France cancels Haiti's debt

By macleans.ca - Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 9:53 AM - 3 Comments

In a brief visit to Haiti on Wednesday, France’s president Nicholas Sarkozy announced that he will cancel Haiti’s $77m debt to France and pledged $450m in aid. Sarkozy is the first French president to visit the former French slave colony, who fought for and won its independence in 1804. His visit was met with mixed sentiment—many Haitians still feel the bitter sting of the crippling debt France forced Haiti to pay off following the revolt, compensation that took more than half a century to pay off. The president was on the ground for just four hours, and in that time spoke alongside Haitian president Rene Preval, saying he wanted to “turn the page” in France and Haiti’s long, troubled history

Al Jazeera English

Mitchel Raphael on who Harper hugged at the Olympics and Ambrose’s grateful date

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 7 Comments

A wet PM Stephen Harper waited for almost an hour in the cold rain—without an umbrella—to congratulate moguls skier Jennifer Heil, who won Canada’s first Olympic medal at the Vancouver 2010 games. The PM could have waited inside, but chose to remain outdoors. He was with his daughter, Rachel Harper, and in a tender moment explained to her that Heil had done the best she could and won silver. When Heil won a gold medal in Turin in 2006, she came to Ottawa and got to meet Harper in his office. On Saturday night, the PM hugged Heil and said, “I got to see where you work today.” Watching the skiing events for eight hours in the rain was Minister of Public Works Rona Ambrose, who brought her mother, Colleen Chapchuk, as her Olympic date.

Chapchuk bought them both matching official Olympic mitts, scarves, and toques. Heil is from Spruce Grove, Alta., which is in Ambrose’s riding. Ambrose is also taking her mother to other events. “She loves figure skating. This is her birthday and Christmas present.” Ambrose scored best-daughter-ever points when she brought her mom to Michaëlle Jean’s reception for heads of state; among the guests were U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden and Princess Anne. But the guest everyone wanted photos with was California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. When he arrived, there was an empty seat next to Ambrose’s mom and he plunked himself down beside her.

Photograph by Ron Joyce (Left) and Jason Ransom (Right)

And the medal for best staffer goes to…
Heritage Minister James Moore accompanied the Olympic torch in B.C. as it went through his riding of Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam. Accompanying the minister was his director of communications, Deirdra McCracken. But there was no room in the official torch vehicle (especially with the sponsorship Coca-Cola girls), so she had to run seven kilometres to keep up. “It was a good thing I chose to wear running shoes and not heels that day,” quipped McCracken. At the opening ceremonies, Moore, whose portfolio includes the Olympics, heard a man behind him shout, “Good job!” He turned around and saw that the fellow, who was holding a beer, was Jean Chrétien.

NEW ARRIVAL AT 24 Sussex
Laureen Harper finally got the igloo she’s been wanting at 24 Sussex with the help of David Serkoak, who teaches Inuit culture at the Nunavut Sivuniksavut training program in Ottawa. He was recommended to her by Inuit leader Mary Simon. Mrs. Harper and a few of her friends were the igloo-building assistants; it took the team about four hours to complete the project. The snow was icy and difficult to carve: “We were going to do something bigger but the snow wasn’t right,” said Mrs. Harper. They used a saw and a knife that Serkoak made himself to carve out the blocks. “David was amazing with his knife, and once he was finished he was entombed in his creation and he dug from the inside and we dug from the outside and we created a door at the bottom,” noted Mrs. Harper. The plan now is to furnish the igloo with seal and caribou skins along with a dog sleigh. While building the igloo, Serkoak told the team stories about surviving in the North. His family spent their winters in an igloo until 1961. Farley Mowat wrote about the area he is from, which is west of Hudson Bay, in his book People of the Deer.

Continue…

Sven the kid, An American in China and Some of his best outfits are animals

By macleans.ca - Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Sven the kid
When Dutch skating sensation Sven Kramer, 23, looks in the mirror he sees a very relaxed athlete. When Canadians look at Kramer—who won gold in the 5,000-m race in front of 4,500 fans from back home, including Crown Prince Willem Alexander and Princess Maxima—they see another Olympian, Sidney Crosby. The hockey great and Kramer share a huge celebrity in their home countries—and a striking resemblance. Canadian speed skater Christine Nesbitt recalls a time Kramer competed in Calgary and visited a local mall. “All the girls were asking for his autograph, and he thought it was because he was Sven Kramer,” she says. Nesbitt herself is more often recognized in skating-mad Holland than Canada, she says. Expect that to change after Vancouver.

An American in China
She’s no Yao Ming, says Team USA assistant captain Julie Chu, but she sure gets attention in China. After the U.S. women’s hockey opener against China on Feb. 14, Chu, the all-time leading scorer in NCAA women’s history, was mobbed by Chinese media. The final score was 12-1 for the U.S., but it didn’t much matter to the China-supporting crowd, who gave their team an ovation for its lone goal. Chu—whose parents and three siblings all have matching tattoos of the Olympic rings, and of Julie’s number, 13—happily quoted the two Mandarin phrases she knows for Chinese national TV. As luck would have it, they include, “Happy New Year!”

