I’m leaving for Vancouver this morning, and it feels odd going to the Winter Olympics to escape the snow.
While the IOC and VANOC and Shaun White fret over weather more suitable for ducks than snowboarders, I can’t wait to see what the largest, warmest Winter Olympics city has to offer.
And packed with my passport, U.S. Figure Skating media book and halfpipe translation guide, I have my Vancouver Olympics bucket list:
• Lie, cheat and steal to get into Friday’s opening ceremony. For the first time, it will be indoors. For the first time, I won’t later have to thaw my feet in the Olympic torch.
• Jog in Stanley Park. It may be the nicest urban park in North America. Hopefully, because of expected rain, I won’t get hit by any errant cricket balls.
• Go to the Russia House. The Casa d’Italia has nice wine, USA House has nice contacts, but the Russia House has nice everything. In Turin, it was the party capital of the Olympics. Russia’s headquarters is proof that the old bear has cheered up.
• Have a shot of vodka with Evgeni Plushenko. I had dinner with the defending figure skating gold medalist in Russia last year. There are few greater guys I’ve met in sports and few who enjoy a good time more.
• Watch Canada’s hockey team play. The loudest crowd I’ve ever heard is a tossup between a football game at Alabama and the opening World Cup soccer match in Munich between Costa Rica and Germany. Put nationalism in an enclosed arena for a game that was invented in Canada and you have pure, unabashed bedlam.
• Visit Yaletown. Across False Creek from the Olympic Village, Yaletown is one of two sites with live nightly performances. I’m not into music, but I am into joyous international celebrations.
• Watch the snowboard halfpipe. I can’t snowboard. I understand Arabic better than I do Shaun White. But to see them snowboard on man-made snow surrounded by grass is a sight NBC’s cameras won’t want to capture.
• Tour Whistler. Regulars say it’s the nicest ski town in the world. If it’s better than Breckenridge, I look forward to my cup of hot chocolate in front of a big picture window watching snow fall, finally, on the Winter Olympics.
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com. Catch him from Vancouver at and at the All Things Olympics blog at
