Patriot Hearts (40 page)
Authors: John Furlong
With
OTP
we were going to try and ensure that for Vancouver things would be different, while recognizing that in an athletic competition anything can happen and there is no such thing as certainty. I think Chris Rudge might have said it best when he quoted that famous line of Victor Hugo’s: “You can stop an advancing army but not an idea whose time has come.” That’s what Own the Podium was.
WHILE THE AMERICANS
were having the Games of their lives in Vancouver, much to the relief of the
NBC
, whose Olympic coverage was enjoying a sky-high ratings bonanza, there was also something amazing going on in Canada. The country’s focus on the Games was growing each day. It was topic number one at kitchen tables everywhere. It was certainly reflected in the stunning numbers that the
CTV
-led consortium was pulling in. But as the Olympics moved along, Canadians went from being casual watchers to full-time cheerleaders who were totally plugged in and experiencing every moment as if they too were on skates and skis. They got their pom-poms out and painted their faces, emptied their fridges and had the neighbours over to watch hockey, short-track speed skating, anything that included an Olympic athlete. This was an excitement you could feel from St. John’s to Victoria.
Bars across the country were full at night with Canadians rooting for their athletes. There were impromptu Olympics parties being organized in thousands of living rooms across the nation. This phenomenon was becoming as big a story as the Games themselves, a national engagement the likes of which had only been witnessed a few times in the life of the nation.
Heading into the final week, I wanted us to be more vigilant about our preparation than ever. We could not afford to let our guard down. We needed to have a near-perfect run to the end. I wanted to make sure that our team didn’t relax just because we seemed to be over the worst of the early hiccups and criticism, and because the tide of opinion was shifting in our favour.
I tried to get up to Whistler as often as I could. Every time I drove up there I marvelled at how beautiful and quick the drive was. Such stunning geography. Dick Ebersol of
NBC
Sports was right, I think, when he said that the only thing wrong with the road was that it wasn’t long enough. I imagined what the athletes and visitors from around the world must have thought as they made their way past Howe Sound up into the mountains on a road vastly improved by the incredible work that had been done to make it wider and safer.
One of my favourite moments heading into the final week happened when I visited our medical clinic in Whistler. The death of Nodar was always in the air and was felt more profoundly by the people there than anywhere else in the Olympic environment, but when I saw them a week after the accident I sensed this horrible burden was lifting. They had fought so hard for him. These were amazing people, doctors, nurses, dentists, physiotherapists, who had taken time off from their jobs to volunteer to work at the clinic. And when I went up there to thank them, they seemed genuinely moved that I wanted to show respect for the contribution they were making on behalf of their country. To a person, they all said it was their privilege to be able to play a role in something that obviously meant so much to all Canadians.
Besides shaking the hands of as many Blue Jackets as I could, I also tried to take in some of the events in which we stood a solid chance of medalling. I was there when the Canadian women won another gold medal in hockey. What a juggernaut! Hayley Wickenheiser will surely go down as one of the greatest female athletes ever, a potential cauldron lighter the next time the Olympics return to Canada. I know there was a big deal made when the women returned to the ice after the gold medal game to drink a little champagne and light up a cigar or two. It never bothered me—just a media story more than anything, one that was horribly overblown. The girls were smart enough to offer a measured apology the next day to ensure the story died a quick death.
One of the most moving moments of the Games for me, and probably for Canadians across the country, was Joannie Rochette’s skate in the long program in the women’s figure skating final. Being an elite athlete is hard enough. The Olympics is a formidable, downright scary environment in which to compete. And figure skating, of all the Winter Olympic sports, has to be one of the most lonely, unforgiving, demanding and nerve-wracking. To skate with a clear mind in front of 15,000 people is hard enough. Having to do it with a broken heart is another thing entirely.
