Not everybody's bought in like that, though. Media coverage has veered decidedly towards the negative in recent days, with constant reports of glitches: the death of a luge competitor, a cauldron malfunction at the Opening Ceremony, cancelled snowboard tickets, resurfacers flooding the Richmond oval, secondhand reports of late buses and food shortages at venues. In some corners, Vancouver 2010 is already the "worst Games ever."

An erstwhile dream of mine, one hatched during an Games, was to become a reporter that covers the Olympics. The reports of columnists who are there -- discovering strange sports, eating odd food and and lifting folk-hero athletes from faraway lands to legend status -- are always such fun. Reading them is like hopping on the shoulder of a good writer as he or she goes around the Games, having the experience we wish we could be having while we're stuck in our careers.

But it only takes a couple of visits to the Games to realize that journalists aren't having the same experience as the ticket-buying proletariat. Writers and photographers and broadcasters work out of giant media centers, stay in media blocks in hotels, and spend more time talking to each other than they do to fans or athletes. Because the IOC knows that journalists influence public opinion (and, in turn, the enthusiasm of future Olympic aspirant cities that might spend millions on trying to land the next one), media members are treated like VIP's. There's a separate bus system for journalists, one that whisks them around from place to place on luxury coaches. The rest of us take repurposed city buses and subways.

So you can't really blame the media at the Games for feeling entitled to perfection. Nothing less than five-star white glove treatment is expected, because that's what the IOC provides. There are substantial issues being raised at Vancouver 2010, ones that are subtle and serious, but they have nothing to do with Zambonis. The issues that are turning supposedly this into the Worst Games Ever are a series of separate and unrelated incidents.

I try to bring this up as often as I can: there's a simplified diagram as to how the Games work, who's responsible for what. It's not one I can draw for you right now, because there's no publicly available digital scanner anywhere around. Perhaps you can take a stab at the visual side of this.

Every two years, the International Olympic Committee sets up a time-sensitive forcefield -- let's call it Olympia -- around a city or region. Its existence lasts between the two Ceremonies. The IOC decides who and what comes inside or stays out, and protects the venues against violence and, of course, drugs. The competitions themselves are governed and run by the individual sports federations. The organizing committee is responsible for overall presentation and making sure everything runs smoothly -- usable venues and equipment, a sufficient number of volunteers, and securing and policing the Olympic bubble.

In my opinion, every journalist should know this as a condition for accreditation. Following this map of accountability, the glitches fall to the responsibility of either VANOC or the sporting federations. They have nothing to do with "the Olympics," nothing to do with each other, and the negative approach is less like nit-picking than pimple-popping.

The most ardent anti-Games contingent among the media, without a doubt, has been from Great Britain. Their fault-finding -- much without the perspective of Winter Games history and its long line of similar mishaps -- has been a surprise, but not quite a shock. British columnists have been railing against the Olympic Games ever since the end of Beijing 2008, when the sheer cost of London began coming to light. What's happening here is simply a warmup act for two years from now, and I hope for their sake they save over some credibility for 2012.

(Although, to be completely fair, the old and respected hands have bought in.)

Vancouver organizers are trying its hardest to change the storyline to an battle between Games organizers and the British media. It's a strong strategy -- cast the fight as Us Inside against You Outside. "To read caustic and finger-pointing comments," said VANOC CEO John Furlong. "You have to wonder what event they are really watching. They don't appear to be attending the same Olympic Games as everyone else."

In Whistler, the backlash is slightly more pointed, as those who have bought into the "magic" are constructing a line of defense. At a pin trading station near the medal ceremony venue, I saw a new pin available for trade, one with a red circle-slash over the word "Whiners." (It's a hastily produced product, one without a lot of apparent street value yet, but I expect the ones from an actual pin press will undoubtedly be as hot as those darned mittens.)

And in Whistler Village yesterday afternoon, a pair of white-clad street performers in powdered wigs and stilts took on ridiculous British accents. "My deario, these Olympics are simply terrible!" "Spot on, chummy-wummy, we can't seem to win a single medal! What shall we complain about, then?"