Memories of the 2010 Olympics

Granville Street as it looked for two weeks during the 2010 Olympics

The Sunday before the Olympics descended on Vancouver, after months of breathless news coverage and constant construction, my espresso machine broke. I had to venture out early in the morning to the nearest Starbucks to stave off a debilitating withdrawal headache.

I stopped at 7-11 on my way home, still clutching my travel mug of Americano. When I came out, I cheerfully greeted the lady who held the door open for me.

Meeting Lisa

She was a regular fixture outside the 7-11, sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, smiling up at passers-by, and often leaping to her feet to open the door for customers, cheerfully greeting everyone regardless of whether they acknowledged her back.

She had a friendly, energetic quality about her and I always made a point of giving her change when I saw her. I dropped two dollars into her paper cup as she settled back down on the sidewalk. She thanked me and I asked how she was doing.

"I'm great," she said. "How are you doing?" I grinned, "I'm much better now that I have my coffee!" She grinned back. "Yes, we all have our addictions, don't we?" I laughed. "Yes, we certainly do."

Then, reading my mind, she asked me if the Olympics were going to be affecting me at all. The news had been feeding a steady stream of bile and gloom for months leading up to the games, covering all the grotesque excess, spiralling construction costs, government waste, protests and controversies in daily exposés designed to stoke outrage.

Our city had enough problems with homelessness and a burgeoning opioid crisis, and now we were spending millions to host a two-week sports party. I had been brainwashed from ambivalence into total cynicism.

The protesters had all but equated the Olympics with a tacit disregard for the plight of our city's most vulnerable. Enjoying the games meant endorsing the cruelest effects of income inequality. Imagine all the good those millions of dollars could do if they were redirected towards social welfare… etc. etc.

"They'll probably inconvenience me," I replied, rolling my eyes, "How about you?"

Infectious Positivity

"You know, I'm excited about the Olympics," she said. "I'm looking forward to seeing all these people from other places. I think it'll be really cool. I figure there's too much negativity in the world already. Why would I want to add to it?"

I felt silly standing there looming over her so I sort of crouched to meet her at eye level.

"That's a very good point," I said, realizing that I couldn't maintain a crouching position without my legs going numb. I moved to sit cross-legged next to her and she immediately leaned over to hand me a stack of newspapers from the pile she was sitting on. "Here — you don't want to sit on the sidewalk. It gets cold really fast."

I sat down and introduced myself. Her name was Lisa — and we continued talking about the Olympics and the various pro- and anti- camps. I said I found it hard to overlook the absolutely obscene amount of money being spent on something that's essentially a party for a wealthy few.

She agreed, but said she sometimes feels the same way about the activists, the people who always seem to arrive en masse with these big events.

"It's like that's their full time job," she said. "Must be nice!" I had to laugh. She had a point.

While we talked, Lisa would periodically jump up to hold the door for people coming in and out of 7-11, but the entire time I sat there, not one of them gave her any money. Worse, not one of them said an audible thank you.

A young mother fumbled awkwardly with a baby carriage on her way in and out of the store, studiously avoiding even momentary eye contact as Lisa held the door wide open for her, standing gallantly off to the side. I stared at the rude woman in disbelief but stopped short of speaking a word of the rant bubbling up inside my head.

Lisa just smiled indulgently and shook her head as if to say, "yeah, but why would I want to add to all that negativity?"

Our conversation shifted from the Olympics to our lives in Vancouver. She told me she had a daughter who went to UBC. I told her I lived nearby with my partner of 12 years. She was living nearby in a room she shared with a friend. I was very relieved to hear that. It may be "unseasonably warm" most winters, but this is no place to have to sleep outside.

She asked if I had heard about the homeless woman who died the previous winter when her makeshift shelter caught fire. I remembered walking by the charred remains of the shopping cart and wondering what had happened.

Photo credit: CBC News

It had happened just across the street, and she had been a friend of Lisa's. Outreach workers and police had apparently tried several times to get the woman into a shelter, but when firefighters responded to reports of an overturned shopping cart engulfed in flames around 4:30 in the morning, they arrived too late to save her.

As we were talking, a pair of hippie kids dressed in lots of layers, probably made of hemp, stopped in front of us. They reached into their backpacks and offered Lisa something to eat, asking if she was allergic to peanuts before handing her a sandwich wrapped in plastic.