I don’t think there was an athlete the nation cheered harder for than Joannie, after the country learned that her mother had died of heart failure shortly after arriving in Vancouver from Quebec to see her daughter compete. Many people thought it would all be too much for Joannie, that she’d never be able to pull off the incredibly difficult, complex jumps that are part of her routines. But Joannie gave one of the most amazing performances in Olympic history in the short program, which happened just days after her mother’s death. And then for her to give another near flawless routine in the long program to win bronze was a stunning accomplishment. My five children were there that night. I watched them watch her. They were in awe, frozen with amazement. I thought that for years to come they would reflect on being present to see this real, raw human courage, the best example they would ever witness of how to face life’s adversities head-on. Joannie Rochette is a rare kind of hero in my books, and to be there that night for her final skate was a transcendent experience.
It was clear as we headed into the home stretch that although we were not going to reach our goal of being atop the podium, our athletes were definitely starting to enjoy more success—everywhere. And so many great Canadian stories were being written in the process. Not many people were giving Jasey-Jay Anderson, a veteran of so many Olympics and Olympic disappointments, a chance in the men’s parallel giant slalom. But with the support of a country at his back, he pulled off the unthinkable and won gold. We also won gold at the short track and our women took more gold in bobsleigh.
The country was captivated by the enthralling performance of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir in the ice dance, another gold for Canada. The next morning they came to the Olympic cauldron for an interview with
CTV
, and I wandered over to share my happiness for them and tell them how proud we all were. Tessa, both classy and humble, held my hand warmly and told me she and Scott had sat in on an earlier presentation I had given where I had told the audience what the Games were going to do for our country. They both told me how I had inspired them to pour their hearts into these Olympics. That was a tall moment for me, with two beautiful Canadians who have inspired thousands of our youth to dream big.
And what more could be said about the amazing Clara Hughes, one of the finest Canadian Olympians ever, a woman whose first instinct is always to help others. What an inspiration! I can’t wait to see what she does with the rest of her life—she has so much to offer. Her bronze in the ladies’ 5000-metre speed skating event was such a wonderful capper to one of the truly great Olympic careers in our country’s history.
I was in the crowd at Cypress when Ashleigh McIvor won gold in ski cross in front of a delirious crowd. A week earlier I had run into her and her boyfriend, teammate Chris Del Bosco, who was a medal hopeful in a men’s event. They seemed so relaxed and happy. I stopped to see how they were doing and I could tell from Ashleigh’s words, delivered in her modest way, that we were about to see something special from her. And we did. I think she visualized that golden moment a thousand times before it happened.
Despite the second-half surge by our athletes, there was still plenty of hand-wringing going on about the performance of the Canadian team. Forget first place, would we even finish in the top three, the media wondered. Chris Rudge seemed to be getting asked about Own the Podium just about every day. To me, it seemed bizarre that he was even having to defend it, but he was. By the end of the Games there weren’t many who weren’t giving
OTP
the credit for our best Olympics ever.
With just two days to go, it dawned on more than a few that a record medal haul was a possibility for Canada. All of a sudden history was there to be seized. We ended up winning 14 gold medals, the most ever by a host nation—and a total of 26 medals, also our best ever.
Outside of the field of play, the athletes were having the time of their lives. I made a point of visiting with them at the Athletes’ Villages in Whistler and Vancouver, and the competitors I talked to couldn’t have been more complimentary about the experience they were having. The ones lucky enough to be staying in Vancouver were absolutely blown away by the accommodations, and why wouldn’t they be? They were the most luxurious Olympic digs ever, with million-dollar views. No wonder so many athletes told me they didn’t want to leave.
Both villages were in such contrast to the ones in Turin in 2006, where the rooms were drafty, there weren’t enough blankets and the food was not good. We wanted to give the athletes the best experience. We wanted to make sure they were well protected while not suffocating them with our security arrangements. Time and again, the athletes would stop to be photographed with the police who embraced them so fully.
