Day 8: DEADMAU5!

Well, here is to another day and night in the sea of Red aka Canaday Day every day.

I worked usher again but yesterday was particularly boring hockey games that I saw. Actually the Sweden game as pretty good at the end, I was just really tired. It's hard to stay standing up all day. I know it doesn't sound so bad, but doing nothing standing up is really hard, 8 days in a row!

After work, I met up with Brendan, a volunteer at the Infobooth who currently goes to UBC and is a year younger than me, also looks like 5 years older than me and is 6'5 or something! So we heard during the day that the lineup for Deadmau5 was ridiculous, and that nobody could even get in anymore. And we definitely got the proof of that when we got there and the lineup was probably the biggest I have ever seen in my life for a free concert outside. 

For those who don't know Deadmau5 (pronounced Dead Mouse), he's a Canadian Electro DJ from Toronto that's been really popular in the last year. His most popular song, Ghosts n Stuff, has been around for a while now and you might know it by now. 

So when we get there, we ask the security guy about how to get in and the time for the line, then he redirects us to the Staff entrance. So we decide that we have nothing to lose trying to go through the staff entrance. (We gave ourselves a 5% chance)  So we just non-chalantly go into the staff entrance, put our stuff through the airport security screening once again, and just WALK IN! This was ridiculous, as the people had been waiting all day to get in there, and they closed the doors at 4 pm; while still people waiting in line in hopes to get in. Here is a Vancouver Sun article that can explain more how crazy it was (20,000 tried to get into a 8,000 people venue) 

 Just outside the entrance

So I call Steph to tell him to get over here and pass through the staff entrance as a volunteer who works there. The worst is that our pass looks nothing like the pass they have at LiveCity (they are hosted by the City, not VANOC) and our coats are definitely a different blue. I was saying how they were the leftover volunteers that got the leftover jobs ha ha! Anyway, we were pretty pumped, and we were in at 5:30 leaving us time to do the pavilions in there. 

So we did the Coke pavilion, and it was pretty cool:

 Torches for the past olympics

 With a Torch!

The pavilion was really cool in the end. You could do some interactive games, and the people working there were the most energetic I've seen in any pavilions. 

Then we also did the ACER, Samsung and Panasonic pavilions which all had some really cool tech things we could see.

Each pavilion had their own cool thing: The Panasonic 3D HD theatre showed the 2008 and 2010 Olympics in full real 3D, for the opening ceremonies and the sports. It was funny because we had seen the opening ceremonies live, and it looked exactly the same. Also, they shot in 3D at the Norway - Canada game, and I saw myself on the 3D Theatre about 3-4 times because I was in the corner behind the goalie! Clearly, I was really excited, but nobody else cared haha! 

At the samsung one, they had a bunch of interactive touch screens and cool stuff to do with cell phones, and the ACER one had the Olympic video game on the computer, which you would be doing the real courses of the Vancouver olympics, and the graphics were just amazing. It's funny because some people might remember that Olympic game that was around in like 1995 - I just remember my brothers and I playing, and it was the same thing pretty much just 15 years later! 

In the ACER pavilion, we heard some good beats outside so we figured it was Deadmau5 that was up on the stage, and it was! So he started a bit earlier, but that was fine by us!

I have amazing video footage of this, so can't wait to put this all together. We decided to make a ''Volunteer train'' to the front of the crowd and it pretty much worked. There were a LOT of young kids (like 13-17) because it was an all-ages concert, and no beer was served (big fail) but we still had sneaked a bit of rum, every morning I basically make sure to have my rum on me... You just never know! 

After a while, we decided to get out, my brother and I were getting pretty hot and it was pushy alot and we wanted to go dance in the back. Brendan, having a head over everyone, was obviously fine, but we left anyway. On my way out we met this guy that is friends with another of my friends from Montreal in the Olympics, and we started talking and he ended up chilling with us all night (He works at the Olympic village) 

Anyway, the concert was very good in general, we were upfront for Ghosts and Stuff and people went nuts for it. Unfortunately, it wasn't as loud as we wanted it to be to start our dance party in the back, but hey you got to work with what you got! 

Many fans had made their own mousehead, these are just 2 of many!

So Deadmau5 got LITERALLY cut off because I'll assume he just wanted to keep playing, and the organizers had to cut him off so the fireworks could start. Basically, he put Never gonna give you up at the end; which confused us a bit, and then they just literally pulled the plug haha! So the countdown to the fireworks had to be modified to start at like 2 or 3 then BOOM! Amazing fireworks! These were GOOD too! With a bit of a light show and everything. I decided to film it so I don't have any pictures, but they were definitely nice. 

Afterwards, we went downtown to Granville street to walk around a bit, and we met up with Brendan's friends where we wanted to find a bar, but ended up chilling at the Casino and just having a beer, steph, brendan and I's feet were KILLING so we just wanted to die at that point!

