 2010 8:51 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
Clara Hughes didn't know how much money it was. She just knew that it didn't matter how much money it was, and that she wanted someone else to have it. The last time she did this, she knew the total because the cash was already in her bank account. This time, it won't spend much time there, if any at all.
- February 24, 2010 10:39 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
On Wednesday, the 37-year-old from Winnipeg skated her final laps, 12½ of them, blood pumping to the very end, and captured her sixth Olympic medal, a bronze, in a 5,000-metre skate that took her breath away. And ours, too.
- February 24, 2010 9:52 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
All along, this was the Canada we were waiting for, hoping for. This was the Canada we believed was possible, if everything could just click, if they could just get the hell out of their own way, if they could just stop thinking and play hockey. Just play.
- February 24, 2010 1:26 AM
- By Bruce Arthur
For the Canadians who came to the Vancouver 2010 Olympics expected, and expecting, to win a medal, life isn't so grand. This was more than just an Olympics -- it was a once-in-a-lifetime Olympics. It was at home with everybody watching. And maybe that has been part of the problem.
- February 23, 2010 10:15 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
Russia. In hockey, the word alone still evokes greatness and mystery and fear, and before these Olympics began, you figured that Canada might have to face the world's other true hockey superpower for gold. If you had to pick this tournament's dream final, it would be Canada-Russia; if you had to pick the winner, chances are those were your top two choices.
- February 22, 2010 10:39 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
Sidney Crosby wants you to calm down. You, the hyperventilating guy in the red Hockey Canada jersey. You, the bummed-out party girl, trudging along the suddenly joyless streets of Vancouver. All of you. Canada may be on the verge of elimination every time they play, sure. But hey, who isn't?
- February 22, 2010 8:09 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
Martin Brodeur knows more about goaltending than just about anybody alive; he has seen just about everything the game can throw at him, and it has been throwing it at him for over 20 years. These are his third Olympics as Canada's starting goaltender; he's been our guy for almost a decade. Martin Brodeur was the guy Canada could trust, when it mattered.
- February 21, 2010 10:00 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
So it's on to Russia, now. Yes, there will be a date with Germany in between, but even in this most unpredictable Olympic hockey tournament, the odds Canada loses that game are the stuff of serious computers.
- February 21, 2010 9:41 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
As the Canadian disappointments piled up over the weekend -- or, in the case of the two-man bobsled team of Lyndon Rush and Lascelles Brown, flipped right over -- it began to feel as if these Games were somehow, for whatever reason, too much for Canada.
- February 20, 2010 10:52 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
Walk the streets here and you can feel the Games shifting under your feet. That is, if you can walk rather than shuffle, or for that matter be forced to halt. And all of this assumes that you are not standing in line. Which, if you're here, you probably are.
- February 19, 2010 9:44 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
Of all the things master satirist Stephen Colbert said in relation to the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Game, one particularly suits our purposes today.
- February 18, 2010 10:19 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
It was agreed by all before this Olympic hockey tournament that this was a better Canadian team, more cleverly constructed, a superior puzzle. As the Games approached, the fact that Canada's goaltenders were faltering to various degrees was attributed to their heads already being in Vancouver. And after an opening 8-0 win over Norway, nobody seemed overly worried. But it was still a puzzle that was not fully assembled. And then Thursday night, just like that, jeopardy.
- February 18, 2010 9:04 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
Christine Nesbitt had been nervous all morning, was nervous as she warmed up, was nervous as she prepared to start a race that most people thought she had in her back pocket, if she could fit a back pocket into her airtight speed-skating suit.
- February 17, 2010 9:48 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
So there was this French downhill skier on Wednesday, and she burst out of the starting gate and got about 35 feet before the whole thing went kablooey. And if you were a fool, you would use that as your metaphor for the 2010 Olympics Winter Games.
- February 17, 2010 9:00 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
You know what's fun? Listening to reviews of what the TV folks are doing. When you're inside the Olympic bubble, TV criticism is one of the last things you can do
- February 17, 2010 12:00 AM
- By Bruce Arthur
When Brian McKeever was very young, perhaps three or four years old, his parents warned him that if he ever experienced problems with his vision, if he saw anything strange at all, he was to tell them. Right away.
- February 16, 2010 10:15 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
After one period of play, there was no panic in the air. There were also no goals on the scoreboard, for either Norway or Canada. Nobody was ready to panic; Vancouver was not preparing to riot. Everybody understood that for a team that had practised together precisely once -- and then, not for very long -- was not going to instantly coalesce.
- February 16, 2010 1:56 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
These Games are becoming the Error Games, or the Mistake Games, or the Calamity Games. (Yes, let's go with that one. It sounds like Calamity Jane, and calamity is a great word.)
- February 15, 2010 10:55 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
Ryan Getzlaf chopped his way into the mixed zone, still on his skates, and loosed one hell of a smile. Two days earlier, he wasn't sure if his sprained left ankle would allow him to be an Olympian.
- February 15, 2010 10:28 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
The question elicited a laugh, but it wasn't really a joke. She was a European reporter, and the assembled Canadian men's hockey braintrust was at the big table. And her question began, "As Team Canada is only allowed to win the gold ... " Not much more needed to be said, but we kept going anyway after chuckling for a time. And of course, it was funny because it was true.
- February 14, 2010 10:44 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
Early on the third day, the feeling was this: OK, nobody panic. Sure, about three billion people saw us light three legs of a four-legged Olympic cauldron. And yes, the weather and the logistics have been bad, and Ben Mulroney has been involved. But there's enough time that we can still turn this around. This is what we figured, anyway.
- February 14, 2010 6:09 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
One question coming into these Olympic Games was how competing at home would affect our athletes.
- February 14, 2010 12:04 AM
- By Bruce Arthur
Steve Yzerman leaned forward in his seat, making his case. He had just been asked the pressure question for the second time in these Olympics.
- February 13, 2010 11:30 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
A day later, and the great Olympic machine tried its best to grind forward.
- February 12, 2010 11:58 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
Maybe the Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Olympic Games, no matter its poetry, could never have been completely unambiguous.
- February 11, 2010 11:13 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
So Wayne Gretzky won't light the cauldron, according to John Furlong. Well, sort of.
- February 11, 2010 11:06 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
To say that the performance of our athletes is a reflection of our national identity is, of course, too easy.
- February 11, 2010 11:03 AM
- By Bruce Arthur
It will be beautiful, of that you can be sure. Vancouver and Whistler and the great green bowl they call Cypress were made to knock the world's eyes out, ideally via the magic of HD. It will rain some, and it won't snow much, but if this is the place to which Canada is welcoming the world for the Winter Olympics -- and it is, in case you hadn't heard -- we couldn't have picked a prettier spot.
- February 10, 2010 6:59 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
American snowboarder Graham Watanabe, an alternate in 2006, was asked at a news conference Wednesday how it felt to make the team this time. His response was, uh, colourful.
- February 10, 2010 5:50 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
For all the talk of who should light the cauldron at the Opening Ceremony Friday -- Wayne Gretzky, or Kerrin-Lee Gartner, or Nancy Greene -- there's a better choice. There's an irrefutable choice.
- February 9, 2010 6:57 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
The Games are still four days away, but the federal Conservatives have already turned Own the Podium into a rental
- February 8, 2010 2:42 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
In sports, numbers matter. They can be final scores, or record times; they can be the speed at which you hurtled down the mountain, or how many times you rotated through the air. Or they can be the number of medals won, and medals left untouched.
- February 4, 2010 2:21 PM
- By Bruce Arthur
I'd love to talk, but I'm kind of worried somebody's going to foreclose on me before I get the words out
