Strange Brew

Notes from an Olympic tailgater

Story and image by Trail Rat · Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Never before—and hopefully never again—have I not wanted to visit Vancouver, British Columbia as much as I haven’t during the first two months of 2010.

Seriously.

I enjoy filling my pockets with loonies, gobbling my way through sushi smorgasbords and making tracks to Whistler as much as anybody, but jostling through a roiling mass of frenzied humanity at the 21st Winter Olympiad was not my idea of a good time.

Other than watching the occasional pivotal hockey game, reading a few newspaper reports and generally keeping abreast of things online, the nearest I came to the Games, geographically speaking, was about a third of the way up Sumas Mountain (which was perfectly fine by me).

Simply knowing that a few thousand of the finest snow and ice-focused athletes in the world were simultaneously subjecting themselves to the same grueling gauntlet of climatic quirks, topographical oddities and cultural eccentricities I have grown to know and love during my various outdoor adventures throughout the greater Salish Sea watershed seemed ample enough tonic in and of itself.

Staying in Whatcom County throughout the entire 2010 Winter Games might not have afforded me quite as up-close and personal a vantage point as front row seats at Canada Hockey Place, but it certainly wasn’t enough to stop me from netting my share of Olympic glory.

From start to finish, here are a handful of the most medal-worthy moments.

It might not look like it, but I had to train and practice for years just to achieve the expert level of hand-eye coordination it took to swerve the car I was borrowing out of harm’s way when the enormous Amtrak Mobile Command Center decided to change lanes, sans turn signal, and came within precious inches of running me and my elderly companion off Interstate Five near the Lakeway off-ramp in heavy early morning fog.

Only thanks to sheer willpower and meditative calisthenics techniques was I able to contain myself within a cozy, dry living room with nothing but a family-size pizza and a delicious mid-afternoon 12-pack while the cruddy concrete-hard snow and discombobulating flat light at Whistler (originally named “London Mountain” by members of the Royal Navy who first surveyed it in the 1860s) wreaked havoc upon one world champion alpine skier after the next.

If it weren’t for all those hard-earned decades of physio-emotional immersion deep in the throes of Canadian-American pop culture, it is highly unlikely I would have been able to identify—let alone fully comprehend—the significance of Wayne Gretzky, Anne Murray, Bryan Adams, and The Kids In the Hall being incorporated into the opening ceremony.

Now that gold medal winner Lindsey Vonn has proven to the world that my “home-mountain”—Buck Hill Ski Area (located just south of Twin Cities featuring 13 runs and a vertical drop of 309 feet)—is capable of producing Olympic-level talent, I have been inspired to start preliminary training for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia. 

Last but not least, I’d just like to throw it out there that if Team Canada’s Kevin Martin (the Olympics reigning super-stud) and Team Norway’s diagonally checked ass-pants weren’t enough to get you at least a little bit more curious about curling, then you seriously need to see a doctor or a psychotherapist or something.