Devo Will Whip It, Usher Says "YEAH!" To Whistler Olympic Celebration Shows

So, last August, at the tail end of a work sabbatical, travels brought me to Vancouver for the third time.

The week in British Columbia afforded this Atlantan a couple of days in Whistler, site of Olympic alpine skiing, Nordic combined, ski jump, bobsleigh, luge and skeleton competitions. (disclosure: Whistler is a client)

Downtown Whistler surprised and impressed me -- fantastic food options, plenty of shopping, a decent movie theatre, clubs, outstanding hotels and those gorgeous Canadian slopes.

In the summer, lots to do. Come winter, even more. It was cool to see the Whistler Medals Plaza under construction.

Here's hoping I may make it to Whistler again this weekend for an update peek, complete with snow.

There aren't too many Atlantans in the Olympic City yet, so it was thrilling to learn that a fellow hometown resident is among the confirmed performers set to rock Whistler next month: Usher will perform on Feb. 27, the final weekend show of the Games.

Some other top single-name acts are on deck, too, including Devo, Feist, Estelle and OneRepublic. The mountain, it will be rockin'!

Photo via this site

Sorry, Sasha

It was thrilling tonight to see Olympic Figure Skating silver medalist Sasha Cohen give it a shot for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Team. It would have really been something for her to be a three-peat Olympian after skating at Salt Lake in 2002 and Torino in 2006.

Watching Cohen skate this evening -- during the AT&T 2010 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Spokane, Wash. -- brought back memories of last March, when Cohen was skating on tour in Atlanta and she took time for a blogger interview rink side at Philips Arena (was it really only 10 months ago when it was uncertain whether she'd be competitively skating now?).

Sorry to see Cohen won't be in Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympic figure skating as a returning Olympian, but I have a feeling she'll be spotted around town doing paid appearances to adoring fans.

Best of luck to the U.S. Figure Skaters who apparently will be coming to Vancouver, including Rachel Flatt and Mirai Nagasu (is it just me, or is it too weird to see another U.S. ladies figure skater, Nagasu, head to a Canada Olympiad with music from "Carmen" in her main routine? Not another Debi Thomas, please -- if Nagasu is to skate to Bizet, she better keep her Witts about her).

T-Minus 100

Today marks just 100 days until the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Excitement is building ... just watched Team USA interviews and winter sport stunts in Rockefeller Center on NBC's TODAY Show.

I have yet to really start hunting for Vancouver tickets -- opening and closing ceremony are top priority, with snowboarding on the wish list, too (anyone out there already got their tickets?). I suppose after The Colbert Report announced sponsorship of U.S. Speedskating, tickets for the Oval will be on the hot ticket list, too.

Hope to see you in British Columbia in just 100 days!

Photo via Vancouver 2010.

Get On The Bus

Live, from Victoria, B.C., it's ... the 2010 Olympic Torch Relay!

With thanks to my colleague Shari Burnett, the photo with this post is from behind the scenes at this morning's arrival of the Olympic Flame from Greece to the Province of British Columbia.

Looks like the torchbearer process is similar in 2010 to that of 1996 (and Olympic torch relays since). The runners in the photo are lined up in uniform before boarding their shuttle to be dropped at their designated spots for running duty.

Go, Victoria! Go, Canada!

Photo courtesy Shari Burnett of Edelman Vancouver

Action McNews!

I always get a chuckle when Tom Tomorrow includes the ACTION McNEWS! exclamatory "newscasts" in the great This Modern World cartoons.

Today a press release arrived from the media relations team for McDonald's, which announced a new McDonald's Champion Kids program through which some lucky youngsters and their parents may win a trip to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. I'll bite!

According to the P.R. correspondence, "To enter the contest, kids provide videos, photos and essays about what the Olympics values (Excellence, Friendship and Respect) mean to them."

Olympic medalist and "Dancing With The Stars" champ Shawn Johnson will be the official judge of the entrants, so anyone age 11 to 14 who wants Ms. Johnson to see them, here's your chance to enter now!

Photo via the McDonald's Champion Kids site

Jet Setting for 2010

The eye in the sky, er, on the ground at a tarmac in the Seattle area this week apparently broke the news of Air Canada's aircraft decked out for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.

