Vancouver 2010

[jesseps]

Canada vs. USA today

[ErickMontreal]

Team Canada falls to U.S.

 

Last Updated: Sunday, February 21, 2010 | 10:15 PM ET

By Tim Wharnsby, CBC Sports

 

Team Canada netminder Martin Brodeur (30) loses control of the puck in front of defenceman Chris Pronger on Sunday night.Team Canada netminder Martin Brodeur (30) loses control of the puck in front of defenceman Chris Pronger on Sunday night. (Harry How/Getty Images)

 

A loosey-goosey bunch of United States men's hockey players scored an upset victory against the rival Canadians on Sunday.

 

The U.S. defeated the uptight and under-performing Canadians 5-3 on the final day of the preliminary round. The loss means that Canada will have to play a qualification game on Tuesday against one of the tournament’s lesser lights and, if the Canadians emerge from that outing, they will have to get back at it on Wednesday against a well-rested team in the quarter-finals.

 

Canadian forward Sidney Crosby redirected a pass from linemate Rick Nash with 3:09 remaining in the third period to pull Canada to within a goal. This gave the U.S. some anxious late-game moments around their goal, but Canada couldn't get the equalizer after a few good scoring chances.

 

Vancouver Canucks centre Ryan Kesler salted the victory away with some hustle for an empty-net goal in the final minute.

 

The U.S. team prepared for the game on Saturday evening with a team dinner at a downtown restaurant. The coaching staff surprised the players with the "This is your time speech" from Little Herbie. Five-year-old Nashville area kid Josh Sacco has become a YouTube sensation with his Herb Brooks imitation from the movie Miracle.

 

Just before U.S. and Canada stepped on the ice, the in-house host, former NHL goalie Marc Denis, interviewed Canadian moguls skier Alexandre Biloudeau and put the capacity crowd at Canada Hockey Place in a raucous frame of mind.

 

But the support didn't do the Canadians any good. They once again emerged for the opening faceoff like a bunch of nervous Nellies. The U.S. was all over Canada on the opening shift and defenceman Brian Rafalski scored when his shot deflected off the stick of Crosby. It was the first time Canada had fallen behind in the Olympic tournament.

 

Canada drew even eight minutes later thanks to a waist-high deflection from Eric Staal, but the U.S. went ahead 23 seconds later when Rafalski scored on a screen shot when he intercepted Brodeur's clearing attempt. It was Rafalski's fourth goal of the tournament. He has scored only four for the Detroit Red Wings in 57 games this season.

 

The Canadians tied the game for a second time with a Dany Heatley rebound goal early in the second period, but U.S. forward Chris Drury put his team back in front. Brodeur was caught out of position when he attempted to poke a loose puck out of harm's way, but put himself out of position.

 

The U.S. not only was the quicker team through 40 minutes, it was the more physical bunch, too. The U.S. defence did a good job moving the puck up to the speedy forwards, while Canada was sloppy in its puck movement.

 

Defensively, the U.S. also did a good job collapsing around goalie Ryan Miller to keep the Canadians from getting to rebounds. The defence pairing of Brooks Orpik and Jack Johnson also did a good job shutting down Crosby's line.

 

None of the Canadian forward lines distinguished themselves. The San Jose Sharks line of Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Heatley especially struggled. Heatley's goal came when he was on the ice with the fourth line and Jonathan Toews did all the work.

 

Canadian forwards Ryan Getzlaf, Staal, Crosby and Corey Perry each took undisciplined penalties. Perry's minor resulted in a power-play goal for Jamie Langenbrunner, who redirected a Rafalski shot through the pads of Brodeur, his New Jersey Devils teammate, in the third period.

[Malek]

USA USA USA lol:rottentomato:

[Ornello Mastrocola]

All this means is that we will be playing an extra game and we will be playing the Russians in the quarter finals instead of playing for the gold.

Seriously guys, aside from Getzlaf, Perry, Bergeron, Pronger and Brodeaur...Canada is outplaying and outshooting the opposition 2 to 1. If it wasn't for Hiller and of course the best goalie in the NHL Miller, it would have been two easy wins. Goaltending is the name of the game and at the present we don't have it.