But some of his best outfits are animals
Fears for his safety have forced drama-magnet Johnny Weir into the security-laden Olympic Village. The figure skater had chosen to live in a hotel during the Games after an unhappy experience at the athletes’ lodgings in Turin. But the white fox fur he added to his costume at the U.S. championships last month unleashed a torrent of what he calls “very serious threats” from anti-fur activists. Arranging security at the hotel was too hard. So he’s sharing a suite with ice dancer Tanith Belbin, having made himself at home by putting up b posters and lighting scented candles to mask an odour he says “smelled like wet dog.” That comment won’t win him fans in the PETA crowd.

Continue…

The Show of Shows

By Paul Wells - Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 5 Comments

Even as it inspires a hopeful nation and sweeps beyond its borders around a troubled world, the power of the Olympic dream remains sharply circumscribed. On Friday night Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations secretary general, addressed the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics via video-link. He called for armies to “lay down their weapons” and observe the traditional Olympic Truce. At that moment, halfway around the world, 15,000 Afghan, U.S. and British soldiers opened the traditional Can of Whoop-Ass on several hundred entrenched Taliban fighters in the southern Afghan town of Marjah. So much for truces.

Throughout the opening weekend of these Games, assorted other enemies of wishful thinking remained intractable. Street protests tested the good cheer that united much of Vancouver. The weather played devilish variations, by turns windy, warm, rainy or simply miserable. The forces of linguistic discord set in after the opening ceremonies made too little place for the sound of the French language.

The worst moment came before the Games had even begun, when the laws of physics plucked the Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili off the track of the Whistler Sliding Centre and flung his body like a rag doll into a metal girder, killing him.

Continue…

The absurd trial of Geert Wilders

By Mark Steyn - Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 7:00 AM - 185 Comments

At a certain level, the trial of Geert Wilders for the crime of “group insult” of Islam is déjà vu all over again. For as the spokesperson for the Openbaar Ministerie put it, “It is irrelevant whether Wilders’s witnesses might prove Wilders’s observations to be correct. What’s relevant is that his observations are illegal.”

Ah, yes, in the Netherlands, as in Canada, the truth is no defence. My Dutch is a little rusty but I believe the “Openbaar Ministerie” translates in English to the Ministry for Openly Barring People. Whoops, my mistake. It’s the prosecution service of the Dutch Ministry of Justice. But it shares with Canada’s “human rights” commissions an institutional contempt for the truth.

As for “Wilders’s witnesses,” he submitted a list of 18, and the Amsterdam court rejected no fewer than 15 of them. As with Commissar MacNaughton and her troika of pseudo-judges presiding over the Maclean’s trial in British Columbia, it’s easier to make the rules up as you go along.

Continue…

For the Canadian women, the hockey spankings—and debates—rage on

By Nancy Macdonald - Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 1:57 AM - 2 Comments

It was supposed to be their first real challenge of the Games. Instead, Canada’s fast, strong, and absurdly deep women’s hockey squad pummeled the Swedes—Turin’s silver-medallists.

“They skated much faster than us, passed much better, and had better shooting—they were completely better in all moments of the game,” Swedish coach, Peter Elander, said after last night’s game at UBC Thunderbird Arena. His team—which actually beat Canada 15 months ago—was “really pissed off” with their lacklustre performance, he added.

Canada simply danced circles around his squad.

Both Hayley Wickenheiser and Meghan Agosta had five-point nights, and landed in the record books.

Wickenheiser went first, tucking an ugly goal past Kim Martin (the top goalie at Turin—but off her game last night) and picked up the crown for most goals in Olympic history: 16.

Agosta—the next Wickenheiser, might as well start saying it now—logged a hat-trick, sending the riotous crowd of 5,483 into a tizzy; it was her eighth of the Games, equalling Danielle Goyette’s record for most goals in a single Olympic tournament. The 23-year-old from Ruthven, Ont., has “exploded” onto the world stage, forward Gillian Apps said after the game.

But Agosta, like the rest of the team, seemed to ease up in the third, cycling and passing—perhaps on the advice of coach Mel Davidson, who started rolling her third and fourth lines. (Canada’s lone third-period goal went in off Apps’s skate.)

It was the mercy some have been calling on Canada and the U.S. to show their weaker opponents, while others say the women’s game should be altogether eliminated from the Olympics. Hockey’s bigwigs, however, have told everyone to just calm down.

“I am not so happy, I must say,” IIHF head René Fasel said, the day after the U.S. pummeled the Chinese, 12-1. “But that’s the beginning of women’s hockey. In the 1930s, Switzerland was beaten by Canada, 20-0. And in Torino, Switzerland beat Canada, 2-0. It took nearly 70 years to come on the same level, and the women are growing fast now.”