According to published reports, the photo and video sort of scooped a planned photo opp/unveiling. In the P.R. biz (or any biz, for that matter), one might call this a S.N.A.F.U. (a time or two similar scoops have foiled my own client P.R. efforts - D'OH!).

One time, in Denver, working at the U.S. Olympic Festival Opening Ceremony in Mile High Stadium (summer of 1995), the IOC deployed UPS couriers to deliver the official NOC invitations for Atlanta's Games, and in an elaborate media event/element of the Opening, a UPS plane -- clad with Olympic sponsorship logos -- buzzed the stadium several times (spectacular! so close you could almost see the pilot's logo hat). Then a few minutes later a brown-clad courier ran into the venue (after leaping from a brown package car, I believe) and handed the official IOC invitation to a waiting U.S. Olympic official. The whole thing was punctuated with a live performance by Kenny "I'm Alright" and "Footloose" Loggins. (Disclosure: UPS is a current client of Edelman, the P.R. firm where I work. I was neither employed by Edelman nor UPS at the time of the 1995 event described above.)

For Air Canada, my vote would be to proceed with planned photo opp or flyover in the Winter Olympic City as the plane looks pretty darn cool!

(photo via JetPhotos.net, copyright Mike Head, Jet Wash Photos)

U.S.O.C. in NYTimes

Caught this quick read on the latest with the U.S. Olympic Committee by Katie Thomas of the New York Times posted yesterday.

Another interesting Olympic headline of late is this one from AFP related to the opening ceremony of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games (The Canadian Press also ran a slightly more detailed report on this news).

Beautiful Winners

Now back in Atlanta from the Chicago volunteer gig and weekend in arctic Milwaukee, I've been busy in training classes while defrosting.

Perhaps it is just quirky Canadian coincidence, but within a couple of hours today at least three references to the Great White North arrived via e-mail or NPR broadcasts.

First, one of our recent Edelman client contacts at the Province of British Columbia sent a couple of fun updates on how things are going in Vancouver. Then there was an update on the U.S. curling team in the Rocky Mountain News (OK, technically this was not Canadian, but the sport of curling always will remind me first of the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics).

And tonight, driving to dinner, Terry Gross of NPR's "Fresh Air" was talking with someone (I did not catch the name) about an article in this week's New Yorker, so upon arriving home and turning the pages of the magazine I found some words scribed by Canadian poet Leonard Cohen.

Man, I think it would be really cool (though unlikely) for Cohen to pop up in Olympic circles in Vancouver next February. A brief Internet search yielded only one Cohen and Olympic connection (a brief reference to the Los Angeles street, Olympic Blvd., which apparently was near his home/studio during the 1990s).

I thought for sure Leonard the Great must have been engaged somehow with the 1976 Summer Olympic Games of Montreal, Cohen's home town -- VANOC has a golden opportunity to bring this Grammy winner to the Olympic stage this time next year.

If the 2010 Cultural Olympiad folks are reading, consider this my vote for Cohen to do a dramatic oratory from "Beautiful Losers" or to sing us a song at the Opening Ceremony -- or better yet, he could sing "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye" at the Closing Ceremony, methinks. A duet with fellow Canadian crooner Joni Mitchell would be tops, too (imagine Cohen and Mitchell remarking on how they've "Seen the Olympics ... from Both Sides Now ...").

Until then, here's another link to one of my favorite Leonard Cohen tunes. And one from Joni for good measure (this tune could be the most appropriate for a five-ringed festival).

Vancouver in 432

In just 432 days, Vancouver will ignite the 2010 Olympic Cauldron to kickoff the XXI Olympic Winter Games. It's never 'too soon' to start planning travel to the next Olympic host city, and the New York Times published a great read on the city in yesterday's 'Escapes' section.

In the cover story by Dave Caldwell, there's a taste of things to come regarding the Vancouver Olympic Village, the city's great quality of life, real estate and references to ABC Sportscaster Jim McKay (his misnomer for Vancouver apparently remains the talk of the town for some during the last 19 years).

Are you considering a trip to Vancouver, or will you be tuning in to wall-to-wall Olympic coverage on NBC or other national Olympic broadcasters? I'd love to hear from those already researching their Canadian adventures.

For me, absolutely! Glad the New York Times gave me a nudge to look the Province of British Columbia over the weekend.