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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

A Canadian Olympic record

Remember about this time last year? Remember the hordes of people everywhere? Downtown was a zoo. Well, it turns out Vancouver was hosting the Winter Olympics. Who knew?! That explains so many things.

This is the one-year anniversary of those games. See, there was a legacy afterall! Each year we can relive it over and over again. Man, the five-year anniversary is going to be off the charts. Remember that time that Canadian athlete (I forget his/her name) got the bronze? Totally awesome. A country remembers.

Okay, so I'm not the biggest Olympics fan. I just figure if I don't watch the sport any other time of the year, why should I care during the Olympics? But I will admit I liked the extra-curricular activities. One two-time What's So Funny? guest was, it turns out, responsible for a lot of the goodwill and general bonhomie of the viewing populace. David C. Jones tells me that the Vancouver games had more on-site entertainment than any other winter games. Ever. That's dating back to the ancient Greeks... Or maybe not. That'd be the summer games, I guess. Anywho, it's still something.

Especially when you consider that one year prior to the games, on-site entertainment was cut from the Vancouver Olympic Committee budget. What were they thinking? I'm not sure, but five months before the games were to start, on-site entertainment was added back into the budget.

The goal was to distract venue-goers from the long waits and, presumably, the outrageous prices they paid to watch ridiculous sports in person when it was all on TV. The entertainers would keep the crowds laughing and clapping (to keep their hands warm, I guess) and before they knew it, they were inside the venue watching Canada dominate the other frigid countries of the world. I didn't see any of these 1086 performers making up a total of 108 acts, but apparently they included flash mobs, rock bands, show choirs and "outrageous costumes!"

And David recruited and helped create these acts. Good on him. For once Canada has a record at an Olympic games!

Check out this video Jones edited, and congratulations to all the performers (most of whom were volunteers) for their part in the record-setting achievement.


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