Sidenote: The mascots are almost a joke now - not in a bad way, but in the sense that the people my age are always screaming their names, dressing up as them, etc. and It's pretty hilarious. 

Coming back home, we realized there's even more of those rocks piled (Inukshuk) all over on the walkway from Sochi 2014 to the GM Place/BC Place. There's so many, it's incredible!

 Only a glimpse..

We had a mishap coming back on the skytrain, taking the last one we thought we had the one going to Surrey but it turns out it wasn't. We had to call for a cab and get a ride with these girls to get back home, which was around 4 am! Long night, thank god I'm off today!

I'm going to see Juste Pour Rire tonight at Granville Island, and it'll be nice to be off. I'm working 9 - 5 tomorrow, for the ''Super Sunday'' because really good games will be on so you better watch. The biggest rivalries will all be playing against each other starting at 12 Pacific, so 3 pm in Ottawa. I will be working the first game, Russia vs Czech and will try to sneak my way into the USA game. It'll be ridiculous in there!!! Afterwards, its Sweden vs Finland.

Here's an article from the Montreal Gazette explaining this amazing day of hockey tomorrow.

So! Hockey Day in Vancouver tomorrow will be on! I'll probably go to Granville Island after I sneak into my USA Game (hopefully) to check out Cowboy Fringants, and go out late because I'm only working late monday. 

The hockey I'll be covering: Women's semis monday, Men's quarters tuesday & wednesday, Men's semis friday, Men's Bronze saturday and men's final sunday! 

That's it for now ! Peace and love

I have found AMAZING pictures of the games here. Check it out!

Day 7: Another Canada Game, Another Sweet Seat

So today was just another 'Ordinary' day for me. I kind of got myself out of an outside position to be usher again on the 3rd level. I really love that job, and considering maybe applying for Sens for the games, why not? I make friends with a lot of the people in my section and I think they all appreciate it. I don't think I'm too uptight, loose, or just plain stupid to be there and people also respect me. Also, I obviously love the drunk guys that go at the noon games, get there at 10 am to be at their 6th beer by noon. They really entertain me. 

Also, let me point out a few things of the games I've realized that I felt like sharing:

- Americans really overdo their costumes. I've done two full USA games now for the hockey, and all the people from Seattle can go right back there if they want! Always tacky costumes, they are nice people of course, but ... I just feel like ... You know who they are

- Luge doubles is really awkward to watch in any shape or form

- I am a bit tired of seeing the same Vancouver videos over and over again

- The cleaning crew in between games go NUTS so they can clean within an hour. It's a lot of work, kudos to them.

- What makes the difference between NHL And Olympic hockey games? FLAGS. There are just tons everywhere. People come for the games of the European countries and decide to usually buy a flag of which ever country they decide on, and it's great because it keeps the spirit in there !

- Somebody put up a ''Free Tibet'' flag today. Was kind of funny. 

- I heard today somebody bought a ticket for the gold medal game in the 300's, for 2,700$. A friend I met tonight bought tickets for Russia tonight for 300$ a piece, last row in the 300's.

- I do realize how lucky I am to be usher most of the time, but I am putting myself in that position.... screwing the system a bit... 

- I have never heard the OH CANADA so many times in a day constantly ever. 

- It is SUNNY now!

- Alcohol places are open till 11 pm to pick up the booze! Wow! 

- I gave these little girls my volunteer pin today because they were all amazed at this older lady having so many. It's a limited edition - obviously I don't care about the pin, because, most of you know me and know that collecting pins, wouldn't be a thing that I do haha! Anyways, there was three little girls, so I think I caused more of a problem because they started fighting about who was going to keep it (in a cute way) Anyway,,, there was my Mother Tereasa Moment.

Now, to the interesting facts. So, as I finish my shift today, I started scouting out downstairs which seats weren't being touched at all. That's when Judy, who's from outside of Montreal, and very french, and very much have the same personality, we decided that we'd meet up in the bathroom, get changed and go downstairs to those seats. So we did. Basically, if they see you in the blue coat, you will get kicked out the seats. But since I had a black shirt, hair tied up, and a green cap, I was totally undercover. 

As I'm typing this, I see the CTV News saying something about the empty seats at GM Place. Okay, there are a bunch of seats that are not sold because: A) they are blocked off by media view, so they can't sell those B) There is about 3 sections in the 300's that is reserved for Athlete seating - and they are never full, like ever and C) I think scalpers have a hard time selling the tickets right before the games, and they end up not sold. Hence, why I can go and hop in there, just as long as you act cool enough.

