OMG only 18 months til the Olympics and you don't have tickets yet!

September 26, 2008 9:49 PM

The 2010 Olympic Winter Games ticket requests start one week from today! It's just up the road in Vancouver, B.C..

"In just one week the Request Period for Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games tickets begins! Here is a quick look at the timeline for Phase 1 and a few tools to help you plan your once-in-a-lifetime Olympic experience:

October 3-November 7, 2008: Request Period
Visit vancouver2010.com to build and submit your ticket request anytime during this five-week window.

November 8-November 23, 2008: Lottery Period
Where ticket demand exceeds the available supply, an automated, random selection process (lottery) will ensure the fairest possible ticket distribution.

By December 5: Notification period
All applicants will be notified by e-mail regarding the status of their ticket request and which sessions and/or packages they may have secured.

December 8-22: Priority access period
Remaining tickets will be re-released on a first-come, first-served basis exclusively to those who submitted a request during the Request Period.

Planning Tools (and a couple of fun extras)
Vancouver2010.com contains all you need to know about Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games ticketing. The site offers an enhanced, in-depth and interactive experience for virtual visitors worldwide.

Schedule and prices by day - we've posted the day-by-day schedule and included ticket prices to make your planning easier.

With Glowing Hearts video - This one-minute spot features Canadians from all walks of life and all regions of the country celebrating the newly announced Vancouver 2010 motto.

Vancouver 2010 video podcasts - These podcasts offer a great way to learn more about the sports of the 2010 Winter Games."

posted by neuron (42 comments total)

And I'll handicap a few of the events for ya, based on my 10 days at the 2002 games in Utah:

Great events to attend:
ski jump
freestyle skiing
short-track speed skating
snowboarding

Events to avoid, cuz you won't see much (watch on TV instead):
bobsleigh, luge, skeleton
alpine skiing

Didn't see:
curling (wish I had)
hockey (wish I had)
figure skating (cuz I'm a guy)
cross country, biathlon
posted by neuron at 9:50 PM on September 26, 2008

My favorite event is that one where they round up all the homeless and put them on the skytrain to Surrey, or the boat to Nanaimo.

Have to show up early for that one, but at least tickets are a non-issue.
posted by mannequito at 10:08 PM on September 26, 2008 [4 favorites]

Oh, good god, no. Stay away, everyone. We really don't need you coming up here and falling in love with our mountains and wilderness, because next thing I know, you'll be up here purchasing hunks of Paradise, and paving them over and putting up a parking lot.

Seriously.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:31 PM on September 26, 2008

Oh, good god, no. Stay away, everyone.

Yes, it is worth pointing out that the 2010 Olympics are not a unanimously popular event with the locals for any number of reasons. The plight of the homeless and low income residents has been referred to already. There's also a strong feeling that the enormous costs are hard to justify. And so on ...

I wouldn't go so far as to say, DON'T COME ... but do consider this a sort of travel advisory. You might encounter some hostility.
posted by philip-random at 10:51 PM on September 26, 2008

Vancouver is currently hosting the Construction Olympics and the Traffic Olympics. Both Games are remarkably well-attended and our slogan -- "With Glowering Hearts" -- turned out to be a very prescient choice.
posted by grounded at 10:59 PM on September 26, 2008 [5 favorites]

A US first grade teacher explains to her class that she is an American. She asks her students to raise their hands if they are American too.

Not really knowing why but wanting to be like their teacher, their hands explode into the air like flashy fireworks. There is, however, one exception. A girl named Kristen has not gone along with the crowd.

The teacher asks her why she has decided to be different. "Because I am not an American."

"Then", asks the teacher, "What are you?".

"I'm a proud Canadian," boasts the little girl.

The teacher is a little perturbed now, her face slightly red. She asks Kristen why she is a Canadian.

"Well, my mom and dad are Canadians, so I'm a Canadian too.

"The teacher is now really angry. "That's no reason," she says loudly. "What if your mom was a crappy hockey player, and your dad was a crappy hockey player? Would that mean that you're a crappy hockey player too?"

A pause, and a smile. Then, says Kristen, "Nope! That'd mean I'm an American!"
posted by netbros at 11:13 PM on September 26, 2008 [7 favorites]

It's just up the road in Vancouver, B.C.