For more than a decade, Hockey Canada has been pouring money into women’s hockey; its under-18 and under-22 are churning out talent like 18-year-old phenom Marie-Philippe Poulin, who went backhand, top-shelf tonight for her second—frickin’ beautiful—goal of the tournament. The American squad, meanwhile, has benefited from Title IX legislation, which forced schools and colleges to launch women’s hockey programs.

The leadership in European hockey federations need to start giving their girls the same opportunities, Wickenheiser told Maclean’s after the game.

And Canada and the U.S. have another huge advantage over the rest, she added. Both centralized their squads for the nine months leading up to the Games (and played exhibition series against boys’ teams—which kicked-up their level of play). The Swedes did not. No one else here did.

While the Swedes were spread out across the NCAA and on rag-tag club teams back home, Canada’s women practised together in Calgary daily, fine-tuning their lines and play.

You saw the result last night when, at the end of the second, Caroline Ouellette found Jana Hefford alone in front of the net—with her back turned. It’s the kind of sixth-sense that comes from playing together over and over again—and, says Wickenheiser, is “key” to their success.

A silver-coated birthday for Marianne St-Gelais

By Ken MacQueen - Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 1:42 AM - 2 Comments

Marianne St-Gelais awoke in the Olympic village Wednesday—her 20th birthday—with the sweet feeling that comes when you’re young, and the stars are aligned and all things are possible. The day was marked by her fellow short track teammate Charles Hamelin, the most accomplished member of the team. He gave her a bouquet of flowers and some Olympic clothes and the sense she could accomplish great things that night.

As for her race strategy, she had three objectives. “Getting into the top eight was quite feasible,” she said. “The top four was quite ambitious. And the top three was a dream.”

And so she climbed through the preliminary rounds at Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum—which were filled with the usual mayhem and disappointments that short track provides—working her way from feasible to ambitious.

And then there were four. Meng Wang, the multi-record holder and near-unstoppable force from China, Arianna Fontana of Italy, and St-Gelais’ teammate, Jessica Gregg of Edmonton, like her, an Olympic rookie.

It took St-Gelais 43.707 seconds to move from the top three to the top two, a very nice place, as dreams go. And while it wasn’t gold—for Wang was indeed unstoppable—the smile that broke out on the birthday girl’s face radiated pure joy as she circled the ice with a Canadian flag, acknowledging the cheers of more than 11,000 fans.

“I pushed myself to the limit,” she said, “and went as far and as fast as I could.”

Wiping away tears, she signed her first autograph before she had even left the ice. Not bad for a gal who only tried the sport as a favour to a neighbour in Roberval, Que., who was president of the local speed skating club and desperate for new members.

The final was bittersweet for 21-year-old Gregg, whose hockey-playing father and speed skating mother were both Olympians. She started from the difficult outside lane and wasn’t able to fight her way ahead of the Italian. She swallowed her disappointment at the fourth-place finish, deciding, she said, that she can consider reaching the final in her first Olympic experience a not bad start. A quite ambitious accomplishment, you might say.

As for St-Gelais, she arrived at the basement media room to be greeted by a rousing chorus of bonne fête. A bottle of champagne was produced. But not opened. There was still doping control to deal with. “I’m going to drink that thing with my teammates and my coach,” she said. As for the medal, it arrives Thursday night at a medal presentation ceremony at B.C. Place, in front of 22,000 people.

“It’s the birthday party of my life,” she said. “It’s a really amazing gift.”

Shaun White owns the halfpipe

By Jason Kirby - Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 1:24 AM - 3 Comments

He came, he conquered, and the crowd got everything they could have hoped for. Shaun White, known as the Flying Tomato for his long red locks, twisted and flew his way to gold on the men’s halfpipe snowboard event at Cypress Mountain. His final score was a near-perfect 48.4 out of 50.

“I just feel so happy to put down that last run, it was the best run of my life,” he told reporters in an impromptu press conference on the mountain. “It’s the world stage, why not deliver something spectacular.”

On the bus up to the event, White, a multi-millionaire who owns his very own personal halfpipe in his backyard, had told his fellow boarders on the American team the site here had been getting better and better each day, predicting it would be great for today’s event. As it turned out, he was bang on. For all the griping about snow, or the lack thereof, on Cypress, several boarders said the halfpipe was in perfect condition. “The halfpipe on the first day was one of the worst of my life, but by today it was one of the best of my life,” White said.

But watching White soar through the cold night sky, one gets the impression the guy could turn in a medal performance on shaving cream.

White admitted his hands were shaking at the top of the pipe. He said he’d never felt as nervous as he did before his final run of the day. There was intense pressure on him to perform, with not just his country but the entire world of boarding watching his every move. But after successfully landing his trademark move, the Double McTwist 1260, his victory was cemented.

The silver went to Peetu Piiroinen of Finland, who scored a 45.0, while bronze went to American Scott Lago, with a 42.8. The two snowboarding medals made today the most successful day in Winter Olympic history for the U.S., with 6 medals in total.

Canadian Justin Lamoureux turned in Canada’s best-ever Olympic showing in the men’s halfpipe. He placed 7th overall after a strong and clean run, besting by far his 21st place showing in Turin four years ago.

