Olympic Fever Hits the West

Well folks it is January 19th today and we are now 24 days removed from the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, BC. I love the winter Olympics. The competition of sport is an incredible thing, and it always has the power to unite a nation. Who in Canada can forget 2002 in Salt Lake City, UT when the Canadian Men's Hockey Team won our first gold medal in the competition in 51 years! Since then the pressure has really been on Hockey Canada to assert our dominance of the sport we love so much as a nation. 2006 in Torino was an absolute disappointment, and this year the pressure is on even more so to avenge that debacle. We have, what I see as the most complete hockey team assembled yet, and I'm expecting big things on our road to owning the hockey podium.
Anyhow, enough of men's hockey. There are other sports that will be played at the Olympics, and I look forward to all the excitement that will come.
So yesterday I left my office to come home. I got on my usual route and decided to quickly stop off at the car wash to clean off my car, before I finished my journey. I was only in there for 5 minutes, and when I came out and back on to the main road, I was a little perplexed. All of a sudden there were crowds of people lining the road. My southbound lane was all of a sudden a parking lot. The northbound lane was completely empty. I wondered what was going on. All of a sudden a couple of police cars came flying down the northbound road. At first I thought "Hmm, was there a huge accident?", but I quickly rejected that idea, it didn't account for all the people. Then I saw more flashing lights, and 2 huge red vans down the road, slowly coming towards me. In front of them was a little shuttle bus that was stopping every 200 feet or sow, and letting people off dressed in white. I finally got it. It was the Olympic Torch Relay! I thought it was supposed to come through town the day before. So traffic was at a standstill as the relay went by, so I figured I'd just enjoy it and take a snap shot. This is what I got...
It was neat to see that. It definitely made me realize how close the Olympic games are. It's even more special to us Canadians this year as it is on our home turf. It puts extra pressure on us to perform, and succeed in "Owning the Podium" as the slogan goes. So to all of our Canadian athletes, GO Canada Go! Good luck, and bring home some gold!