Vancouver View - Media Tour of Olympic Village; Canada Line Opens

Olympic Village Opens to Media

The media will get its first look at the 2010 Olympic village in Whistler when VANOC conducts a tour of the facility for the press on Thursday.

Located on the outskirts of Whistler, the village will house 2,850 for the Olympics and 1,200 for the Paralympics.

Around the Rings will be on the scene to provide coverage of the event. More information will be available in ATR’s report on the tour on Friday.

Canada Line Opens Ahead of Schedule

The backbone of the Vancouver 2010 transportation system opened on Monday, more than three months early.

The $1.82 billion, 19-kilometer Canada Line rapid transit system links downtown with Vancouver International Airport. A one-way trip along the 16-stop route is 25 minutes.

Premier Gordon Campbell and federal trade minister Stockwell Day opened the system at the airport station and stopped along the way to pick-up politicians and dignitaries, including VANOC CEO John Furlong. Furlong was waiting at the Olympic Village station.

The SNC-Lavalin-built project was financed by federal, B.C. and municipal governments and the Vancouver International Airport Authority.

The project was not without controversy. More than 50 merchants on Cambie Street, south of city hall, went out of business because construction prevented customers from accessing their stores. One merchant won a $547,000 lawsuit in May; the award is under appeal.

The provincial workplace safety regulator fined SNC-Lavalin and its Italian partner RSL $288,000 for the January 2008 death of crane operator Andy Slobodian. WorkSafeBC said Slobodian was both inexperienced and poorly trained.

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal found Central American workers imported to work on the project were victims of discrimination because they were paid less than their European counterparts. The companies were ordered to increase their pay and provide additional compensation of $9,100 each.

VANOC Defends Olympic Promotion

VANOC didn’t wait until the Aug. 25-26 IOC coordination commission visit to defend its promotion of Vancouver 2010.

IOC president Jacques Rogge told ATR that “more promotion would be useful.” VANOC CEO John Furlong told the Globe and Mail that mascots have visited Pacific Rim countries, more than 50 international media visits happened in the last three months and more than two million website visits from foreign viewers were logged in 2008.

There does appear to be a lack of promotion on the home front. There were no public events for international Olympic day and the six-month countdown. Travelers crossing into Canada at the Peace Arch -- one of Canada’s busiest land entries -- are greeted by a generic Welcome to British Columbia: The Best Place on Earth sign that makes no mention of the Games.

Tourism B.C. Board, President Fired

The B.C. government fired the president and board of Tourism B.C. and announced the Crown corporation would be absorbed into the tourism ministry on Monday.

President Rod Harris was paid $347,000 in the last fiscal year. The 15-member board included Whistler Blackcomb president Dave Brownlie.

Tourism minister Kevin Krueger said in a prepared statement that Tourism B.C. served the province well, but “in these difficult economic times it is critical that we maximize every tourism dollar for marketing B.C. to the world."

Tourism generated $12.6 billion in B.C. last year.

New Olympic Hockey Jersey for Canada

Canada’s men’s and women’s Olympic ice hockey teams and the men’s Paralympic sledge hockey team will wear a red maple leaf crest containing Canadian symbols at Vancouver 2010.

The new look, Nike-made jerseys were unveiled on Monday at Thunderbird Arena, four days after a website for hockey logo and uniform enthusiasts Icethetics.info displayed photos.

Musqueam artist Debra Sparrow’s work inside the maple leaf includes images like a traditional aboriginal thunderbird and eagle. The stylized red, white and black maple leaf logo of Hockey Canada was doomed after the IOC clamped down on national sport federation logos at Beijing 2008.

The Canadian Olympic Committee and VANOC logos appear on sleeves of the Olympic jerseys.

The Paralympic jerseys include the Canadian Paralympic Committee logo. Replicas went on-sale immediately for $123 at SportChek (Hockey Canada’s official retailer), Nike stores, Hudson’s Bay Company and Olympic souvenir stores. They will also be sold at the XP Canada ULC-operated kiosks at Games venues.

Nike Canada was simultaneously named an official VANOC supplier of high performance sporting goods. The category is worth 3 million to 15 million Canadian dollars.

Bilingual Witness

Former Swiss president Pascal Couchepin made his first visit to Vancouver as grand temoin (big witness) of the 2010 Games on Aug. 14.

Couchepin was appointed to oversee bilingualism at Vancouver 2010. He signed an agreement with VANOC CEO John Furlong to publish a best-practices guide for bilingualism at the Olympics.

Couchepin, the fourth grand temoin in Games’ history, will also oversee bilingualism at the 2010 Paralympics.

International Torchbearers Named

The Vancouver-based Canadian Tourism Commission announced Aug. 14 that it was recruiting 15 international torchbearers for the Vancouver 2010 relay.

The first announced was Yang Yang, the six-time world champion and two-time Olympic champion short-track speedskater. Yang and her mother visited the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia Aug. 15-19.

The adventures of Yang and the other 14 internationals will be shown on Olympic broadcasts by rights-holders during the Games.

The flame will be lit Oct. 22 in Olympia, Greece and arrives in Victoria on Oct. 30.

Consortium Reveals Ad Deals

Canada’s TV rights holding consortium said on Wednesday that it has 22 multimedia advertising deals with Canadian companies. All but five are VANOC sponsors.

The only ones CTV Rogers disclosed were Air Canada, Canadian Pacific Railway, Cold-Fx, McDonald’s, Rona and Samsung. McDonald’s and Samsung were announced earlier this year.

Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium president Keith Pelley said many of the sponsors are not ready to reveal themselves for competitive reasons.

“We’ve sold more than twice the revenue to date than any previous Olympic Games (by a Canadian rightsholder),” Pelley said. “We’re thrilled with where we are.”

Sponsorship agreements begin around $91,000 and range into the millions of dollars.

With reporting from Bob Mackin in Vancouver.