Low Key Celebration for 100 Days Until Vancouver

Little pomp and circumstance is planned for the 100-day countdown to the 2010 Winter Olympics in the Olympic city.

Construction continues on parts of the Vancouver Olympic Village, which will be handed over to VANOC at a 10:30 a.m. Pacific ceremony involving Mayor Gregor Robertson and VANOC CEO John Furlong.

The City of Surrey will announce the acts playing its Holland Park live site at 11:30 a.m. in city hall.

Surrey became a venue community when it paid $2 million and pledged to build a $10.5 million Games preparation center in a rundown area of Whalley. The building, to be used for ceremonies rehearsals and workforce training, was not finished on-time for VANOC to begin use in February.

Whistler business owners and managers have a morning “Spirit Breakfast”. The Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre hosts a 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. citizenship ceremony where 42 people will be sworn-in as Canadians, including Whistler Chamber of Commerce president Fiona Famulak, a native of Scotland.

A 4 p.m. community celebration at the Whistler Conference Centre includes various Canadian athletes and details of the WhistlerLive!-branded performance program. VANOC venue managers for the Whistler Sliding Centre, Whistler Creekside and Whistler Olympic Park and mascots Miga, Quatchi and Sumi will also be guests with free Whistler 2010 countdown cake served to attendees.

Ticket Talk

The last chance for Canadians to buy tickets for the 2010 Games begins Nov. 7.

First-come, first-served online ticket sales open at 10 a.m. Pacific with 100,000 available for Vancouver-area events. Transportation network capacity in Whistler means no tickets will be available for sliding, Nordic sports or alpine skiing, said marketing vice-president Caley Denton.

A virtual waiting room will be employed to manage demand. The inventory includes tickets for nightly medals ceremonies Names of acts playing those concerts will be announced Nov. 5. Denton said VANOC’s official ticket resale website and a storefront ticket office at Robson Square are both under construction and should be launched later this month. Ticket deliveries, via courier sponsor Purolator, will be delivered to buyers beginning in December.

Denton said the website will remain active through the Games.

“We’re really confident we’ll be as sold out as we can get,” Denton said.

Exercise Misses Paramedics

The first of two Exercise Gold events open to media went ahead without an ambulance Tuesday.

The day after Health Services minister Kevin Falcon announced striking paramedics would be ordered to return to full-service, only police, firefighters and hazardous materials crews attended a mock attack at a decommissioned high school in suburban Richmond.

“This is one aspect of the exercise,” said B.C. Integrated Public Safety Unit director John Oakley. “There’s 46 other command centers. They are represented at that level of play. But they have to remain operational.”

South Fraser Supt. Pascal Rodier was the only B.C. Ambulance Service person on site, but he was not talking to media or actively involved in the scenario, which involved a toxic chemical placed in a snow-making machine at a pep rally organized by a radio station. Students from a local high school were hosed-off and blanketed by firefighters. One woman pretended to be in labor.

Exercise Gold, the full-scale 2010 Games security dress rehearsal, involves 140 military, police and public safety agencies and runs through Friday. U.S. and Canadian fighter jets are part of the operation and the 2010 Coordination Centre at Bellingham International Airport in Washington state is also testing its systems. On Thursday, an attack simulation near the Pacific Central train station is open to media.

Falcon told media on Nov. 2 that the H1N1 flu, not the Olympics, was why the paramedics were being given a 3% pay raise and one-year contract retroactive to April 1. However, the paramedics union said Nov. 3 that VANOC medical director Mike Wilkinson issued a written ultimatum to BCAS to guarantee Games-time service by Oct. 1.

Medal Predictions

Canada will win the most medals at Vancouver 2010, but the United States will carry the most gold home according to Italian forecaster Luciano Barra.

He projects Canada will eclipse the U.S. by one medal with 29, but the U.S. will top the podium 13 times. Barra believes Canada will win the bulk of its medals in speedskating and tie China with six gold medals. Germany (28), Norway (25) and Austria (18) round out his top five medal count. Norway (11), Germany (9) and Austria (8) are on his gold medal prediction list.

More Cruise Exhaust in 2010

VANOC has chartered a 1966-launched cruise ship to accommodate 1,100 people in Squamish.

The Leonardo Shipping-owned MV Mona Lisa has been contracted, mainly for the Games security force. It will be docked at Squamish Terminals. In 2006, the IOC press commission disapproved a plan for international media to be housed on a cruise ship at the same dock.

The Mona Lisa is the fifth cruise ship scheduled to come to Vancouver. The RCMP chartered three for more than 5,000 police and troops at Ballantyne Pier. Edmonton travel agency Newwest hired the Norwegian Star to offer tourist accommodation at the industrial Vancouver Wharves near the Lions Gate Bridge. All the ships will run on diesel around the clock to power lights and heating because none will dock at Canada Place, the only local pier that offers shore power.

VANOC said Nov. 3 that it had also found space for 5,000 Games workers and volunteers in hotels, condominiums, trailers, private homes and at Quest University. The homestay program’s target of 1,000 beds fell far short, with only 590 secured.

Carbon Offsets for Sale

A carbon footprint calculator was launched Nov. 3 by the VANOC sponsor that hopes spectators and sponsors will buy souvenir carbon offsets and pins so it can invest in green energy projects in B.C. and abroad.

Offsetters said it had agreements with 25 VANOC sponsors to participate in its carbon program and blames air travel for much of the pollution forecast.

The original 2007 estimate of 330,000 metric tons of carbon emissions caused by the Games was downgraded to 268,000. Offsetters president James Tansey said the David Suzuki Foundation and PricewaterhouseCoopers overestimated the impact.

“When we’ve done the calculations based on where people are actually buying tickets from and where they’re traveling from, the numbers have dropped,” said Tansey, a University of B.C. business professor.

Tansey said all credit cards are accepted but, after awkward silence, said Visa was the preferred card.

VANOC has been polling ticket buyers for a demographic study that has been long-awaited by the tourism industry. It’s expected the recession will cut the number of European and Asian spectators, but that will be offset by more North American visitors.

With reporting from Bob Mackin in Vancouver.