25 February 2006 – 11:30 am
I just watched the women’s 5000m. Oh my goodness, what an absolutely fantastic race. I was on the edge of my seat the whole way through the last two pairs. Clara Hughes is absolutely amazing. She leaves everything on the track, and this time it paid off handsomely. My favourite part of the olympics has always been seeing the overflowing joy on the athletes faces when they realize what they’ve achieved.
On top of all that Cindy Klassen picked up her fifth medal. And, I would be remiss to leave out Claudia Pechstein, a true living legend, who put out a great race for her ninth medal in her career.
24 February 2006 – 10:49 pm
It’s a grand, and truly exilerating, way to close out the Games for Canada. The Gushue rink winning gold with an outstanding display of curling prowess. Obviously, it’s not quite the end, but this game will no doubt be the crowning glory of Turin 2006 for Canada. I didn’t get a chance to actually watch the game live, but I managed to catch some of the highlights late this evening. And, I can honestly say that I don’t think I’ve seen better shotmaking.
Thank you gentlemen. Curling rules!
22 February 2006 – 8:59 pm
I just caught the CBC Olympic Prime Time replay of today’s women’s short track speedskating 3000 relay. I already knew the end result, but I hadn’t read a recap so I didn’t know how they got there. Now that I’ve seen the race I can say that it was a great race. It was tight pretty much the whole way, and the Canadians made some great moves. And, then the joy of the Italian fans and skaters when they DQ’d the Chinese team to give Italy the bronze. It had everything that makes short track such a great sport to watch. It really is a shame that it’s not televised more often.
Keystone Centre Naming Rights
It’s been a while coming, but the Keystone Centre board has finally made a decision on naming rights. They will be offering naming rights for the arena and the new ag centre.
This is a very positive development. The Keystone Centre is an expensive thing to operate and all additional revenue is a very good thing. And, I most definitely agree with not naming portions after individuals when doing so would leave money on the table. Regardless of what some folks may want to believe the Keystone Centre is already well down the corporate road. The Canad Inn is unavoidable evidence of that.
I’m not sure about the decision to not sell the overall facility naming rights. Clearly, there are major political difficulties of going down that road and not just with our present government. Any change to the Keystone Center is bound to sit poorly with a portion of the local population. On the positive side, I can see how focusing on several subsidiary elements (at lower individual cost) might attract more local corporate interest.
In any case, I’m just glad to see that the board has decided to try making the facility more self-sufficient. It isn’t likely to ever be entirely so, but every little bit helps.