The 33-year old boarder more than held his own against many of his younger competitors—the youngest of whom was a tender 15. Careful with the subject of age around Lamoureux, though. “What, are you calling me old?” he said afterwards. But even he acknowledged the age difference. “It’s my sport, I’ve been doing it since some of these guys were born.”

Maybe, but tonight the halfpipe was thoroughly owned by White.

Shani Davis comes through in 1,000m race

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 10:49 PM - 1 Comment

The Olympics are all about pressure. The pressure athletes put on themselves. The expectations of their friends, families, and financial supporters. The prognostications of medal-hungry media. And, perhaps above all, the weight of national aspirations.

In the sport of speed skating, at least, it’s hard to argue that any athlete at these Vancouver 2010 Games came in with more of that baggage than Shani Davis of the United States. Four years ago in Turin, he took the men’s 1,000m race and became the first black man to ever win an individual Winter Olympics gold. Then he added a silver in the 1,500m. And still he managed to emerge as the great villain of the Games—putatively because he was adjudged to have let his teammates down by not skating in the pursuit event, but more truthfully, because he regularly blew off the people who were eager to tell what should have been his natural, feel-good story.

He’s a prickly guy (as witnessed by his pre-Olympics spat with comedian Stephen Colbert) and as a consequence he has spent four prime years of his skating career being put on trail in the media for his perceived sins.

But now, that’s all over. Davis’ gold medal winning performance in the men’s 1,000m race this evening, earns him the right to be as nice, or as nasty as he wishes. The winner of every single World Cup race at that distance this season, the 27-year-old was the prohibitive favourite coming into Vancouver. The American hype machine was again cranked up to the max, and his every decision—to again skip the team event, to drop out half-way through Monday’s 500m race—was dissected and critiqued. The pressure must have been skull crushing. And his answer to it all was to go out and blow away the competition with a time of one-minute, 8.94 seconds, .18 seconds ahead of his nearest rival. Tae-Bum Mo of South Korea added a silver to the gold he won in the 500m. And Davis’ teammate/one-time enemy Chad Hedrick took the bronze.

Speaking to the media after the race (something that happens about as often as an eclipse), Davis came as close to ebullient as he gets.

“It’s my moment. It’s my party. I can celebrate, I can dance, I can do whatever I want—I earned it,” he deadpanned.

“In 2006, I was on the offensive. I was attacking. This time I was on the defensive. I just had to weather the storm.”

But how did he cope with all that pressure? Davis just shrugged.

“The only pressure on me is the pressure I allow to be on me.”

Hedrick, the winner of three medals in Turin, including gold in the 5,000m, talked tonight about how he uses pressure to help him perform.

“Nobody expected me to leave here with a medal today—nobody but me. I put that pressure on myself. You’ve gotta do it,” he said. “I don’t come here for sixth place. I don’t wake up every morning for sixth place. I gotta expect big things of myself and put the pressure on myself.”

His prior Olympic experience was a detriment, said Hedrick, making him a little too calm.

“I had to force the pressure on myself to get that adrenaline going to make myself excited about these races.”

It’s a different mindset. Perhaps, even a uniquely American one.

But on a disappointing night for Canada’s speed skaters—Denny Morrison finished 13th; Jeremy Wotherspoon, in the final race of his Olympic career came 14th—it’s an interesting contrast.

Morrison who was considered a legitimate medal threat in the 1,000m—he won a silver at the world single distance championships in 2009, and the season before won 11 World Cup medals—is certainly meditating on the issue.

“I’m usually the kind of guy that performs well under pressure, but not on this occasion,” he said afterwards.

He didn’t offer excuses, the way pro athletes so often do. “I’m the one who had to perform and I didn’t do it.”

But his anger was palpable and heart-wrenching.

“It’s just frustrating,” he said.  “Four years I spent getting myself psyched up, getting my confidence up, my technique perfected, my equipment honed, and I just don’t know.”

Morrison races again in the 1,500m Saturday. His plan between now and then? To get angry, he said.

Hopefully, it will make a difference.

Disappointing day for Canada’s cross-country sprinters

By Michael Friscolanti - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 8:54 PM - 3 Comments

So much for home snow advantage. None of Canada’s cross-country skiers—men or women—were fast enough to advance any further than the quarterfinals at this afternoon’s Individual Sprint Classic. Stefan Kuhn of Canmore, Alta., was the top Canadian in the men’s competition, finishing 15th; Daria Gaizova was the top female, placing 22nd.

But for those fans not waving a Canadian flag, there was plenty to cheer about at the Whistler Olympic Park—including a gutsy performance from top-ranked Slovenian sprinter Petra Majdic, who injured her ribs in a nasty training spill, was treated by medics in between heats, yet somehow managed to squeak out a bronze in the final race of the day. When she crossed the finish line, the 30-year-old had to be carried off the course. “I was screaming through the whole track from the pain,” she said later, still limping. “It was the first time that all coaches from all nations were cheering for me, because they could hear how painful this was for me.”

