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Posted Jan 12, 2010, 10:02 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 41,371
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Bell News release:
Quote:
 
Bell unveils the ultimate fan zone at the epicentre of the 2010 Winter Games
Bell Ice Cube, located at Robson and Beatty, will be the place to be to connect live to the Olympic experience
VANCOUVER, Jan. 7 /CNW Telbec/ - Bell today unveiled plans for Bell Ice Cube, a public showcase located at the heart of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, where visitors can watch Olympic events live in HD, cheer on Team Canada with the latest products from Bell, listen to live music and meet some of world's best athletes, all under one roof.
Housed in a 3,000 square foot (280 square metre) structure, the Bell Ice Cube will open to the public on February 11. It will serve as the ultimate viewing centre and meeting place for those wanting the next best thing to a front-row seat at the 2010 Winter Games.
"Bell wanted to create an experience for Olympic fans that would allow them to connect to the spirit of Vancouver and the Games in a way that no other place could offer," said Loring Phinney, Vice President, Corporate and Olympic Marketing. "With more than 20 HD televisions showing all 10 channels within Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium, plus our own dedicated live venue feeds, the Bell Ice Cube is the natural meeting place for people coming into the centre of the city."
Bell Ice Cube will be open daily from February 11 to 28 from 11 am to 11 pm and will feature entertainment, Olympic ticket giveaways and interactive product demonstrations. Visitors will have the opportunity to experience the very best of Bell's communications solutions including Bell Mobility, Bell Internet and Bell TV products and services.
The unique high-tech design of Bell Ice Cube will provide visitors an opportunity to view ceremonies and competitions on multiple plasma screens in high definition Bell TV. During the Opening and Closing Ceremonies and during major sporting events, visitors will be able to watch the magic on a large projection screen.
Every day at 3 pm, there will be a live show called Ice Talk, where Olympians will be interviewed by five-time Olympian and Bell Champion Charmaine Crooks. Athletes will share their own Olympic stories and sign autographs for Games fans. The line-up of athletes will include Susan Auch (speed skating), Duff Gibson (skeleton), Nancy Greene (alpine skiing), Clara Hughes (speed skating), Johann Koss (speed skating), Chris Lori (bobsleigh), Karen Magnussen (figure skating), Ashleigh McIvor (ski cross), Steve Omischl (aerials), Joannie Rochette (figure skating), Beckie Scott (cross-country skiing) and Hayley Wickenheiser (ice hockey).
Bell Ice Cube will also feature guest performances by internationally acclaimed vocal play group, Naturally 7. In addition to brilliant harmonies, every instrument sound is created by the human voice. From musical styles that range from pop to R&B, Naturally 7 has charmed fans around the world.
Bell is truly bringing the Games to life. During the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, every image seen on TV, every story read around the world and every real-time score transmitted will traverse a network and communications solution designed and delivered by Bell.
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From Metro:
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To party, add Bell Ice Cube
08 January 2010 05:10
Mockup drawings were released yesterday for a giant glass cube that organizers hope will be party central at Robson and Beatty streets during the 2010 Olympics.
The Bell Ice Cube will be a 280-square-metre structure allowing visitors to watch Olympic events live in HD.
“With more than 20 high-definition plasma TVs showing all 10 channels within Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium, plus our own dedicated live venue feeds, the Bell Ice Cube is the natural meeting place for people coming into the centre of the city,” said Loring Phinney, a spokesperson for Bell.
During the opening and closing ceremonies and during major sporting events, visitors will be able to watch the magic on a large projection screen.
The venue will be open daily from Feb. 11 to Feb. 28, from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. and will feature entertainment and chances to meet athletes.
metro vancouver
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Quote:
First Nations say pride, not money is true legacy from 2010 Olympics
Stephanie Levitz, THE CANADIAN PRESS
10 January 2010 12:58
VANCOUVER, B.C. - For some, the fact that official aboriginal merchandise for the 2010 Olympics is being made in China is a slap in the face for aboriginal communities.
For others, the fact that it's getting made at all is proof that First Nations are finally getting looked in the eye.
Games organizers use the word legacy to describe the venues that will remain after the Games. Politicians use it when crowing about the economic benefits of hosting the world's biggest sporting event.
But for First Nations, the legacy of the Games is something much more ephemeral than the money they can make from thunderbirds emblazoned on a sweater with the five rings, no matter where they are made.
"The level of participation hands down is going to be the legacy in that it's given us the opportunity to educate the world (about) who we are," said Justin George, the chief of the Tsleil-Waututh, one of the four bands on whose traditional territories the Games are being held.
It's been a valuable education for both sides.