[Philippe]

Corey Perry et Brodeur sont vraiment mauvais depuis le tournoi, pour Getzlaf et Bergeron, je ne suis pas d'accord avec toi..

[jesseps]

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Josie Lombardi came downtown this week for a taste of the Olympics accompanied by a friend rather than her husband, because he is on an Olympics boycott.

 

She was thrilled to see the Olympic caldron up close, she said, but after being told she would have to wait five hours to see an exhibit of Olympic medals, Mrs. Lombardi began to think her husband might have a point.

 

“O.K., are the Olympics worth it?” Mrs. Lombardi said while stopping for lunch at Murchie’s, a venerable tea and coffee shop. “I don’t want to be too negative because there’s good and bad, but I have to agree with my husband. All he can talk about is the debt. I’m worrying about what’s going to happen next.”

 

While hundreds of thousands of people have streamed onto the streets to enjoy (some of them to excess late at night) the Olympic party, there is still an undercurrent of crankiness and apprehension in the city.

 

Vancouver was always an odd choice to become the world’s winter sports capital for two weeks. Among Canadians, it is best known as the nation’s winter avoidance capital. But the misgivings among residents began even before this winter’s unseasonable warmth and sunshine bathed the city’s renowned parks and gardens, bringing daffodils and flowering trees bursting into glorious February bloom.

 

Well before the Games began, the global recession pushed several of the Games’s sponsors, including Nortel Networks and General Motors, into bankruptcy. Whistler Blackcomb, the resort that is hosting the Alpine skiing events, will soon be sold at auction.

 

Security costs, first estimated at $165 million, are now headed toward $1 billion.

 

Still, organizers insist the operating budget will break even. But that forecast includes $423 million in emergency money from the International Olympic Committee, and detailed financial information will not appear until after the Games are over.

 

As for Vancouver’s municipal government and the taxpayers, the bad news is already in. The immediate Olympic legacy for this city of 580,000 people is a nearly $1 billion debt from bailing out the Olympic Village development. Beyond that, people in Vancouver and British Columbia have already seen cuts in services like education, health care and arts financing from their provincial government, which is stuck with many other Olympics-related costs. Many people, including Mrs. Lombardi, expect that more will follow.

 

While the mood in the city has picked up since the start, when many people were suffering a severe case of buyer’s remorse, the looming budget realities make it unlikely that all will be forgiven or forgotten.

 

“While it’s very hard to see all the costs, I think people are going to pay for it for a long time,” said Lee Fletcher as he walked past several flowering cherry trees near his apartment outside Stanley Park, a large tract of forest tucked up against the city’s downtown. “Some people are going to benefit hugely, not the average guy. The average guy is going to see his taxes increase.”

 

The average guy, who cannot easily afford Olympics tickets (even attending the medals ceremonies costs $21, plus service charges), has had other reasons to complain. The flaming caldron that Mrs. Lombardi admired was initially hidden behind a chain link fence that evoked a medium-security prison. And until local spirits were dampened by the Canadian hockey team’s loss to the United States, a large section of downtown was overrun nightly by boisterous, hollering celebrants, an astonishing number of whom were drunk.

 

The task of defending the Olympics has fallen to Vancouver’s mayor, Gregor Robertson, who won office in large part because of a voter revolt over the Olympic Village that led voters to dump the right-of-center party that brought the Games to town.

 

The real estate development industry, which is unusually powerful in Vancouver, provided the city with an Olympic Village plan that seemed — and ultimately was — too good to be true. A development firm would finance and build the village on a desirable piece of city-owned land. After the Games, the developer would convert the accommodations into luxury condominiums and pay the city for the property. Vancouver would get its village and turn a profit as well.

 

But cost overruns, combined with the credit crisis in 2008, destroyed the financing. Once in office, Mr. Robertson had to obtain special permission from the province to borrow $434 million to complete the village. In all, the city is responsible for about $1 billion in development costs, a situation that lowered its credit rating.

 

If Vancouver’s real estate market remains strong, the city may recover most of that money. If not, Mr. Robertson said, “the city is on the hook for some hundreds of millions of dollars.”

 

Stuck with the Olympics, Mr. Robertson is trying to wring all that he can from the Games and its related publicity for Vancouver, an unusually attractive city that shows well on television. But even some of mayor’s supporters now worry that that the Olympics may prove to be more of a burden than an opportunity.