Norway’s Marit Bjoergen took home the gold in the women’s 1.4 km sprint (3:39.2), while Justyna Kowalkczyk of Poland captured silver. “I saw in the end that nobody was behind me and I thought: ‘This is my chance,’ ” said Bjoergen, who already won a bronze in the 10km event on Monday. “I had a very good day today.”

The men’s final (1.6 km) was equally dramatic—a photo finish between two Russians. Alexander Panzhinskiy led for most of the race, but his teammate (and roommate) Nikita Kriukov passed him down the stretch and stole the gold by the edge of his boot. “It was really a dream for us to be together on the podium, and we didn’t realize it was going to come true,” Panzhinskiy said afterwards. “[The silver medal] comes with a little of a bittersweet taste for me because I lost it in the last few metres. Perhaps I made a mistake in the very last 10 metres. Maybe I should have made more of an effort. Who knows? But right now I still feel very happy.”

Canada’s cross-country team cannot say the same. Chandra Crawford—the defending gold medalist from the 2006 Turin Games—was ousted in the quarterfinal round and finished a disappointing 26th. To be fair, Crawford did not expect another podium appearance in Vancouver. The sprint event alternates every four years between the “classic” technique, which requires more finesse, and the “freestyle” technique, which relies more on brute power and force. When Crawford captured gold in Italy, she was skiing freestyle, her strength. But for this Olympics, it was classic. “I gave it my all in that race, trying to hang with the big dogs, but it was a hard race today and classical is certainly not my forté,” she said after being eliminated. “I get a little down at this classical thing. I look at my fans and wish I’d been able to defend my gold in skate [freestyle] technique.”

Sara Renner, who won an Olympic silver medal in the team sprint four years ago—and who has never been shy when it comes to accusing fellow competitors of blood doping—failed to qualify for the quarterfinals, as did Perianne Jones. Both are from Canmore. “I had a good race and I caught a girl in front of me,” Renner said. “There was only one track and she wouldn’t get out of the track. In a race where it’s seconds and you have to get out of the track and go around, it’s difficult.”

Other than Khun, Sudbury’s Devon Kershaw was the only Canadian on the men’s side to advance past the qualification round. He ended the day in 24th place. (The other two Canadian men, Drew Goldsack and Brent McMurtry, finished 40th and 41st respectively.) “The heat did not go as I wanted,” Kershaw said. “I was just lacking a little bit of the punch that I thought I had.”

He was certainly not the only one.

Women's downhill marred by crashes

By Nicholas Köhler - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 8:12 PM - 3 Comments

[This post has been updated with corrections]

When eight Olympic-level competitors flame out in a spectacular series of falls, false starts and accidental diversions, you have to wonder whether it’s you, not them.

That’s what organizers must be asking themselves after the ladies’ downhill event at Whistler Creekside ended in an avalanche of gasp-inducing spills. The high rate of DNFs is raising questions about the difficulty of the course, icy conditions, and the lack of training time made available to athletes.

In the case of 20-year-old Canadian Georgia Simmerling, the crashes were so violent coaches pulled her from competition.

“RACE UPDATE Georgia DNS the ladies’ downhill due to the course being dangerous due to lack of training runs. Safe and excited for tomorrow!” read an entry on Simmerling’s Twitter page.

Organizers said they would shave down a bump at the end of the course that caused one skier to fly 60 metres before she collapsed at the bottom, and introduce other modifications to improve the run.

But they dismissed suggestions it had been unsafe during competition.

“I think it was acceptable for sure but it was very difficult,” said one International Ski Federation (FIS) official, explaining that moisture over the past few days had super-injected the surface with speed. He added: “I can’t take responsibility for every crash on the hill—it may disappoint you, but I can’t.”

Athletes described an inconsistent, bumpy course of heavy terrain and icy conditions, though some admitted they had taken risks in their pursuit of a medal. One said the women had been “spoiled” by a season of ideal conditions internationally that had left them ill-prepared for the difficult snow on the Whistler run.

“This is probably the bumpiest course that I’ve ever done,” said Lindsey Vonn, who skied through the pain on a bruised shin to win gold medal in the event; her teammate Julia Mancuso took silver, while bronze went to Austrian Elisabeth Goergl.

Poor weather conditions had scuttled training runs and competition over the past days; though FIS mandates two training runs before competition, the women had been forced to contend with one incomplete session.

Canadian skier Emily Brydon said the competition went ahead today to take advantage of the sun in a resort area—Whistler—infamous for variable weather. “You know carpe diem–carpe le solei,” she said.

Brydon, who had been an outside hope for a medal, came 16th, while fellow Canadian Britt Janyk took sixth.

“I felt like the course skied me and I didn’t ski the course,” said Bryden. “It’s probably the most exhausting female course out there. The reason we’re seeing so much carnage is we’re so tired at the end. It’s mentally tough.”

Vonn’s husband Thomas, who is also her unofficial coach, said the course had been difficult to train for because the hill’s surface varied drastically depending on the conditions.

