The announcers had barely finished welcoming everyone to the Vancouver Winter Olympics opening ceremonies last night when the tweets and facebook comments concluded:
This event did not compare to Beijing.
But did it really have to?
The Winter Olympics have always been a more intimate event, with far fewer athletes participating from a smaller number of countries. The venue for the opening ceremonies was therefore smaller, bringing both the crowds in attendance and the television audience closer to the spectacle.
The event organizer used some of the same technologies we saw in China, albeit on a much smaller scale. They included Canadian celebrities, bar hall performers, native dancers, and even a poet they found on youtube.
This opening ceremonies expressed the Canadian spirit. They weren’t trying to impress the world, which was so important to the Chinese in Beijing.
It was beautiful, it was appropriate, and it was welcoming to the athletes and the audience.
And at the end of the evening, the technical glitch in the torch lighting ceremony — and how the Canadians handled it so gracefully — was just another display of that spirit.
Plus, they have the Gretzky!
I LOVED the humpbacks.