 

“It’s going to be very tight financially,” said Chris Haddock, the producer and writer of a critically acclaimed television series about Vancouver politics that was broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “Some of the things they want to do, and want to prove, will have to be put off.”

 

Mr. Robertson is candid about the city’s potential Olympic problems but he doggedly steers any conversation back toward his goal of using the Olympics to attract investments from companies in the environmental sector to make the city a green technology center.

 

Kennedy Stewart, a professor of public policy at Simon Fraser University in suburban Vancouver who has written extensively about the city’s politics, remains unconvinced that showing potential investors a good time during the Olympics will resolve Vancouver’s long-term economic issues. The forestry industry, once the mainstay of its economy, has been devastated by a beetle infestation, the collapse of the housing market in the United States and competition from South America. While motion picture production companies and software developers have set up shop here in recent years, they lack the same economic impact.

 

“What’s the substantive thing Vancouver has to offer other than its nice mountains and vastly overpriced real estate?” Professor Stewart asked. “The forestry industries have collapsed, so where is the money going to come from other than marijuana grow-ops?”

 

(Courtesy of Vancouver Journal via NYT)

[jesseps]

Norway still #1 with amount of medals won at all the Olympics.

 

At least we beat Russia tonight and 2 medals in women's bobsleigh

[francely57]

Grosse journée pour le Canada!

 

1- médaille de bronze en patinage de vitesse (Clara Hughes)

2- médaille d'argent en patinage de vitesse courte piste (Jessica Gregg, Kalyna Roberge, Marianne St-Gelais et Tania Vicent)

3- médaille d'or en bobsleigh (Kaillie Humphries et Heather Moyse)

4- médaille d'argent en bobsleigh (Helen Upperton et Shelley-Ann Brown)

(donc doublé or-argent)

5- éclaté la Russie au hockey

 

 

Les États-Unis, l'Allemagne et le Canada ont maintenant 7 médailles d'or chacun.

[GDS]

Our olympics was a boondoggle because of corruption, crime and incompetence. There's is turning into a boondoggle because of El Nino, higher security costs and a world financial crisis in the housing market of which the city has a good chance or recouping because the Vancouver market is still quite strong. There is a big difference, ours were in a our sphere of control, there's are not.

[Maisonneuve]

Our olympics was a boondoggle because of corruption, crime and incompetence. There's is turning into a boondoggle because of El Nino, higher security costs and a world financial crisis in the housing market of which the city has a good chance or recouping because the Vancouver market is still quite strong. There is a big difference, ours were in a our sphere of control, there's are not.

 

Another thing to add to the Montreal games is that they were the first games after the 72 games and the Munich massacre. After that happened, no one thought there would be another Olympic Games because of security. The Montreal Games had heightened security cost too. Also, don't forget it was only 7 years removed from the October Crisis and the security tension that created. Most of the construction site was managed by the City of Montreal, which was a very large mistake to begin with. Even now, if you look at the Quartier Des Spectacle, we see the same thing. Henry Aubin of the Gazette pointed out that projects (buildings such as the 2-22 and a couple others) under the control of the city have stalled, whereas the ones under provincial stewardship are well underway in construction (the concert hall and the PDA Foyer). The lesson: At least things get built when the Quebec government is cracking the whip. The city has a track record of fumbling large developments. Not that the Qc Government is amazing, but their batting average compared to the city speaks for itself.

 

Vancouver's a beautiful place. Downtown Vancouver is a residential neighborhood. More residential than commercial in my opinion. It's the most expensive city in Canada to live in. People who are being priced out are forced to move to less expensive cities like Toronto, Calgary or Ottawa. When I was there, I started up a conversation with a guy on the Seabus between downtown and North Vancouver - he told me to live if you're single, to live in Vancouver and afford it, you must make a salary of $75,000 a year. Many economists have warned that Vancouver is coming very close to the overpriced mark. The beauty of Toronto is that it's a sprawling city where cheap rent can be found. This is perfect for new immigrants to Canada. The average rent in Toronto is $1000/mo, but if you want something cheaper you can find it. Vancouver has such a dense area, and prices are rising so high, that you have to be making a lot of money to afford Van City.