Another Sitcom Scene With Laughter Removed

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 7:40 PM - 2 Comments

Because I didn’t really care for that “Big Bang Theory Minus Laughter” clip that was floating around, I decided to try and make something that gave a fairer shake to a multi-camera sitcom scene while still removing the audience laughter. I settled on this scene from The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

To make it seem more like a “real” scene, I dubbed in mild crowd noise in the background (though I probably should have made it louder), and a few sound effects, plus a laugh that is obviously not Ed Asner’s. It probably ought to have more sound effects added, though.

One big difference between the live-audience show and the single-camera show is that single-camera shows have tons of sound effects: ambient noise, footsteps, doors squeaking, anything to keep the sound from being “dead.” In a multi-camera show, the audience supplies the ambience, so sound effects are kept to a minimum. (I’ve heard “unsweetened” tracks for episodes of some sitcoms from the ’80s — tracks without any fake laughter or sound effects added — and almost all the sound occured live on the set, with few sounds added in post-production.) In the original version of this scene, they don’t have a sound effect for Sue Ann hitting the cake; they don’t even bother to dub in Ed Asner’s laugh, since they’re content to let it get drowned out by the audience.

Which is one reason why this exercise is a little pointless: shows that don’t have laugh tracks do, in fact, dub in lots of sounds to evoke a response from the viewer watching at home. The sounds are called “foley effects” and “music.”

The other reason why it’s pointless is that the pacing of this scene makes no real sense when you remove the audience laughter. No show without an audience would hold on a gag this long, unless they were painfully stretching it out in a Simpsons rake scene kind of way.

Liveblogging the men's halfpipe

By Martin Patriquin - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 6:52 PM - 1 Comment

This liveblogging event will begin at 10:15 p.m.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the men’s halfpipe finals, otherwise known as the Shaun White coronation ceremony. It’s a balmy four degrees. Justin L: the only Canadian up now.

Lamoureux had a very nice, very smooth run. Wow.

Koski: a last minute sub on the team knocks down the Canadian.

French Riders + team have painted on the French stereotype. Does he know that ain’t gonna watch off?

Board judges: interesting that they score more on landings than on size of air.

Scotty Lago: so good, the TSN guy gave him a, ‘whoa, dude…’

Bretz: 19 years old, youngest team member. What were you doing when you were 19?

Oh, I bet it wasn’t wiping out in an Olympian halfpipe, whatever it was…

Goofy-footed riders are the devil’s work.

IPOD! What a run.

Purple pants are the devil’s work as well.

Vito: the closest to be out from under White’s shadow. So bloody smooth. Lordy.

It’s amazing to see the progression in technique and difficult from four years ago. You wonder how it gets any better to watch…

The second runs are going to be absolutely huge, given the number of whiteouts…

Here goes…

God good. It’s surreal to watch that guy: he’s smooth as everyone else, just the tricks are so much bigger.

Lamoureux is still a contender. He just has to go huge next run…

10:50

Malin: death by double cork.

10:51

Bretz: yet another death by double cork. More likely that Lamoureux will own the podium by attrition.

10:54

Another death by cork! Lordy!

10:55

Kokubo: big ol’ McTwist coming up…

More cork death!

10:57

So many wipeouts…

10:59

Lovely (but corkless) run for Lamoureux.

11:02

No Canadian medal here.

Oh well. King Shaun!

11:04

Vito’s run: gorgeous. That seemed an awfully low score…

11:07

That run by Peetu was game changer. Amazing.

11:08

IPOD: this is the only game left. No medal.

11:10

More cork death. All hail King Shaun.

11:12

Goddam. Incredible. Double McTwist 1260. Bonkers.

48.4!

Great Moments in Ambush Marketing

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 6:49 PM - 5 Comments

For spectators, the best (and pretty much only) way to get to speed skating at the Richmond Oval, is via Vancouver’s spiffy new Canada Line train.

But the nearest station is about 1.5 km away from the venue, necessitating a 15-20 minute walk. It’s a pretty stroll—along the banks of the Fraser River with views of the Coast Range in the distance—but it can be a chilly one, especially when the wind in blowing.

Thankfully, just outside the station today, there was a crew of young people handing out free hot chocolate from a catering truck.

An example of Vancouver’s Olympic spirit? Not exactly.

Visa is a world-wide Olympic sponsor, and its corporate logo is everywhere at the Games.

This hot chocolate came in styrofoam cups emblazoned with the logo of a rival credit card company.

Swifter, Higher, Partially Nakeder

By Scott Feschuk - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 5:39 PM - 3 Comments

You can read elsewhere about what happened at the cross-country races out at Whistler Olympic Park, and who won and who lost and whatnot. I was concerned with answering a more important question: How many people witnessing the cross-country races at Whistler Olympic Park would take off their shirts.

The answer: three. Three people took off their shirts. Tragically, all three were male.

Pertinent details: At race time, it was sunny with a temperature around five degrees. Winds were light. (Full disclosure: Could other people among the thousands at Olympic Park also have been shirtless? Yes, I suppose so. But I looked pretty hard and have a good eye for pale.)

