Review: Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony "Canada: Come Celebrate America Jr"

Found myself home on a Friday night with a sick daughter (she made it 13 months as the picture of health, then hits 105 on the thermometer, yikes) and fell into the Winter Olympics opening ceremony. Sure, I knew it was going on but it's not exactly Must See T.V. Plus, have you tried to watch t.v. on a Friday night lately? To think I had already seen the episode of "Swamp Loggers" that was on. But I digress. Now, I remember watching the opening ceremonies from Beijing and being blown away; like the host country itself it was truly like nothing I had ever seen before. I didn't expect the same thing from our friends to the North but hey, it's 2010, it had to have something that was cool.

Disclaimer: I must admit I didn't watch the whole thing but I did make it through a relatively respected NESCAC school in 4 years by paying partial attention so I still feel qualified to give my take on what transpired in Vancouver. I would guess out of a 3 hour+ program I caught a total of 18 minutes.

The first portion of the program is all the countries entering the arena. It's probably because I'm "one of them" but Scandinavians are the best looking people on the planet, hands down. Between the Swedes, Danes, Norweigens, it's almost unfair.

Quick quiz: what is the country that uses this flag?


That's right, Chinese Taipei. As announced during the broadcast "That is Chinese Taipei entering the ring. Commonly known as Taiwan. The flag is a compromise between the International Olympic Committee and the Chinese government." Great Olympic spirit there, Hu Jintao.

As the athletes entered the stadium they were welcomed by a plethora of Native American dancers; do you think the average Nunavummiut was tuned in? When the USA entered, we looked like the Ralph Lauren clothes we were sporting; seeing all the faces of our athletes we clearly are a hodge-podge of the world.

After all the athletes were seated the theatrical portion of the ‘program’ began. There was an inspirational song sung by Canada's own Nelly Furtado and Bryan Adams - I didn't realize either were still relevant. The Canadians used the performance to tell the “story of the country from sea to sea” – at least that’s what I got. Some cool visuals like whales that seemed to swim across the stage, a gigantic polar bear that emerged, and the Canadian Rockies that rose dramatically. Honestly, I couldn't stand the song and dance stuff so it was great to be a few minutes behind and hit the fast forward button and watch it in high-speed. One downside was that Nova Scotia's own Sarah Mclachlan performed a bunch of songs, not saying I don't like her music but every time I see her all I can think about is those poor, poor dogs.

The final piece of the program was a what I would call a “slam” poem read by a big fat dude with a neck-roll beard (as gross as it sounds.) It was about the country of Canada and how nice everyone is and how diverse the country is and how they’re proud to be Canadian and how they like hockey and say “zed” instead of “zee” when rounding out the alphabet. All well and good and nicely done but I kept thinking that what he was describing sounded a lot like the US of A’s kid brother. Then onto the torch lighting portion, which I can't comment because I didn't see the malfunction or the Great One light the flame. C'est la vie.

So, to recap, Swedes are hot, China is no fun, USA rocks it and our brothers and sisters to the North put on a great show – or at least the parts I saw.