NBC is showing a 1.5 hour recap of the paralympics starting right now.

Thanks for posting this. I am watching.

As discussed among the mods we are now closing the Olympic forum. Since there is still activity in this thread, I'm moving it into the general topic section. Continue on.

Sigh. Another thread closure brings back the sad memories of the Olympic party going away.

does anyone know when they plan on having this finished?

I've always felt that a plaza needs something more than just the space. Space by itself is not going to draw people to it. I think the addition of the cauldron to Jack Poole Plaza will guarantee a stream of visitors to it so I'm very happy about its permanent location.

this is how it should have been during the olympics. wow though, definitely better late than never.

Now, will the pool be deep enough for sharks with laser beams on their heads to patrol to keep it safe?

No sharks, just ill tempered sea bass.

Wouldn't it be cheaper to just fill the pool with water from the Lake Ontario, no one would dare risk going in then.:cheers:

:jester:

I like that alot more than what was originally planned...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...er/VCCEP03.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...er/VCCEP03.jpg (Originally from http://vccep.bc.ca/)

In retrospect, the section with planters looks a lot more like filler than it did before.. looking at the lines where things meet up, it's a little bit too perfect. ;)

smooth post = yes.

Haha very true, but we want this cauldron to last as a legacy of the games, not disintegrate after 3 weeks in its chemical bath.

Yume, I think The Olympic Games fanpage on facebook used your picture from the opening ceremonies in it's "one month ago today" pic. It showed up in my news feed.

Check it out of you have a facebook account: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pi...d=209361989215

Ugh....i miss the Games...attending the Opening Ceremony in person was one of the best experiences of my life.

Vancouver’s 2010 Olympics costs estimated at $534 million

http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/V...072/story.html

BS story. A lot of those costs have nothing to do with the Games...for some reason, just because the project was completed near/before the Games it automatically qualifies as an Olympic cost?

Unfortunately, this "figure" is what everyone will think now...

I went out for dinner during every single day during the Olympics. Hopefully that was counted as an Olympic cost!

^ Forget adding yours in. I think 'Yume-sama's 2010 Olympics expenses estimate' would be an interesting read on its own ;)

"including many civic projects that Vancouver had long planned to do — such as the redevelopment of Southeast False Creek, a new pool, redevelopment of Granville Mall and three civic theatres and even a transit station."

so then it's not an olympic cost.................

why do they waste our time with this misinformation?!

I know this ain't my business but what do you do as a job??!?! lol:D

Here's some early commentary on the 'Olympic costs' report from today:

Source: Vancouver Sun

See those costs I wouldn't count, but costs like the $34000 CoV Staff party are expenses that should be highlighted.

wouldn't fly by an accountant? i don't know, it's almost certainly assembled by one.

anyway, thinking that this sort of thing has anything to do with anti-olympics activist types is sort of weird, considering the olympics have come and gone. at this point, this sort of document is useful only to wrangle money from the province or the feds - something that reasonable vancouverites support.
in other news, i think suzanne anton's gone feral. it's too bad it couldn't have been geller that got on there.

What has happened to the organization of the forums? The "General" and "2010" ones seem to be screwed up. At least for me. This thread is now in "General" and most of the threads in the "2010" forum seem to be from somewhere else? Any mods know whats up? Or is this problem isolated to me?

The city is playing politics with the accounting. They just want some bad fodder they can throw at the province to help them out on this school board scuffle. I'm sure that if the VSB was actually good at managing money or the province just quietly settled with them, then this report would probably have been under $100 million and they would have gone to great lengths to explain the other expenses as necessary and that some was even boom time spending. Afterall, not all this money was spent this year alone, a lot of it dates back to commitments made and construction done years ago.

I fail to see the connection between Vancouver School Board having to trim their budget by $18 Million, and the City of Vancouver spending over $500 Million on the Olympics (not counting $ 800 Million more to prop up the Athlete's Village financing).

Are you saying that if City pressured Province (and/or Vanoc and Feds) to pay more for the Olympics, that somehow the School Board will get more money too?

This thread was indeed moved to general by the mods intentionally (notice earlier in this thread), and were supposed to have closed the Olympic forum. It still seems to show up on the list, however, and seems to be full of 'deleted' threads from the Skybar or something like that.

Someone really f'd up the closure of the 2010 forum...of all places, why would they moved it to skybar? They should have ended up in the general Vancouver forum.

I totally agree with you Mr X

The 2010 subforum somehow got involved in some accidental thread moving by a non-Vancouver moderator. Apparently the issue is currently being resolved.

From the Globe and Mail:
...In the middle is former mayor Philip Owen, who headed the NPA council back in 1998 when it voted to support the Olympic Games with the proviso that there be no cost to the city.

Mr. Owen now says that the costs were worth it, although he thinks some projects were unnecessary.