No, no, no, from my perspective, Vancouver is just over the Arthur Laing Bridge.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:25 PM on September 26, 2008

RIOT 2010

That being said, I'll be throwing my hat in the ring for the gold-medal hockey game/closing ceremonies/some other event ticket package (preference goes to those who buy packages of tickets, but you don't need to know that because you'll listen to five fresh fish
posted by futureproof at 11:27 PM on September 26, 2008 [1 favorite]

"With Glowering Hearts" -- turned out to be a very prescient choice.

I actually tried taking Cambie from downtown to go to the ferry, via Oak, on Monday. Never. Again.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:28 PM on September 26, 2008

From my perspective, you're all beyond Hope.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:30 PM on September 26, 2008 [4 favorites]

Vancouver: Like Seattle, only in Canada.
posted by clearly at 12:17 AM on September 27, 2008

five fresh fish writes "From my perspective, you're all beyond Hope."

And vice versa.
posted by Mitheral at 3:32 AM on September 27, 2008

Being in Vancouver and able to hear the homeless from my window (at Cordova and Carrall), I am able to report there is a loud argument going on right now. We don't need the Olympics, watching the homeless from my ivory tower is somewhat of sport. I'd pitch it as "the Roman Coliseum meets street performers". You can play games like:
* Guess the amount of time before you see the next drug deal (average is around 4 minutes).
* Watch the homeless cross the street at a green light and see if they get knocked down (I saw this happen Wednesday)
* Was that a gunshot? Or was it?
* Place a recyclable item on the street and time how long it is until someone picks it up.
* Stand outside the gate and see how long it is before you are approached by a prostitute.
This may sound horrific to people who don't know the downtown east side, and to be serious, I shouldn't call these games, but they illustrate the scope of the problem here. So, yes, it's a good thing economically that the Olympics are coming to Vancouver... there's a lot of development, a lot of investment, but is anything going to happen to help the homeless before 2010? I doubt it - it would have to be an extraordinary effort - there are literally thousands of them.

Still, I am excited about the Olympics, and I have to think about whether I'll be living here in 2010 and whether I should buy tickets!
posted by niccolo at 4:15 AM on September 27, 2008 [1 favorite]

All I want for Christmas is tickets to the men's hockey gold medal game.
posted by Vindaloo at 6:27 AM on September 27, 2008

It's nice to see that they have NIMBY in Canada, too.
posted by Plutor at 6:56 AM on September 27, 2008 [1 favorite]

After ten minutes on that horrific website it's safe to say I don't think I'll be making it unless a reseller takes the agony out of navigating that byzantine shitshow. Are they going out of their way to make it more complex than necessary?
posted by docpops at 7:21 AM on September 27, 2008

maybe another cup of coffee will help
posted by docpops at 7:23 AM on September 27, 2008

If I'm reading things correctly, only Canadians can request tickets through that web site. Anyone else has to use the appropriate channel in her own country. For example, people in the U.S. should use CoSport.
posted by jdroth at 9:03 AM on September 27, 2008

Any other Canadian city would have been a better choice to host the Olympics than Vancouver.

Really.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:06 AM on September 27, 2008

If I'm reading things correctly, only Canadians can request tickets through that web site.

Actually, it says "all Canadian residents, regardless of citizenship", which is not the same thing as "Canadians." It takes more than just living here to be called a Canuck, eh?
posted by grounded at 9:11 AM on September 27, 2008

Any other Canadian city would have been a better choice to host the Olympics than Vancouver.

Sys Rq: You're a stupid poopie-head. And you know it. And so does your mother. She just rolled over and told me.

note: Help maintain a healthy, respectful discussion by focusing comments on the
issues, topics, and facts at hand—not at other members of the site.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 9:14 AM on September 27, 2008

Turtles: Okay, present me with a single argument supporting Vancouver as an Olympic city, and I'll reconsider my position.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:56 AM on September 27, 2008

Infrastructure: convention facilities, world-class ski resort etc. Is your objection that we don't get, uh, snow here? Well, I can kind of see that, but do you not see that the winter olympics would work here? I understand what you're saying: Winnipeg would be a fine site, but unfortunately when you're trying to woo the IOC, sex sells. But I honestly don't have any expertise in this matter, so would be interested in your opinion. And, okay, your not a poopie-head.