They offered me one too but I politely declined. (I'm sure they didn't think I was homeless, which just goes to show you how very polite we Canadians are.)

They offered Lisa a drink, but she declined. "I'll get some water in there," she said, indicating the 7-11. "Those guys are always good to me." She rose to her feet, plastic Big Gulp cup in hand. I stood up too. "I'd better go and let you enjoy your lunch," I said.

"It was great talking to you," she said, and we both reached out at the same time to give each other a hug. We wished each other well. I told her to enjoy the Olympics and then I headed home, trying half-heartedly to hide the ridiculous smile that had spread across my face.

2010 Olympics opening ceremony fireworks

USA vs. Canada

By the time the last Sunday of the games rolled around, we had come to terms with the fact that we would be watching the final gold medal hockey game between Canada and the US at home and without cable (streaming wasn’t really a thing yet). Mr. Pink is a diehard hockey fan, but at the time we didn’t have a neighborhood pub as our second home like we do now (shoutout to Relish!).

We struggled to watch the livestream on a laptop HDMI'd into our TV, but with so many people doing exactly the same thing across the city, our service provider was overwhelmed. The browser kept crashing and freezing every few minutes and we would have to Ctrl-Alt-Delete and cross our fingers until the next crash.

We were just two minutes into the unbelievably tense third period when we heard a collective cheer go up outside our window. We looked at each other and back to the screen. The two teams were skating around and circling each other, passing and blocking, nothing to cheer about.

The sound of cars honking in the street grew louder and the cheers steadily increased from crazy to absolutely fucking bananas.

Canadaaaaaaaaa!!!

We stepped out onto the balcony and saw half the residents of the building across the street standing out on their balconies. They were screaming, hugging, jumping up and down, waving at cars, waving at us and each other and, of course, waving Canadian flags. Apparently everyone in the city now owned one.

Eventually we came back inside and glanced over at the players on the screen still skating around madly like it wasn't all over, like they hadn't already won. I turned off the not-so-streaming video just as the phone rang. "Can you hear people screaming right now?" It was my best friend from Seattle.

I stepped back out onto the balcony to let him hear it for himself. "Can you hear the helicopters?" I asked. He cackled, "Oh my god, I love it — Canada so deserves it — I'm so happy for you!"

Yeah, okay... I had to admit it was a pretty great moment.

Vectorial Elevation, an incredible interactive art installation set up for the Olympics

Calm After the Storm

The Monday after the games wrapped up, I walked down Granville street for the first time since its rebirth 17 days earlier as magnetic north of Vancouver's Olympic party central. It was eerily quiet after being blanketed by drunken revelers day and night throughout the games.

I’ve never before or since seen so many people, so densely packed together, in every direction as far as the eye could see. For two weeks, it was like those Victory Day parade pictures after WWII, but without the ticker tape.

Olympic-sized Cleanup

At the corner of Robson and Howe, crews of uniformed men were moving masses of random equipment into industrial-looking vehicles, stacking giant speakers and coiling heavy-gauge cables into huge piles on the ground; like legions of roadies hard at work disassembling the party and moving on down the road.

I continued down the street towards home, breathing in the strange, subdued calm that had descended so quickly after so many months of noisy preparation.

As I approached the back alley entrance to my apartment building, I spotted a young man crouched against the brick wall of the loading dock preparing to shoot up. I ascended the stairs swiftly and closed the gate behind me, averting my eyes as I walked through the courtyard (I'm telling you, we really are that polite). Inside the lobby, I checked my mail and waited for the elevator.

Okay, I thought. Now everything is officially back to normal.

Postscript 2025

A lot has changed in Vancouver since 2010, but a lot is still the same. Homelessness is still rampant, the opioid crisis has metastasized into an international fentanyl crisis, leaving no urban area untouched.

In the years after the Olympics, I saw Lisa often and we always greeted each other warmly, frequently stopping to chat about whatever was going on in the world. She always noticed when I changed my hair color or tried a new fragrance.

One winter, on my way to donate bags of coats and blankets to the local thrift store, I saw her and asked if she could use them or distribute them to anyone she knew who needed them, and she happily agreed. At some point, we even became Facebook friends.

Vancouver has started campaigning to host the Olympics again in 2030 and, this time, I’m totally here for it.

Thanks for reading, everyone!

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