Oh Canada... Rain, Mud and Glum

The horrific death of luger Nodar Kumaritashvili from the republic of Georgia added a black cloud of despair to the grey skies looming over Vancouver. The games haven’t even started, yet you get the eerie suspicion that more tragedy and heartache awaits us.

"With Glowing Hearts, We Kill the Arts,"

The various protest groups got things started with their predicable pleas and demonstrations, and managed to cause the route of the torch relay to be altered. If those stunts bring attention to their cause, well ‘yippie’ for them. On the dark underside of their movement, you can be assured that many of those protestors looked on with glee as the Georgian luger crashed and sealed his fate. The irony in their mantra, “With Glowing Hearts, We Kill the Arts” was not lost.

Evening turned to darkness and the opening ceremonies got underway and softened our collective memory of the afternoons cold hard slap of tragedy. Yet, as the lighting of the Olympic cauldron was coming to a climax, a moment Canada spent seven years building towards, a technical malfunction marred the event. In the awkwardness of the moment, speedskater Catriona LeMay Doan improvised a salute to the crowd with her torch, while skier Nancy Greene, NHL legend Wayne Gretzky and NBA All-Star Steve Nash proceeded as planned.

The uncharacteristically warm weather contributing to the rain, the mud and the glum, has forced the cancellation of training runs, and has delayed both the men's downhill which was scheduled for today, and the women's super-combined which was originally scheduled for Sunday.

Prior to her interview in a room that was oddly decorated by several candles, a jubilant Lindsey Vonn was heard to selfishly squeal out a ‘yippie-yi-ya’ for what the delay would mean to her badly bruised shin. No doubt NBC’s Olympic guru Dick Ebersol was also girlishly giddy over these developments.

None of this is surprising in this age where the pursuit of personal fame and television ratings trumps all else. Still, although I’m pulling for Bode Miller, Shaun White, a.k.a. The Flying Tomato, Apolo Anton Ohno, Shani Davis, Gretchen Bleiler and the other Americans, I feel a bit sorry for the Canadians this Saturday.

"Oh Canada" indeed...