“I was not in favour of a community centre going into the Olympic village,” he said, referring to the community centre that was supposed to cost $24-million but finished at $36-million. ...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1535753/

He's got a point, there are two community centres already close by: False Creek and 1 Kingsway. Now there are three in the area. When does Shaughnessy get a Community Centre? ;)

When the Arbutus club burns down. :cool:

^ lol. they'd probably fight it anyway, fearing it would bring more traffic to the hood.

so it's looking like it'll be a $220 million loss for nbc, not clear if that includes a monetization of their program promotions.

http://www.vancouversun.com/entertai...806/story.html

I don't know how you lose that much on the most watched in history. How much did they lose on the ones nobody watched??

As the article points out, the broadcast rights to the Vancouver Games were an unprecedented $820 million. (By contrast, the broadcast rights for the Torino Games were only $613 million.) So although the Vancouver Games were a ratings hit and generated huge revenues, NBC's expenses (namely, acquiring the rights) were even greater.

So, ironically, NBC's loss is actually a product of the desirability of the Vancouver Games.

There will never be an universal agreement what the true cost of the Games is as different people use different definition to do the cost calculation for different purpose.

VANOC boss disputes Olympic bill as published by COV.
Source from Toronto Sun: http://www.torontosun.com/sports/oth.../13619776.html

Lets remember that NBC paid a record amount for the rights to both the Vancouver Winter and London Summer as a package when the economy was still robust, but then had to sell the ad space in 2008/09 when the economy tanked and American companies were cutting back on their ad expenditures.

Hopefully the US economy will have bounced back by the time London 2012 opens, and NBC is still able to generate a profit on that broadcast.

However, being the Summer games, the expenses of setting up & broadcasting will be substantially higher than the estimated $200 Million they spent setting up and broadcasting the Vancouver 2010 Winter games.

I don't think NBC, CTV, or any other network does the Olympics to make money. Its the prestige of being "The Official Olympic Broadcaster" that they hope will pull in other ad revenues to the network and their other shows. Much the same as being the network that has the Superbowl, or the World Cup, or the Oscars - all prestige events that likely don't make money from their ads, but bring in advertisers to the networks' 'bread and butter' shows for the rest of the year. Or rather, the major advertisers on the 'bread and butter' shows get a sweeter deal for ads on the prestige event broadcasts.

I walked by Jack Poole Plaza today and saw something on the fence surrounding the 2010 Olympic Cauldron.

Here is the picture I took:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2762/...ba982510_o.jpg
Source: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2762/...ba982510_o.jpg

It is a very nicely created big price tag.
Looks like someone was trying to make a "joke" or convey a "message".
Unfortunately that person got some fact wrong. The cauldron did not cost $554 million to contruct.

I just realized that I never received my cheque for selling my ticket on the fan-to-fan marketplace yet.

I haven't received my Vancouver 2010 Commemorative Book from VANOC yet.
I hope they didn't run out of money! :haha:

Someone needs to slash a big red X onto that figure and write "Creative Accounting". I don't understand how these people can simply tag every infrastructure investment we've made over the last 8 years onto the Olympics, as if the city would have stood still with a spending freeze without the Games...sounds sooooo logical.

Juan Antonio Sammaranch has passed away at an age of 89. He was the most influential IOC President in history with a term of over 20-years, responsible for both the commercial success of the Games and its scandals.

Will the Olympic Thread ever be back to normal?

I know the Olympics are over, but it might be nice to go back and reference the information, photos, and such without having to sort through of that < really bizarre garbage >threads

Anyone Receive Fan-to-Fan Resell Ticket Payment Yet?
 

I've been assuming that since they said payment by the end of April, that the payments will be sent out at the end of the month. But I am curious . . . has anyone received payment yet?

It's funny that they've shut down so much of the site - can't log into account anymore and such. I had thought they might leave access up so you could check status on-line. The FAQs address a lot but say nothing about the Fan to Fan payment process (be nice if it did since that's probably the only thing people care to access the site for at this point ;).

We used most of our tickets directly, but did sell a couple that conflicted with other events. It would be nice to get the funds back.

No, I have not received any money, or the commemorative book(s).

I'm sure they will be coming eventually!

YMMV:

His, not Pierre de Coubertin’s, was the true face of the modern Olympic Games, an old, unrepentant Spanish fascist who understood the art of consolidating power behind closed doors, who didn’t see what he didn’t want to see, and who had a remarkable gift for making a buck.

By the time Juan Antonio Samaranch completed his two decades as the unchallenged strongman of the Olympic “movement” in 2001, de Coubertin’s quaint 19th-century ideals of pure amateurism, the transcendent value of competitive effort and the improvement of the whole person through sport had long been swamped by millionaire professional “dream teams,” performance-enhancing drug and bribery scandals, and vast television and sponsorship riches, transforming the five rings into one of the most powerful brands on Earth....
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1542668/