Hey I'm telling you the secrets of the trade, you guys better not rat me out! Anyway, on to the important part: The Canada game! It was ridiculous! I've never been so much into this as I was in the third period. I can honestly say I was like somewhat okay with Swiss scoring, make the game a little tighter, but never did I have a doubt until the last 5 minutes that we were maybe going to lose. 

The seats, were the most amazing thing ever. Everybody was so into it, and we were really lucky nobody ever came to claim them. I took many videos hoping to catch that winning goal but it DIED before I got anything. So I didn't get anything on my camera for the shootout, but you can check out my Twitvids here and here. As some of you know, I update pictures and videos live on my twitter, so when the crowd goes nuts I'll usually catch it on tape and send it off right away! Note: The crowd went wild when Crosby scored, and they were screaming HILLER To the goalie when he was in our end. Which I thought was a bit unsportsmanlike for the Olympics, but I think we want it so bad and didn't want to accept to have a potential loss... Do anything they can. 

If you were watching on TV, I got on the phone with my parents and told them you could see me from that camera, which you could, it was pretty funny. That's how close I was!

Anyway, enough with the blah blah. Here are the pictures of tonight! 

Now I also made a friend, like I said, and she is a driver for the Hockey Federation driving around big shots. I think she'll become my new undercover seat sneaker. Here's the pic:

She's doing a blog just like me. And Here is it: http://judy612.blogspot.com/ Mais elle vient de Montréal donc c'est tout en français! 

On va probablement se rencontrer dimanche pour essayer de se trouver des sièges pour la partie contre USA et ensuite aller voir les Cowboy! J'ai hâte! 

So that's it for me! Two posts were enough for me. I had to update everything, I felt like you guys didn't get much lately! 

My plans this weekend: Friday work 9 - 5, Daudmau5 Yaletown LiveCity at 7:30 with Louis and Stoggy; Party somewhere after until late in the night! 

Saturday - OFF! Night: Soirée Juste pour Rire - Place de la francophonie (Granville Island)

Sunday - Work 9 - 5; try to sneak some seats if not go straight to Cowboy Fringants! 

Okay I'm absolutely beat, it's been hard leaving downtown after Canada plays but I'm so beat after standing up all day with everything I'm doing, then putting all my energy into cheering.

Good night!

Gen

Day 6: Media & Place Franco

Well, I'd first like to thank everybody who recognized me on television the other night. I'm pretty sure I made my national debut the best way ever. I immediately got a bunch of texts, emails and then on my facebook some people were saying how they saw me. What a moment that was!


Now, onto my day that was yesterday. First off, at work, I got deployed in media. So I got to work with the  big shots, or so I thought. But I first had to block the entrance to the media because it's completely blocked off for them - so If you are at section 109, and want to get to 101, you got to go around, and you don't know about that. So who's the person to tell you that? ME! So you can just imagine how people would get ridiculously mad at me, all the time! Wow! Examples; infront of his children ''Well this is just retarded, this is so stupid, I can't believe this, it's RETARDED!''; ''Canada's really an embarrassment'' ''This is just plain ridiculous, you guys will make me walk all the way around? No, this makes no sense'' 


Like really, Canada? You will make a fuss because the rink has been modified to accommodate the Media centre which is necessary for any arena, and because you're SO lazy and don't walk around? Or because you're late and it'll take you too long? Wow, your LAME! That's all I gotta say. Anyway, I got my load of whining people yesterday, let me tell you that! 


Moving on to the other part of my Media job - I was ushering basically mid section at 105, so it was really sweet, got a really good view of the Finland game. Koivu up close!


Afterwards, I went around downtown and met up with Marc, a friend from Ottawa. We then went to Place à la francophonie for a concert with Marie-Mai, Eric Lapointe, Kevin Parent, Porn Flakes, etc It was really fun! Here are some pictures:

Kevin ParentMarie-Mai + autre + Plastique Bertrand - Oops, ENCORE! Toute la gang, incluant Eric Lapointe

Overall, le concert étais vraiment bon. C'étais vraiment relaxe - c'est toute des francophones pas mal donc tu te sens vraiment comme si tu es amis avec toute le monde déja. Meme les artistes étaient ben relaxe avec nous. On avait de la place pour danser, le tout étais vraiment bien. Ensuite on s'est déplacé vers le Club Adrénaline ou il y a eu une fille de Casselman, Melissa, qui a chanté quelques cover. On étais les seuls franco-ontariens dans la salle donc c'étais pas mal drôle dans le fond!

Alors j'ai très hâte de retourner a Place franco - avec mes intentions d'y aller samedi soir pour la soirée Juste Pour Rire avec Louis-José Houde, Mike Ward, et pleins d'autres comédiens (tout gratuit) et ensuite dimanche soir pour les COWBOYS FRINGANTS! Woo!