Everywhere I went now, whether it was to a competition, a medals ceremony, an event hosted by one of the provinces or a major sponsor, the feedback was the same: people were having the time of their lives. There wasn’t a person who didn’t seem happy, thrilled actually, that we had weathered the storms of the first few days and now had the wind at our backs. Even
IOC
members who had seemed to be hedging their bets in the early going, afraid to associate with an organizing committee that was having a few teething problems, couldn’t say enough good things about us now. I could only smile and savour how hard my team had worked to pull it all together.
The downtown streets of Vancouver had become an Olympic lovefest, a huge organic party at which everyone was welcome. On the night our Canadian hockey women won their gold over their arch rival the U.S., I found myself standing on the second level of the International Broadcast Centre after doing an interview. I could hear the crowds outside singing “O Canada.” Perfect strangers by the thousands, suddenly arm in arm, happy in the moment. Wild, happy patriotism was breaking out across the country. We were 34 million behaving as one.
During the closing days, every event seemed to top the one before it. Celebration Plaza in Whistler was electric every night as locals jammed every square metre of space.
BC
Place was at capacity every night as every athlete who arrived to collect his or her medal was treated as a hero. It didn’t matter where they were from. Donald Sutherland, meanwhile, was like Waldo. He was everywhere. Wayne Gretzky too. Premier Campbell was running on empty cheering on the Olympic team from dawn to dark. Federal Sport Minister Gary Lunn was hoarse from screaming encouragements and the prime minister and Governor General were giving it all they had. It was as if the entire country was chasing something it wanted badly. The Games seemed to be touching everyone. Kings and queens, princes and princesses. Like a stone tossed into a pool of water, the Games were creating beautiful ripples.
The Games had become everything I had hoped for, if not more. The country had stopped what it was doing to put on its Team Canada jerseys and cheer. Every time I paused to think about the public’s enthusiasm for even a second, I had to be careful.
It was easy to get overly emotional about what was taking place.
A
S LONG AND
sometimes painful as the first few days felt, I was stunned at how quickly the Games were flying by. One day I was walking onstage to welcome the world to Vancouver and the next I was thinking about what I would say during the closing ceremonies.
I was physically and mentally exhausted by that point, but a full tank of adrenaline and nervous excitement were enough to keep me fuelled up. There was still a huge day to get through and a gold medal hockey game to watch. In other words, there was a lot still to happen on that closing Sunday, a lot that could still go terribly wrong and spoil the amazing atmosphere that had built up around the Games during the previous couple of weeks.
Dave Cobb and I met for breakfast at our usual time. All of a sudden, he was looking a little younger and less tense. We talked through preparations for the closing ceremonies, the potential for mayhem at the hockey final and the security and transportation arrangements that were going to be such a big part of the day’s success. We also discussed the protest that was planned and the impact it might have on people’s efforts to get to the ceremonies.
We did not want a repeat of what happened on opening day, when the best efforts of the police caused havoc to our transportation system. There were media obligations that I would need to take care of that morning, and there was an important 50-kilometre cross-country ski race in Whistler. A huge thing weighing on my mind was the speech I was going to have to give at the closing, particularly the French parts.
I planned to take the prime minister’s advice and speak French as early in the speech as possible, but even his guidance and strategic suggestions weren’t going to make it any easier. Some of the reviews from my effort during the opening were still blistering in my ears. I had received a little coaching over the previous couple of weeks on my pronunciation, but it was like trying to teach an English-speaking person Gaelic. I also didn’t want to put words in the speech just because they might be easier to say. I wanted every word to have meaning, to count, to have earned its way into the speech. The more I thought about it all, the more stressed I got. Why hadn’t I taken French more seriously in school?
But my primary mission in the speech was to thoughtfully convey, or at least attempt to convey, what had happened in the country over the previous 16 days. Yes, Canada had, at other times, celebrated loudly as a nation. But it said something about us, I think, that when you asked people about the last time they saw the country so elated, so proud, they often mentioned Canada’s win over Russia in the 1972 hockey series. That was the last time we were so magically transfixed in every village, town and city at the same time over the same thing.