Vancouver Olympics Opening Ceremonies
The world will be watching this Friday, as Vancouver attempts to follow one of the toughest acts there could possibly be, the Beijing Summer Olympics. You see Beijing spent more money than ever before, but their opening ceremonies were pretty awe inspiring as well. The dude running in the sky, the writing in the book, the dance, the choreography, the lip synching girl. It was pretty out of this world. Now, the spotlight falls on Vancouver.
Our one piece of advice that we would give is that you don’t need to spend a ton of money, but you need a ton of creativity. Atlanta proved that in the Summer Olympics, at that point they had spent the most amount of money on an opening ceremony, and ended up with pick up trucks and cheerleaders, and James Earl Jones narrating. (We kid you not) It doesn’t matter if Darth Vader is voicing your event, it still may suck. What we don’t want is a repeat of the showing at Torino on the closing ceremony. Where they had moose being fed maple syrup by mounties who just finished playing a game of hockey that was being refereed by beavers. Yeah, let’s not do that again. Let’s not play to the stereotypes, we’re more than that. Our creativity when it comes to health care or the arts is outstanding, so let’s hope they have some thinkers behind this gig.
What can’t they do? Have Wayne Gretzky light the torch. Having the Great One light the torch would be a big mistake, because at the end of the day, he’s a hockey player, he may be an amazing hockey player, and a cool ambassador for the game and country, but he shouldn’t light the torch. We’re more than just hockey. Our vote would be the much talked about Betty Fox lighting the torch, having it handed to her by a computer generated Terry Fox. That, would be emotional, gripping stuff. Who lights the torch is a big moment, hell, Muhammed Ali lighting it in Atlanta made everyone forget that they actually had pick up trucks doing donuts in their opening ceremonies.
Fingers crossed that we don’t just impress the world, but we impress ourselves.