Your mom just said so. But you do wet the bed, apparently. (Tease!)
posted by Turtles all the way down at 10:35 AM on September 27, 2008

Sorry, Sys Rq, that was me being an idiot at the end. I am intrigued as to why you think another Canadian city would be better.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 10:39 AM on September 27, 2008

So, yes, it's a good thing economically that the Olympics are coming to Vancouver... there's a lot of development, a lot of investment

This is the single most annoying pro-Olympics argument I've heard (and I hear it all the time). Why exactly does a city need to sink multi-millions into a massive event in order to justify sinking other multi-millions into making long overdue and much needed upgrades to its infrastructure? It's not as if the games themselves will turn a profit and help pay for any of the infrastructure. It is, quite simply, a blatant example of how the great visionaries of this great town, the Terminal City, don't have any real vision.
posted by philip-random at 11:02 AM on September 27, 2008

Is your objection that we don't get, uh, snow here?

No. My objection is that Vancouver A) doesn't need it, and B) can't handle it.

The logic, I guess, is that Canada is due for another Olympics, and Canada of course automatically means Winter Games. As far as that goes, since mountains are kind of important, there are really only two Canadian options; since Calgary/Banff already got theirs, it's Vancouver/Whistler's turn.

Okay, so maybe the only road from Vancouver to Whistler got slightly obstructed; it's not like anyone could have seen that coming. At least we can sleep comfortably knowing it will never happen again, right?

And, yeah, maybe the Vancouver police have enough on their plate without a sudden tsunami of tourists, but what trouble is a few million extra people? And, I mean, it's not like Vancouver routinely hosts riots over things as trivial as hockey games or Guns'n'Roses concerts or anything.

And sure, maybe none of those millions of tourists will venture beyond the Rockies, which they've probably already seen. But once they've taken in all that clearcut majesty and fed their first Grizzly, anything else would have to be a real letdown anyway.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:43 AM on September 27, 2008

I'm with Sys Rq on this one. Moved here about 3 years ago because my significant other drank the Vancouver kool-aid and is convinced it's "the greatest place on earth patent pending copyright".

Vancouver has always been known as a city with a poverty and drug problem. It's a major port city and has all the associated problems. Only we don't really do anything about it. So long as they stay over there on the downtown east side. It's a shameful contrast walking across Vancouver from west to east. Have you been to Hastings and Main? It looks like something out of a George Romero movie, with all the emaciated grey people with yellow eyes and scabby needle-marked limbs lurching around. And we get that commercial with the old lady in the nice restaurant saying "The downtown east side. Who's taking responsibility?" No one is, lady. Not you, and not me.

I'm worried we're going to be another of these cities who does the pre-Olympic spruce-up of the "bad parts of town" and its' undesirables. Lock 'em up, put 'em on a boat, whatever. Buy up and tear down the "hotels" of the downtown east side where poor folks can still afford to live and put in a Lululemon, a Starbucks, and a Louis Vuitton so they can't come back. From what I've heard they've already given up on the promise of building affordable housing as part of the Olympics-related construction projects.

BTW -- the first thing you see when you arrive in the 8-month-long rain shower that is a Vancouver winter is Yaletown, not the mountains. That was my first impression, and it wasn't good. Also, most people don't enjoy walking uphill for 4 hours, so stop telling visitors to do the "Grouse Grind" please.
posted by Hoopo at 12:10 PM on September 27, 2008 [1 favorite]

Buy up and tear down the "hotels" of the downtown east side where poor folks can still afford to live

Hoopo, if you're talking about the SROs, like those on top of the Cecil, I think it would be better for everyone if they were gotten rid of. There are numerous social housing units scattered between Gastown and the downtown east side that are much more upscale. Or course, they are still drug dens, but what are you going to do? People still want to take drugs. I'd prefer that they didn't do so, or beg or steal the money to do so, at least where I live (West End).

You're seriously saying that this city, Vancouver, shouldn't have the Olympics because of the poverty and drug use on the downtown eastside? Okay, fine, how long do we hunker down and hide in our shell before we invite the world here? Until the drug problem is gone? With this, as you point out, a port city, that stands as the last stop for migrants from the rest of Canada who find a comfortable place to live where the weather is better, and the so are the benefits?

How long?
posted by Turtles all the way down at 12:20 PM on September 27, 2008

No, I'm saying I don't like what bringing the Olympics here is doing to the city. I also don't like what those things being done to the city are saying about the people who live here. That we'd rather invest in outward appearances than invest in the health and welfare of a significant portion of Vancouver's population that is on hard times. I mean, is Vancouver for its' residents or for the rest of the world?

