Essays

Day 1: Where are the Olympics?
Day 2: Who's Selling, Who's Buying
Day 3: Take Me to the Riot
Day 3: This is Live City
Day 4: The Battle of Richmond
Day 5: What Price Whistler
Day 6: Backlash!
Day 7: Security State
Day 8: Nordic Fever
Day 9: The Legend of Mukmuk
Day 9: Nodar
Day 10: What Whistler Gets
Day 11: Mystery of Chessbowling (On Ice)
Day 12: L'Olympiade Culturelle
Day 13: Expo 2010
Day 14: Where the Americans Are
Day 15: Logo Creep
Day 16: See You in Sochi
Day 17: Nothing Is More Seductive Than The Dying Starlet
Day 17: Goodbye Vancouver

Photo Galleries

Days 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Results

Days 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

RICHMOND, B.C. -- There is no other way these Games could have ended. It was how they were supposed to end all along. And of course it was one of the greatest games in Olympic hockey history. Did circumstances require anything less? Early confidence for the home team, a small setback, a sure win erased in the final seconds, then a sudden-death goal by the country's young hero. Perhaps the film version will be shot right here, in Vancouver... to save money, of course.

When it was over, Canadian television showed street celebrations from Toronto and Ottawa and Montreal and 1988 host city Calgary. They all looked exactly like the one on Robson Street -- red, white, and ridiculously happy.

From downtown Vancouver, I walked south against a wave of humanity. Everybody was whooping and yelling and high-fiving, all ready to swarm the streets and steal the asphalt from the very last automobile. It didn't take the people long to plug the arteries; a mere 90 minutes after Sidney Crosby's goal, the police cut off car traffic on the Granville Street bridge, and BC Transit stopped running the No. 10 and No. 17 buses. The only way into the city, or out, was by foot.

Me, I was leaving the way I'd come in, over the long concrete Granville Street bridge. By the time the street numbers rose into the teens, the honking and waving and the flags had all faded away, replaced by the quiet calm of the South Granville district on a Sunday afternoon. There were kids with angular haircuts drinking coffee in Starbucks, thin blonde girls shopping for clothes, women getting their nails done at salons.

I pointed my rental Kia down Highway 99, towards the border. The sky was bright and clear after five days of looking like skim milk. Pink, popping cherry blossoms were in full bloom along Granville Street, and I hadn't remembered seeing those before. The Winter Games were over, and spring had arrived in Vancouver. This city, and this nation, was already moving into the future.

This concludes the XXI Winter Olympics, as well as my attempts to document my experiences there. Thanks to the media entities and blogs who linked in, especially Reuters and the New York Times! Thanks also for your interesting and insightful notes over the course of these Games; if you haven't, please drop a line and let me know what you thought. If you were stuck at home, I hope I've helped inspire you to come along next time. For Americans watching at home in NBC tunnel vision, I tried to challenge popular preconceptions of what the Olympics really are. They're as much about art, culture, transit maps, geopolitics, geography, sociology, history, standing in line, and playing mind games with ticket scalpers as they are about watching sports.

There were hundreds of world-class winter athletes in Vancouver, thousands of members of the global media, and millions of Vancouver residents who each had their own perspective. That thousands (!) of you found time to read my version is a great honor. I hope that now that Vancouver 2010 is over, some of the 20,000 loyal bluejacket volunteers will record their own experiences. The Official Report will be along in a few months, and that will be full of stories, as always.

This trip wouldn't have happened without my kind sponsor T.F. The writing part would have been impossible if not for Blenz Coffee locations staying open 24 hours a day during the Olympics, and would have bankrupted me if not for Boingo Wireless' cheap international wifi plan. To friends and relatives; I'll probably say "washroom" and "sorry" for a few weeks, and yammer on about "wine gums" and "Timbits." Please bear with me during this crucial deprogramming period.

Please keep Swifter, Higher in your RSS reader; at some point, I'll finally figure out what to do with it in the down part of the Olympic cycle. Either way, I'll see you again when the youth of the world reconvenes in London 29 months from now; until then, farewell and safe travels home.

Men's hockey gold medal game street celebrations

Results from the Day 17 competitions.

VANCOUVER -- At the end of the Olympics, it's up to the journalists to decide what really happened. Writers will impose a 500-word narrative structure onto the goings-on, form the historical document for future generations or just those who want to remember. The Americans won the most medals, but the hosts won the most gold. There were plenty of fashion statements -- curling pants and red mittens and gigantic medals. These Games will be remembered for the lives that ended here, a lugist from Georgia and the mother of a Canadian figure skater.

But make no mistake: Vancouver 2010 was about hockey, the national sport of this great nation. The pulse of the metropolis quickened and fell with the fortunes of the Canadian men's team. The city was optimistic, then cautious, and outright angry after that loss to the Americans. During a three-game run to the gold medal game, young Vancouver forged into a single red and white entity, taking to the streets with unity and purpose. In a lot of ways, the legacy of the XXI Winter Olympic Games will hinge on one match, held in the early afternoon of Day 17. Should Canada win, what will the country do with all of this strange new energy?

I have spent a lot of time on the periphery of these Winter Olympics -- and there is a lot of periphery in a city this big. In coffeeshops and restaurants over the past week, there's been a well-worn conversation. I was the most anti-Olympics person out there, but I can't help getting caught up in all the excitement... especially the hockey. The Games themselves didn't win over the local cynics, but the performances of Canadian athletes did.