C'est pas mal tout pour cette soirée - il y a eu aussi quelques bières de 7$ en consommation et du rum and coke illégal pour le concert!

Day 5: Pinch me, k?

Alright, so today was my first real shift because well, let's be honest, it was men's hockey. I was really excited to come work and check out how the atmosphere was going to be.


Well first off I decided to pick up the same number I had taken last time for the deployment - which got me back to usher where I was for the woman's. If you want to see the numerous pictures I took from my phone throughout the day, you can go to my Twitter account and check out the latest pictures and videos.


For the USA v SUI game, I would say that it was 25% USA, 5% Suisse and 70% Canada for people and what colors they were supporting. I think a lot of americans came out from Seattle for this. They kept chanting ''U S A U S A'' during the games, or Let's go Suisse tap tap tap tap tap (I think). Anyways, the swiss kept USA on their feet I can definitely tell you that, and all truly canadians were hoping they'd score the first goal, but no go.


Here are a few pictures between the two games, when the cleaning team were going nuts (it was a whole new crew of people, trying to clean an arena within an hour - good luck!) Which subsequently made everybody wait outside, all the Canadian fans as you can see!  These are all little things that back home you don't realize, but seeing it up close you think how crazy it is for an Arena to host 3 big games in one day. It's gonna be this way until the Quarters, wow, it'll be NUTS!

Employee debrief

In between games

Hosts taking a break

Lineup outside, wow!

 Absolute crazyness

So you can see that before the Canada game, people were getting ansty to get in. From what I heard, it was a really good atmosphere in the streets.

So, I do my usher part until 5 pm for the Canada game and a bit disappointed that I won't get to see Canada score their First goal. So I get off, and this random guy asks me where he can find a ticket booth because his friends and him want to upgrade to seats down in the 100's they've been eying and there's definitely nobody. I basically tell him it's impossible, then say that he could probably sneak in there if he wanted to. It only took that for him to take off the jersey off his back, give it to me and tell me to go put it on. So I basically shove my jacket into my little backpack, put on his jersey, and hide everything volunteer about me. He buys me a beer, we go to the 100's to find the section where he's talking about.

He calls up his 3 friends that are wearing painted on t-shirts, and tells them to come down. We basically WALK into section 103 in between the first and the second no problem, then just sit down in these ridiculous seats, behind the media and where CTV has their hockey desk. Unbelievable. I'm kind of risking all my privileges of being a volunteer but it was SO worth it!

So we proceeded to go on TV a couple times from the texts I got, and one of their friends got a snapshot of the TV when they were on - and you can see that I was right on the right side of the guys, just cut off in that pic, but I was there, and also again on TV later.

 yeah, im on the left and these are my new freinds. sorry mom!

Anyways, we stayed there for the rest of the night, and it was amazing. Here is the view that we had:

So, what a night! Two of the guys were coming back to Surrey so I hitched a ride with them, perfect night!

PS Media, if you ever pick this up, please, don't put me in trouble, thanks!

This is exactly what happened ... as raw as it gets!

Also, Robson Square is retarded right now, everybody from hockey basically walked over there and its a riot ( a fun one) but went back home because I have many 9 - 5's this week (until friday) so I got to rest sometimes, and after epic nights like this, I just don't mind!

Alright! 

OHhhh HABS FAN: You will love this. After each canada goal, they play OLÉ OLÉ OLÉ OLÉ, amazing right! hahaha. Excellent!

Team Canada Love,

Gen

Day 4: The Oh Canada's keep on coming!

So you would of thought the Monday things would have settled in? Nope, Robson Square is always jammed packed so is Granville street (Think Granville as Elgin back in Ottawa, and Robson Square being the heart of the Market or something)


I went downtown tonight and met up with Louis and Stoggy, as they are here for the week because Stoggy's Dad is the CEO of the canadian paralympic team, has the infinity sign pass, and they get VIP's in ridiculous high class parties (Liberal party, UK Investment, sounds fancy). Anyway, had a beer with them and Henry the Dad, then we went off to find a restaurant. Going through Robson we could see it was still pretty crazy. Here are a few pictures of the night downtown:

On the bobsleigh weeee!

From where they report at CTV Olympics basically.

Robson Square

Posing

The boys getting pulled by the collar with batman

I must say the buskers came out tonight! There were definitely a few around town, we didn't stay around too much because well the boys were hungry.

We weren't sure what to do, so we went back to Saskatchewan, Ontario and Québec pavilion. And surprisingly, Sask wins this one! They had a Ska band playing as we came in (as where Québec the band was done, and Ontario was a huge lineup outside in the rain, so we only did the 4d Theatre again) That pretty much sums up the night. We ended up visiting a casino quickly and ended at the Poker Room. I anticipate very awesome things coming up, and I start working for real hockey (men's) tomorrow.

Good night!