I don't think we've ever been in any shell hiding from the world, tourism is huge here. All I'm saying is the construction projects we're investing huge sums of money in for the Olympics have produced what? A train line to get tourists from the airport to downtown, and another complex of green glass condos on False Creek? I'd like to see that kind of investment go where it's clearly needed, not where it might look nice.
posted by Hoopo at 12:53 PM on September 27, 2008

Vancouver: Like Seattle, only in Canada.
Other than being a couple hours apart and having similar trees - I think these two cities have very little in common. As a Vancouverite, I feel far more at home in San Francisco than I do Seattle.

Any other Canadian city would have been a better choice to host the Olympics than Vancouver.
How would any other city accomplish that?
posted by SSinVan at 2:45 PM on September 27, 2008

Probably worth pointing, underneath a shallow and uncritically pro-Olympics post like this, to the 2010 Olympic Games Watch, which offers another perspective on what they say are sweetheart real estate deals and other corruption that are an integral part of the Vancouver games, as wealthy interests use the occasion to speed along gentrification and eliminate low-income housing. Curious what you natives have to say about them, and about this article from Scientific American last month, about the destruction of Eagle Ridge Bluffs to make way for a new Olympics highway:

What he's showing me is the result of re-routing the Vancouver–Whistler Sea-to-Sky Highway that joins 2010 Olympic venues between the city and the ski-resort town. Officials want to shave a few minutes off that trip, and increase capacity on the road, but that's meant a shortcut through a rare forest ecosystem, fragmenting a section of it beyond repair.

That flies in the face of Vancouver's green and sustainable bid for the 2010 Olympics that won it the gig back in 2003. "That's one of the reasons Vancouver won [the Olympic bid] was because we pitched that we'd be the greenest Olympics ever," says Boyd Cohen, from Simon Fraser University's Center for Sustainable Community Development...

Here in Horseshoe Bay, they decided to build a new four-lane highway through Eagle ridge bluffs and the woods behind. It was this stretch of nearly two miles (three kilometers)—home to the vulnerable, blue-listed red-legged frog, the rare coastal bluffs arbutus ecosystem, a mature Douglas fir stand, and flanks the Larsen creek wetlands—that attracted community and environmental opposition, led by McArthur, a retired project manager for non-road work.

Opponents of the highway re-route wanted to bore a tunnel under the mountain and leave the area intact. Despite a three-year campaign to save the bluffs, which saw about two dozen protesters arrested, the highway re-route went ahead—which is why McArthur and I are now looking upon a fractured landscape, instead of a continuation of the lush forests that blanket much of Vancouver's North Shore Mountains.

I've just been reading about them from afar, so it'd be cool to get a local perspective.
posted by mediareport at 5:31 PM on September 27, 2008

Vancouver BC.
posted by hamfisted at 5:56 PM on September 27, 2008

I'm planning on subletting my Mt. Pleasant apartment for 75K for the two weeks of the Olympics! Whatta deal! I'll even leave some food in the fridge. Not bad, huh? Huh?

Email in profile!

Fuck the Olympics
posted by jokeefe at 6:33 PM on September 27, 2008 [1 favorite]

Wow, a lot of hate for the olympics here. Personally I am not a big olympics booster, but can't help think the predictions of a hostile reception for olympic visitors are being wildly overstated.

Unlike hoopo, I am actually pretty bullish about the infrastructure stuff that is being done. Describing the Canada Line as purely 'A train line to get tourists from the airport to downtown' is ridiculous. It serves a chunk of the westside and Richmond that is currently underserved by transit (compare with the eastside and Burnaby.) I think there is a legitimate argument to be had about the kind of rail solution implemented and it's route, but I don't believe the necessity of rail transit for RAV was really in question. As for False Creek South, what would you rather have seen built there, or were you hoping for it to be preserved as a post-industrial wasteland?

As a regular user of the highway to Whistler I am also mostly happy about the improvements (though I would rather have seen a tunnel at Horseshoe Bay too.) But for all the negative comments here, and outrage I see about the bluffs, mediareport's SciAm link reveals that only 600 people signed petitions against the highway work at Horseshoe Bay, and only 300 wrote letters. There are 2 million people in this city. If there is a big anti-olympics crowd in this town it is obviously pretty freaking lazy.
posted by pascal at 7:07 PM on September 27, 2008

>It's just up the road in Vancouver, B.C.