Back when Dan Doyle worked with B.C.'s Minister of Transportation, he was involved with a band negotiating over a highway being built through its land. He wouldn't name the band.
"It was very, very, very challenging to deal with and it may well have been my approach, I will admit that readily today," said Doyle, who is now responsible for aboriginal participation for the Olympic organizing committee, known as VANOC.
When that same band was approached for involvement with the Games, the discussions started out on a different foot, Doyle said.
"It started with the word respect," he said.
It's the exposure that helps create a comfort level, said Tewanee Joseph, executive director of the society that represents the four bands.
"It becomes less frightening to enter a room to start negotiating a deal, whether it's a business deal, a hydro deal or others," he said.
"It becomes less threatening because you can still point to the example and say it was done (for the Olympics)."
While partnerships are one thing, having a seat at the planning table for the Games has been lucrative for the Squamish, Musqueam, Tseil Wautuh and Lil'wat nations.
At least $54 million has been spent by the organizing committee alone on aboriginal companies involved in venue construction, with around $1 million more in procurement from aboriginal companies.
Over 200 training positions were created by Games sponsor RONA and other companies and further training programs were created in partnerships with local community colleges for Games-related jobs in hospitality.
None of the economic impact studies done about the Games have registered much by way of a boom for the four host nations - yet.
One interesting marker might be the 2011 census. Comparing the data from 2011 with data from 2006 may show whether the Olympics had an impact on any measure of First Nations life at all.
Right now, B.C.'s aboriginal people lag behind nonaboriginals in education, income and health levels.
A report on aboriginal health in British Columbia released last June by the province's provincial health officer analyzed 64 health indicators and found improvements in overall death rates. But it also found aboriginal people still have higher rates of chronic disease, such as HIV-AIDS, and hospitalization rates for problems related to substance abuse.
That's why, in part, some aboriginal groups have voiced loud disapproval over the wholehearted way others have supported the Olympics.
The rallying cry for the anti-Games movement is "no Olympics on stolen native land," a reference to the fact that the territories in B.C. have never been formally ceded to the Canadian government.
They also say the reality of life for Canada's aboriginal community is being whitewashed by the Games under the banner of these new partnerships.
Even Phil Fontaine, former chief of the Assembly of First Nations, once suggested aboriginal people use the Games to showcase their plight.
"We're ignored. Our proposals are dismissed. They're not taken seriously. Our efforts to establish a healthy, respectful relationship with this government obviously are not compelling enough," he said in 2008.
"In fact we don't have much of a relationship."
Months later, Fontaine was hired by Olympic sponsor RBC to work on aboriginal relations, including involving First Nations communities in the torch relay.
On Friday, after he had run with the torch partway through Long Plain First Nation in Manitoba, Fontaine said aboriginal people have a right to use the Games as a platform for protest.
But he also said the Games aren't the best forum and now's not the time to dwell on the negative.
"I have no doubt that there will be a very important and lasting legacy" from the Games, Fontaine said, adding First Nation communities have benefited already.
"Beyond the exposure, in terms of the celebration of culture, there are economic benefits. That is one of the other important features of the 2010 Olympics. We will see what is beyond the Olympics but I feel good about it."
He said education should take place in the political - not sports - arena.
The relay, which ends with the start of the Games next month, will have passed through over 100 aboriginal communities.
It hasn't always been smooth running - the route has been blocked and diverted by protests and in Kahnawake, the organizing committee and RCMP were shut out from bringing the flame in because Mohawks refused to allow the federal police on their territory.
A compromise was reached when the flame proceeded without the usual RCMP escort. But that the flame was allowed in at all can be seen as a victory.
"We've been saying we're full partners in the Games. Well, you don't really become full partners until you have to deal with some adversity," said Joseph.
"I think that VANOC could have taken the approach where they weren't going to listen but at the very senior level they were very engaged in what we were trying to do."
So with all this goodwill, the question becomes what's next?
Each of the bands signed cash-and-land deals worth around $20 million apiece in the last seven years in exchange for supporting the Games.
The Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish plan to use the resources to expand.
"We have to become modern day hunters," said George
"In past it was bows and arrows, today it is degrees and diplomas and relationships and it's with that mindset we move forward."
The Lil'wat hope to capitalize on the construction business that boomed for them during venue construction but also have more of a role in tourism to Whistler.
"It brings back the aspect of the business being possible," said Chief Leonard Andrew.
For Joseph, he hopes to turn the his group into a corporation with a focus on helping other groups integrate First Nations into their affairs.
"We developed all these relationships over five, six years now," he said.
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Last edited by officedweller; Jan 12, 2010 at 10:20 PM.
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