Experiencing the 2010 Olympics from Sin City
To start off the Las Vegas travel blogging, I wanted to share a few funny recent experiences watching the 2010 Olympics, which just finished in Vancouver, British Columbia, just a ferry ride away from my home on Vancouver Island.
We snuck off to Vegas right after the Olympics began and got to have a unique look at how other people are viewing something taking place so close to our home.
We left Canada for Nevada on a charmingly Canadian note, while flying Westjet (Canada’s friendly airline) as almost every tiny seatback TV was tuned to one of the Vancouver or Whistler events. The flight attendant suddenly stopped drink service to race up to the front of the plane and announce “Sorry to interrupt (note the ever polite Canadian airline), but Canada just won our second gold medal!” and the whole plane erupted in cheers. But best of all was when the plane started its decent into Vegas and the TVs were turned off in preparation for landing. A cry of horror shot up in multiple pockets of the plane where people had been watching the Canada curling match. “There’s just two rocks to go!” a woman shouted in desperation. The flight attendant smiled, nodded, and went over and turned the damn TVs back on until the match was over! Way to keep the Olympic fans happy, Westjet.
Watching the Olympics from Vegas was unexpectedly much easier than we had thought it would be. Go for a beer and a taco at Diablos on the strip, the short track speed skating is playing on every TV… My husband and I chatted with the two guys next to us, from Denver, about different countries’ chances and past mistakes over a few Coronas, they were both in their early twenties but impressively well-versed in the sport and the 2010 Olympics overall. In fact, every time someone in Vegas heard where we were from, they wanted to chat about the Olympics, the weather in Vancouver, different events they were excited about and more – store clerks, waitresses, street vendors, poker dealers, they were all genuinely interested in these Winter Olympics.
We were lucky in that our hotel room at Platinum Hotel and Spa had a huge flat screen tv, and after walking along the strip for hours, or playing in a looooong poker tournament, we’d come back to our room, put our aching feet up and watch the NBC replay of live events for hours into the night. While I found the NBC coverage spotty – we NEVER saw a replay of the winning Shawn White run that we missed during the day, but damned if they didn’t play every iteration of ice dance, free ice dance, break dance, bla bla bla they could get their hands on. That being said, as a Canadian and a British Columbia resident, I found the NBC “local colour and culture” pieces cute and entertaining and I thought that commentators were supportive and well-informed about Canadian athletes in every event, sometimes more so than CTV.
We realized that spotting Olympic events playing on tvs all around the Vegas strip was the norm early on, but notably entertaining to me was when I walked into the stunning new Aria Casino poker room and saw that they had the Canada Olympic curling match playing in their high stakes private room. Loved that.
My best Vegas Olympic moment came during the first Canada/US Men’s hockey match. We were walking through Caesars Palace and heard the roar of the hockey watching crowd before we even rounded the corner. My husband realized what they were cheering about and took off like a shot to find a spot under the massive screens projecting the game above Caesars sports book (seen in this picture in quieter times). It was packed, every seat taken, with a crowd standing behind them. The score was 4-2 for the US when we got there, but a minute later, Canada scored. At the very front of the packed seating area, a group of guys all wearing red shot out of their seats, hoisted a Canadian flag in the air and started cheering their heads off. The surrounding US crowd chuckled and gently booed at the guys who were grinning and bowing to the crowd.
Suddenly, as if all given a secret signal, Canadians began standing up from other tables, cheering. Sticking their heads out of the poker room, cheering. Rising up from behind slot machines, cheering! For about 30 seconds straight, Caesars Palace Canadians made themselves heard and it was fantastic. The US crowd, not taking this sitting down, followed up with a hearty round of “USA! USA!” chanting, but it couldn’t quite match the awesome and hilarious coming together of a country on foreign soil (and down in the score of the game too, I might add).
We lost that game, and the casino Canadian boys in red with the waving flag were gracious in defeat, and got up and applauded to the American crowd. Last weekend I watched the Gold Medal game back here on Vancouver Island, but when we scored the winning goal and all our friends went crazy, I leaned over to Jay and said “Bet those Vegas Canadian guys are going nuts right now.”
Sometimes watching something from a little further away than your backyard is worth the added appreciation value and I’m glad we celebrated the Vancouver 2010 games in Vegas.
A great video timelapse tribute to beautiful Vancouver, one hell of a backdrop for an Olympic games:
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 12:38 am and is filed under Las Vegas, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.