>>No, no, no, from my perspective, Vancouver is just over the Arthur Laing Bridge.

Just over there, across the Pacific Ocean.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:47 PM on September 27, 2008

Describing the Canada Line as purely 'A train line to get tourists from the airport to downtown' is ridiculous

You're right, it is. I was overstating the case quite a bit. I don't get out to Richmond much but I've taken the B-Line enough mornings into downtown to know that Richmond needs either a train or a lot more buses. On the other hand, I live near Cambie and this project hasn't been good on the neighborhood or the local businesses. You may be right that it's a necessity, but I don't have to like it or how it's been done.

As for South False Creek, I may be wrong but I'd heard that it was meant to be affordable housing. I've also read that "experts" (I'm not sure what that means) say that it's unlikely any of the units in the new development will go for less than $1000 per square foot. I couldn't afford to live there. How will it help the poor is beyond me.

I'm sorry for harping on the poverty thing, but I've lived in bigger cities where there wasn't a complex economy dealing in my building's garbage and recycling bins, nor a part of town as disturbing as the downtown east side. Poverty rates are high in Vancouver. It's serious business that needs to be addressed, in my mind before a vanity project like the Olympics.
posted by Hoopo at 9:40 PM on September 27, 2008

Cambie looks better now than ever. And, I think this example will prove to the folks along Broadway where the UBC Line will go, that it will be worth the pain.

And, the Olympics is an event that creates opportunities and incentive to do many things that may not have been done otherwise. Dealing with the downtown eastside and major transportation projects are examples.
posted by SSinVan at 9:51 PM on September 27, 2008

As far as the highway to Whistler - what a horrific waste. Why expand a highway for people to drive on only to park their cars. We'll turn Whistler into a parkade for fux ake.

They should have built an efficient train system from downtown which would have well-served the growing communities up Howe Sound (Squamish, Porteau Cove etc) too and prevented them from commuting to downtown Vancouver in their cars over the already congested Lion's Gate.
posted by SSinVan at 9:55 PM on September 27, 2008 [2 favorites]

SSInVan - I dunno, I like the idea of better trains to Whistler and as a rule I tend to use public transport rather than the car in town when I can - but I can't see it getting skiing/boarding/biking day-trippers (like me) out of their cars. The road would have to be pretty painful to make it seem easier to be loading and unloading all the gear from car to train (presumably in North Van) and back again. A road supports both those existing users and expanded bus traffic.
posted by pascal at 8:34 AM on September 28, 2008

I'm glad that no one will ever want Ottawa to host an Olympics. Although maybe they'd finally get they bloody light rail built if we did.
posted by aclevername at 8:56 AM on September 28, 2008

Cambie looks better now than ever

I don't think I can let that stand, SS. A couple of pictures from the developper's website? It has been a major disruption to small business who were mislead as to the extent of the construction (they were at one point assured that the tunnel would be bored under Cambie rather than an open pit) and provided with nothing in the way of compensation. Many are gone and will not return.

That the newly covered-over trench down Cambie looks nice and new now, I can't argue. I am also aware that some building owners see the loss of these businesses as a good thing--soon they'll be able to sell at high cost to developers hoping to cash in on real estate that's about to become a lot more valuable. But the fact the Cambie "looks nice" is small consolation for those of us who have to rent and are about to see one of Vancouver's few remaining reasonable neighborhoods get ripped apart, manicured, and filled with new luxury condos. And that people see the need to address a housing and poverty issue with luxury condos is just...

...well, nevermind. Vancouver's a beautiful city, did I mention that? World class. Sun's shining. I'm gonna go drink a humongous coffee and smoke a joint and forget about this thread.

aclevername,
they've already scrapped the O-Train, I take it? I was one of maybe a dozen people who was served well for the school year by the service, but I can't help but think it was doomed from the start. A train from nowhere to nowhere.
posted by Hoopo at 9:22 AM on September 28, 2008

Hoopo, no the O-train is still there, but I tend not to count it as any real sort of transportation. As you said, a train from nowhere to nowhere.
posted by aclevername at 3:26 PM on September 28, 2008