Welcome to the Official 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics NeoGAF thread of Olympic goodness and "friendly" nationalistic competition. Take off your pants, grab a cold one, sit back and enjoy as your country of choice defends (or contends) previous medal winners and show off your national pride!
This thread will serve as a general purpose information centre, including but not limited to:
- Daily Medal Count Updates
- Notable event information (such as Hockey standings, round robin results, playoff placement, etc)
- Event Schedules (with the appropriate timezones via countdown)
- Scandal information / Doping News
- general discussion and smacktalk for you and your country vs. the world
- and More!
Every morning I will update the medal counts for all countries from the day before. I am on the east cost of Canada and since the games are held in Vancouver, events will go well into the A.M. making a nightly update a daunting task. I aim to have all medal count updates completed by 10 A.M. Eastern time daily.
So without further Adieu, I present to you (hey, that rhymes) the OFFICIAL NEOGAF VANCOUVER 2010 OLYMPIC GAMES THREAD! DUHHH DUHH DA DUHH DE DAA DUHH DUN DUN DUN DUN... you get the idea.
The 2010 Winter Olympic games are being held in and around Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This is the second time the Winter Olympics have been held in the Great White North, the first being in Calgary in 1988. This thread is utilizing imagery from the best (and only?) Winter Olympics themed film, Cool Runnings as all the header graphics. The 1988 Calgary games are where the Jamacian Bobsled team made their debut. But I'm getting off Topic.
The Vancouver 2010 Games are spread out around the Vancouver & Whistler Area, which are about 200km (2 hours by car) away from each other. Whistler is the main location for Skiing, Snowboarding, and other 'snow' based outdoor activities. Whereas the Richmond Olympic Oval (speed skating), BC Place Stadium (Opening/Closing Ceremonies) and GM Place (the home of the Vancouver Canucks) are all at Sea Level in Richmond, BC (A suburb of Vancouver).
GM Place will be transforming into "Canada Place" for the duration of the games since Olympic venues cannot be corporately sponsored; all Ice Hockey will be played there.
There will be 15 sports at this Olympic games with one new addition: Skicross, which is sort of like excitebike, but on skis.
A number of proposed new events didn't make it into the games.. which is kind of a drag because some of them sounded cool:
- Biathlon mixed Relay
- Mixed Doubles Curling
- Team Alpine Skiing
- Team Bobsled and skeleton (But I don't know how this would differ from the regular 2 and 4 man bobsleigh)
- Team Luge
- Women's Ski Jumping
The Opening Ceremonies might draw a bit of controversy this year, as the Canadian Government matched any funds raised in order to have some control over the content. It's been a highly debated subject here in Canuckistan, but VANOC has said the Government will have no veto power at any time during the ceremonies. If there's a giant statue of Stephen Harper during either the opening or closing ceremonies, I apologize on behalf of all Canadians.
Earlier this month, Cypress Mountain was closed down after temperatures in Vancouver reached as high as 12 degrees Celsius. With the games less than a month away, VANOC released statements saying they had stored enough snow for the Olympics, and that they would start making snow as soon as the temperature cooperated.
The Opening Ceremonies take place on Friday, February 12th, 2010 @ 6PM local time.
The following countdown is corrected to your timezone, so you don't have to do any timezone calculations.
The olympics will be broadcast all over the world (If you needed to read this to realize that, you're not the brightest twig in the jello pudding) and here is some broadcast info for major markets. If your country isn't listed here, please refer to the wiki on the subject found here.
* Available in HD
NORTH AMERICA
Canada
Free to Air:
CTV* (A-Channel for ATLANTIC CANADA)
V*
Omni*
Cable / Satellite:
BELLTV - A set of dedicated OLYMPIC HD channels showcasing various RAW feeds from CBC/CTV... Much of the time without commentary (THIS WAS INCREDIBLE for 2006 and 2008)
TSN*
RDS*
Rogers Sportsnet*
OLN
RIS
APTN
ATN
Mexico
Televisa
TV Azteca
United States of America
Free to Air:
NBC*
Universal Sports (* Universal HD)
Cable / Satellite:
USA Network*
CNBC*
MSNBC*
EUROPE
Germany
Free to Air:
Das Erste*
ZDF*
WDR
NDR
BR
SWR
MDR
HR
SR
RB
RBB
EinsFestival*
EinsPlus
ZDFdokukanal
ZDFinfokanal
United Kingdom
BBC*
Eurosport*
Eurosport 2
OCEANIA
Australia
Free to Air:
Nine Network*
Foxtel - Channels 188-191
Whistler*
Creekside*
Vancouver*
Cypress*
New Zealand
Free to Air:
Prime
Cable / Satellite:
SKY Sport*
Coming 01/28/10
Coming 01/28/10
Coming 01/28/10
Coming Soon
