Richmond is also an Olympic venue city now, hosting the long-track speedskating competition at the new oval built just a few kilometers from YVR. In the early afternoon of Day 4, I made my way over to examine it from as close as I could get outside the security zone. The building is all glass and steel with a sloping hangar roof to echo the nearby airport, and it's done up in the pretty grey, aqua and apple green color scheme of the Vancouver Games.

Aside from architecture appreciation, I was also there to see if there were any tickets available for the sport's most exciting event, the men's 500 meter sprints. There weren't. The ticket scalpers were squeezed -- I was able to estimate that the network had about 15 tickets at any given time, with 20 operatives on hand. Most of those were forced to go to the end of the line and act as "buyers," and there were disgusted looks on the faces of approaching spectators who had just gone through an uncomfortable gauntlet. The imbalance led to a different kind of market collapse: with no inventory and too many workers, the prices had to become wildly inflated. At 3:30 p.m., the scheduled start time, a Category A ticket was going for $500 CDN, four times face. And nobody was buying.

Instead of destroying my budget, I sat on a bench reading the new version of The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics, watching the parade go by. I counted 11 flagwaving Americans -- it's becoming increasingly obvious that most people south of the border gave into the recession and are watching the Games on NBC. There were a lot of Koreans and Japanese fans, and I figured most of them didn't have to travel far. But while overwhelming majority of fans were Canadians hoping for a medal performance by aging star Jeremy Wotherspoon, the second-largest contingent was the Dutch.

It is impossible to go to the Olympic Games (or, I'm guessing, the World Cup) and not run into the folks from the Netherlands. They're everywhere, and because they've put a world sport trademark on the color orange -- the hue of the Dutch Royal Family -- they're highly visible. At the Winter Games, orange takes over the speedskating oval, where Holland has won 75 of its 78 winter medals.

Dutch sports fans are some of the most pure on the planet -- show them any type of competition, and they'll take sides and root. They are also masters at public relations. They win by charm, wearing the goofiest orange-themed outfits that they can dream up. I'll never forget a volleyball preliminary match at Sydney 2000, when my scalped ticket landed me right in the middle of a cheering section. It wasn't halfway through the first set when a rotund man wearing a giant orange foam crown threw me an orange scarf and said, "You are now Dutch too!" And for the next two hours, I was, shouting Hup Holland! after every won point.

At Vancouver 2010, the Netherlands are determined to win over every unaffiliated heart and mind in Richmond, and possibly turn some Canadians to their side too. That's why they've rented out a hockey complex near Minoru Park, just a kilometer from the oval. It's in the middle of the city's "O-Zone," which is sponsored by the city and Canadian Olympic broadcaster CTV; it's well outside the clutches of the IOC and the worldwide partners, so it's 100 times more fun than Live City by default. And Holland House has been carefully designed to be the most fun place in this version of Olympia.

There's a long wait to get into Holland House (those with Dutch passports can walk right in), and an ID check and security screening. But unlike Acer Computer World, there's no confusion whatsoever about what's inside. There is beer, and a lot of it, and it's cheap. That fact alone is enough to get people to stand in line for 90 minutes.

Once inside, you have to exchange your money, just like you would any time you cross into a new country. There are cashiers where you can put your cash on Rabobank cards. Then, you can even buy your very own gold medal (11 NLG)... to open your beer with.

The atmosphere in Holland House was an electric discotheque, with pounding techno music. There were hundreds of people wearing orange -- and many with the maple leaf on their shirts -- pounding down Heinekens and watching the speedskating on the big screens, via Dutch broadcaster NOS.

When a ice resurfacer flooded the oval, the broadcast switched over to the pairs figure skating, at which point the assemblage lost interest and started dancing. But as soon as the issue was resolved, NOS cut away -- in the middle of a free skate performance! -- and returned to Richmond.

The second race of two was tense and tight, with the world's best speedskaters breaching the previously unreachable 35-second mark. When competitors from Holland took to the ice, a great cheer went up. When the Canadians like Wotherspoon, Jamie Gregg and Mike Ireland lined up at the start, there was an equal roar. When the pair was CAN and NED, the crazy noise didn't subside for 35.004 seconds.

But neither side won, or even came close. Somewhere out in the city of Richmond, there were celebrations for Tae-Bum Mo, the Korean Olympic champion. Japanese residents just blocks away were undoubtedly overjoyed about the silver medal of Keiichiro Nagashima -- who slipped and fell after his race giving his coach a high five -- and bronze medalist Joji Kato, who was just three tenths of a second behind his countryman. This totally unprecedented Olympic feat, an Asian sweep of the medals in the men's 500, happened on an island with one of the highest concentrations of Asian immigrants in North America.

Holland's hero Jan Smeekens finished in sixth, and Simon Kuipers managed 20th despite a gloved fan section. But the Dutch weren't despondent for too long. An emcee came on over the loudspeaker and said, "We'll win tomorrow. Let's party!"

And then, on stage, a cover band called De Coronas, which took requests over a white telephone. They opened with a medley of Guns & Roses songs, then played a note-for-note copy of "Your Sex is on Fire" by Kings of Leon, at the behest of a drunk Canadian girl. The sports were over, but the public relations campaign continued long into the night.