This is Mike Nykreim. He’s a contractor from Seattle, but the economy sucks so he came to the Olympics instead of trying to drum up business. He brought some shirts with him. He even wore one to Olympic Park. But not for long.

Not for long.

“It’s the freaking Olympics,” Mike said, spilling a bit of his beer on account of the fact Continue…

The Canadian men's hockey team welcomes the competition with a rap song

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 5:26 PM - 5 Comments

The comeback kid

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 5:15 PM - 1 Comment

After months of silence, Tiger Woods is coming forward on Friday at 11 a.m. (ET) to “discuss his past and his future” to a small group of friends, colleagues, and associates, E! Online reports. “He plans to apologize for his behavior,” his agent wrote in an email statement announcing the appearance. “While Tiger feels that what happened is fundamentally a matter between he and his wife, he also recognizes that he has hurt and let down a lot of other people who were close to him. He also let down his fans. He wants to begin the process of making amends and that’s what he’s going to discuss.” Sources speculate that Woods may return to golf next month at Florida’s Tavistock Cup.

E! Online

Toronto Star

Blood on the track

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 4:51 PM - 1 Comment

The decisions that led to the now highly-controversial luge and bobsled track at the Whistler Sliding Centre—which hurled Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili to his death in a trial run—were in part commercially-motivated, says the Wall Street Journal. It all started with officials wanting to place the track in a high-traffic tourist area with cold temperatures, which yielded a steeper, narrower site than ever before used for an Olympic track. As a result, trial runs on the track marked a “quantum leap” in typical speeds, causing the German designer to revise the track’s projected luge speeds to 5.5% higher than initially forecasted, up to 96 miles an hour (which is nine miles an hour faster than the standing 2000 world speed record). He informed the Vancouver Games’ organizers and the international luge and bobsledding governing bodies, who proceeded to sign off on the course’s speeds. By last year, some of those same officials were calling the speeds unsafe and made recommendations that future courses be built to a slower standard. The WSJ goes on to report that their reconstruction of events leading up to Kumaritashvili’s death reveal that the track was “the result of decisions that weren’t entirely related to sport.”

Wall Street Journal

Lucien Bouchard tears into the PQ

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 4:45 PM - 8 Comments

Former Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard waited nearly ten years to step back into the political stoplight, but he made a doozy of a re-entry at an event celebrating the 100th anniversary of Le Devoir last night. Bouchard excoriated the PQ’s apparent desire to replace the all-but-defunct Action démocratique du Québec as the chief representative of Quebec’s “radical niche.” The ongoing debate into religious displays and the role they should play in a secular society like Quebec’s is “exaggerated,” Bouchard said, and runs counter to René Levesque’s ideals. “[Levesque] wasn’t worried about things like that,” he said. “He wasn’t afraid at the sight of immigrants coming here.” Bouchard reserved his most stinging rebukes for those who want to achieve sovereignty at all costs. Though the former PQ leader says he remains a dedicated sovereigntist, the province should first concentrate on “shaking off its torpor” confront more pressing problems like the elevated high school dropout-rate, the underfunding of universities, and the difficulty in raising electricity rates.

Le Devoir

Injured Lindsey Vonn takes gold on rough and bumpy course

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 4:35 PM - 0 Comments

In an exciting women’s downhill competition, American favourite Lindsey Vonn took the gold easily. Despite a recent shin injury, she aced a difficult course that did in many of her competitors. Vonn’s teammate Julia Mancuso came in second and Elisabeth Goergl of Austria won the bronze. Canadian favourite Britt Janyk, who grew up on the Whistler mountain, was sixth. But at least she stayed up. There were plenty of crashes on a course that, days before the event, competitors were calling “rough” and “bumpy.”

CBC

Fox

Space in LOST

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 4:08 PM - 0 Comments

I have a deep, abiding affection for posts where someone asks and answers questions about plot points that don’t make sense, and then gives equally nonsensical (but pseudo-logical) answers. So I naturally enjoy Mark Lisanti’s 23 Questions about Lost Episode 604, Answered!, and its predecessor, 21 Questions about the season premiere. Last night’s episode was a good one; good or bad isn’t even the point. The point is the fun of taking things that don’t make sense and trying to explain them as if they do, thereby making it even clearer how crazy things have become.

How is it possible that Sayid “died,” but then was able to wake up and have a nice chat with Jack, Kate and Sawyer?
Good karma! As Sawyer adroitly pointed out, “He’s an Iraqi torturer who shoots kids. Of course he gets another go-around.” But what the bitter, still-grieving Island Wiseass Nickname Generator failed to note: He’s an Iraqi-torturer-who-shoots-kids with a heart of gold. That does, indeed, earn him another go-around, even if he might be a teensy bit possessed by some still-undisclosed entity.

