Re: 2010 and running a pi** up in a brewery
 

I live downtown and the preparations are underwhelming - but I assume that it will get better when the games are actually on. Regardless of cost - the big problems the games have are:

1 - They are struggling with the conditions on cypress. 'TV Snow' is being shipped in, but that isn't going to help if the mountain is covered in cloud and drizzle. Vanoc can't directly be blamed for this, but they took a big gamble by having some events local; conditions on cypress weren't that great last year and events were cancelled.

2 - Canadians overstate the worlds interest in the winter games. Very few countries have populations that care. I saw estimates that said over 1 billion people will watch the opening ceremony!! Yeah right, the only possible way for that to happen is if they count people that watch the news which shows a 5s clip and even then it is unlikely. The number of people that actually sit down and watch it will be in the millions I reckon.

Re: 2010 and running a pi** up in a brewery
 

:thumbup:

Re: 2010 and running a pi** up in a brewery
 

Agree and agree.

Re: 2010 and running a pi** up in a brewery
 

lol, it seems like a few posters are busy Jacking and Jilling off hoping that the olympics are a grande failure or something. Maybe the rain will make the mountains fall over on the city and everything will be called off. :fingerscrossed:

Re: 2010 and running a pi** up in a brewery
 

According to wikipedea the 2006 Turin ceremony "was broadcast live to an estimated two-billion audience worldwide by 32 television cameras."

Given that Vancouver falls into a north american (larger audience) friendly timezone a billion seems more than reasonable.

I am guessing that that "two-billion" is the available audience though, rather than the actual number watching. That sort of thing bores me rigid, the pretention levels are generally off the scale, so I wont be watching for sure.

Re: 2010 and running a pi** up in a brewery
 

I disagree.

Surely Turin would be more "worldwide" friendly given the time zone. An evening opening ceremony in Vancouver starting at, lets say, 8pm would be 4 or 5am for much of Europe. An 8pm start in Turin would include all of Europe and be available for a midday viewing in the most western parts of Canada and NA (not including Hawaii).

Re: 2010 and running a pi** up in a brewery
 

No way is 20% of the world going to be sat down in front of their TV's to watch the opening ceremony. I doubt even the summer olympics gets that. It's they way they count it - it inflates the numbers. I don't think I was being cynical in saying that you'll get counted if you watch a news show that reports it; I think this is what actually happens.

Re: 2010 and running a pi** up in a brewery
 

Im just the messenger....the word on the street is that northamerica is a better venue for large global TV ratings. I too doubt that 2 billion actually watched it.

What time is the Vancouver ceremony scheduled for anyway, and with "tape delay" does it really matter anyway.

Re: 2010 and running a pi** up in a brewery
 

I'm not particularly interested in the winter olympics but you can hardly avoid the saturation coverage on the TV now. On 1. Vancouver is liable to become something of a joke round the world as the lack of snow will merit a 10 second feature on national news programmes from albania to zimbabwe with pictures of little areas of white surrounded by brown and green with a grey mist hanging over the area, even if the events themselves never warrant any coverage. On 2. there do seem to be a lot of comments in the media about "the world watching vancouver" and "vancouver being the focus of the world" etc. In reality it's very much a minority event in a world context. I know the media around the world tends to talk up its own little events and shows when its their turn but the extent to which its happening here is quite suprising.

Re: 2010 and running a pi** up in a brewery
 

Didn't Caglary have similar issue with lack of snow as a result of Chinooks? If it did, I don't recall hearing anything of it in the UK.

Don't forget, Canadians love their own. When a skater finishes last in one of the qualifying rounds, it will be on the news (rightly so in my opinion). I suspect that it is only in England where, when a citizen wins a Gold Medal, people complain that they didn't so do in a world record time:thumbdown:

I have to admit that I am sick to death of the "torch relay" coverage. But I don't deny the locals the right to celebrate such "achievements"

Re: 2010 and running a pi** up in a brewery
 

You'll find those in Drumheller! :p

Re: 2010 and running a pi** up in a brewery
 

I've no idea if Chinooks affected the Calgary olympics. I suppose anything held at the olympic park could have been affected but was that just the jumps and bobsleigh type events? The only image I can recall is of Eddie the Eagle (!) jumping and it being quite a snowy scene. He still seems to be quite a popular figure here.

I think the coverage in the UK is similar in that it follows the whole team even the no hopers. I would be interested in the reaction here if the ice hockey team were to be knocked out in the first round.

The torch relay event and coverage is fine I think. They stopped off at the childrens school the other day and it sounded like a nice event. Someone at work got offered a "hold" of the torch from one of the official bearers somewhere else in Calgary. The fact that its a low key event and the torch is going through relative backwaters probably makes it more accessible to more people. Did you see the coverage of when the chinese olympic torch came to London in 2008 with all the minders and police?

Re: 2010 and running a pi** up in a brewery
 

Calgary had some exceptionally warm weather during the 1988 Olympics but I don't remember it seriously affecting any of the events.

The Olympics ran from February 13th to 28th here are the actual highs and lows plus other weather info for that month.

There was only one day were the high temp was below freezing (-0.5°C on the 22nd). I believe there were a number of records broken for high temps during the games.

Re: 2010 and running a pi** up in a brewery
 

Those temperatures are quite high - I hope we get the same this year! I see the records indicate no snow on the ground from 17th onwards but at least a lot of the nights are below freezing and there was zero rainfall which must help preserve the snow. Out of curiousity I'll have a look for any EtE coverage on YouTube later to see how white it all looked. COP is on a north facing slope which must help a bit as well?

Re: 2010 and running a pi** up in a brewery
 

The OP seems to be one of those that comes on occasionally, starts a thread that gets everyone going then buggers off until he has another idea how to wind things up a bit. Does not seem to post much, if any, constructive content. Still cannot fathom what the purpose of this thread was, unless it was to stir Vancouverites into some dancing in the street.