As I said, this isn’t really a criticism of Lost, because the show isn’t always supposed to make sense (at most, it’s teasing us with the possibility that things might make sense later), and the island is not a place where conventional rules of plot logic are supposed to apply anyway. Other times, this technique is used as a direct criticism of a show that has gone off the rails, like Boils and Blinding Torment’s Question-answer takedown of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s final-season logical meltdown:

How is it that Giles, Wood, Xander, Dawn, et alles can now easily knock down and kill Ubies? And how were they (the ubies) being so easily dusted via stake in the final battle? Wasn’t it not too long ago that Buffy couldn’t stake one and a single Ubie kicked her ass 9 ways to Sunday?
Geez, have you people never heard of creative, dramatic license?  Besides, you couldn’t have a bunch of young girls being torn apart by a bunch of demons, right? What kind of message would that send? Besides the one they’ve been sending all season?

Who was that freakish old lady?
Look, we thought this one was rather clear.  There were the mean shadow men and then there were the nice old ladies.  The old ladies lived in this time zone, unlike the shadow men who lived in another plane of existence’s time zone.  Or something like that, truth be told we were kind of distracted by Buffy’s boots and skirt at the time.  So the mean shadow men tied a girl to the earth and demonized her, and the nice old ladies watched.  The nice old ladies continued to assist the successive Slayers by watching.  And watching some more.  Eventually this group of nice old ladies that liked to watch got bored with this, moved to Sunnydale and forged the old Space Scythe, which was used to destroy the last true demon, then buried it in a bunch of rock underneath their pagan hall while they retired to their unobtrusive pyramid crypt in the middle of a Sunnydale cemetery. There they hung out and eventually died off, leaving the freakish old lady to talk to herself and await the Slayer’s arrival to assist her by being cryptic.  Duh.

Speaking of which, Movieline.com also has a post about the parallels between the final season of Lost and the final season of Buffy. The parallels are there, but I don’t really see the two seasons as similar so far. Especially since Buffy Season 7 started out with a promising string of episodes revolving around Buffy’s return to Sunnydale High, and then abandoned that, turning into a really bad, arc-dominated show, eventually collapsing into a mess of unresolved plot points and the most boring season-long villain ever. Lost is also trying to create a “back to the beginning,” “full circle” kind of feel, and the murky plot points and what’s-going-on feel are, as always, intended from the beginning. Again, they get away with this because we feel they know what they’re doing, whereas in something like Buffy season 7, we’re equally sure they don’t.

Jenn Heil's dentist makes mountain calls

By Anne Kingston - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 3:10 PM - 3 Comments

Jenn Heil’s Montreal dentists, the father and son team of Drs. Warren and Jason Retter, are celebrating (some might say exploiting) their association with the 2010 silver-medal winner, posting a video on YouTube and their website of the skier’s most recent appointment to touch up her gleaming “Olympic-podium smile.” “I’m definitely more ready now,” a smiling Heil tells the camera. Word has it Warren Retter was at Cypress Mountain on the weekend to watch her Olympic run—after which her signature smile was decidedly force—and provide a final teeth polishing before her moment on the podium.

'A test case in the indivisibility of Canadian citizenship'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 101 Comments

Michael Ignatieff, scrumming with reporters on the Hill just now, on the government’s latest move in the Omar Khadr case.

They did the absolute minimum. In our view, they should have added a crucial additional fact in a diplomatic note, that he was a child soldier. That used to be what we were saying, the Liberal government said in 2004, the previous government, at least we pointed out that he was a child soldier. We’ve also said we think that this is a test case in the indivisibility of Canadian citizenship. Many Canadians, including myself, take a very serious view of the accusations against Mr. Khadr. But he’s a Canadian citizen and you don’t pick and choose here, you defend them all. Otherwise no one’s citizenship is worth very much. That’s the key issue. And we’ve said for 18 months, we should bring Mr. Khadr home and he should face whatever process needs to be faced here. He’s also done, what is it, seven years in the tank? And now he’s going to go to an American tribunal and there have been substantial questions about those tribunals raised inside the United States.

The Finnish Flash makes history

By Charlie Gillis - Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 2 Comments

Teemu Selanne just tied the Olympic scoring record in men’s hockey, collecting the second assist on a power-play goal by Olli Jokinen against Belarus. It was a sweetheart—Selanne slipped a pass to Saku Koivu, who was waiting in the corner, and Koivu fired it across the crease for the tap-in.

Selanne now has 36 Olympic points (20 goals and 16 assists)—and shares the record with Vlastimil Bubnik of Czechoslovakia; Valeri Kharlamov of Russia; and Harry Watson, a Canadian who played in the early Olympic era.

He looked good to break the record before the game was out, creating numerous scoring chances in Finland’s 5-1 victory. But none of them worked out.

Few players have made hockey look as easy as Selanne over the years. Who could forget his rookie season with the Winnipeg Jets, when he pumped in an astonishing 76 goals. But time is catching up with the Finnish Flash. He’s 39, and this is probably the last time fans will see him on an international stage.

And he has grit. He’s participating in his fifth Olympic Games, with a clunky chin guard attached to his helmet after breaking his jaw on January 13 against the Boston Bruins.