Winter Olympics: Vancouver-Bound

Organized sports, its what I do.  So, how about checking out the world’s biggest event for organized sports ?  In my mind thats the Olympics.  Thanks to my friend Cathy, I was lucky enough to take in the Summer Olympics in 1996 without making hardly any advance plans.   I didn’t think it would that big of a deal, but was I wrong.  I still have vivid memories of the sports we went to and all the people we met from around the world.  Priceless indeed.

Its long been on my “bucket list” to attend the Winter Olympics and as soon as they were announced that Vancouver would be the host for 2010, I was sold.  Thinking about if for the past seven years, its about to get started and I can’t wait to take my trip.

So, with the obvious sport tie-in, I thought it may be cool to share the fun with Milwaukee Social Club.   Maybe a few of you will get into it and can enjoy the experience with me (at least virtually).  At the very least, it will be a journal for me and if i can bring others along – even better.

PLANNING STAGES

While discussing the potential of the trip with friends and family, I really didn’ t make actual plans until late last year.  Finally, last fall, I made the first commitment by reserving that plane trip to the Pacific Northwest and started the ball rolling.

WHO’S IN?  AND WHERE DO WE STAY ?

There were two people that were real fans of the Olympics and would join in the fun.  My friend Kay was very interested and committed right away.  Then, my sister Jean, who was fortunate to go to the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002 committed as well. 

Then came the challenging parts of the planning:  Getting tickes to events and a place to stay.  Housing was going to be costly, and hotel room rates were all way out of wack, so after almost a month of researching options, we found a great place to stay with a family that is renting out part of their house.    I thought going this route would be fun as my family did something similar in Vancouver in 1986 for the Worlds Fair.  Also a big event and thoroughly enjoyed having that personal connection of a host.

GETTING TICKETS – EASIER SAID THAN DONE

Ok, so whats the situation with tickets?  Aaaah, found out we were a little late on that.  Tickets went on sale to Canadian residents much earlier in 2009 and the first “phase” was gone.  There was fortunately another “phase” of sales coming up for whats left so we had to take our chances.  Finally, when that mid-November date came around, it was slim pickings for what was left, but found a couple things to get started.

Event #1:  USA Women’s Hockey Game – sounds good, and a medal-winning team in every olympics. 

Event #2:  USA CURLING:  Hmmm, don’t know much about this sport, but its supposed to be the biggest sport in Canada.  When in Rome i guess.  Lets give it a try.

Thats all we could get – at least officially and at first.  We quickly noticed how second-hand sales of tickets created some absolutely outrageous price tags so we just decided to wait and watch the “market”

Having a couple events confirmed at least gave us a start and we can work on others.   Knowing that part of the olympic experience is just to be there and soak it in, we’re fortunately not set on having to go to something specific and paying through the nose just to get it.

You see, normal costs (at least directly and not second hand) were pretty fair. Anywhere from $25 to over $200, not including opening and closing ceremonies (fortunately not on our time frame).  However, once you add the secondary market, you are lucky to find something for under $100 per event.  This is per-event !  I pay an average of $20 per ticket for a Brewer game, and am pretty frugal when it comes to other sporting events too.  I think I paid $100 for a Badgers Rose Bowl 10 years ago so its gotta be great for me to splurge on an activity that I wouldn’ t normally pay attetion to. (Biathlon anyone?)

Research, scouring brokers, perusing Craigslist Vancouver and ebay.  Few fruitless bids on ebay ($300 for a pair of skeleton tickets? – i’ m out).   $200 for a ski-cross ticket?  Not yet.  Lets continue to work the bargains and be in the right spot for something near cost or not outrageous.  $100 and under sounds good.  However, I’m not going to any figure skating – even if you GAVE me the ticket – yuck.

Thanks to some free time after the holidays, I practically got obsessed with finding a good deal on tickets.   Ebay deals were still too costly, and occasionally you’d find a good deal on craigslist but timing was everything.     Even the olympic site started re-selling tickets from others (sorta like Stubhub) but costs weren’t worth it.

Agreeing to split us up if we find something good, we had a new plan of attack.  Soon, Kay scored a single ticket to see Men’s Freestyle Aerials Skiing.  Not bad $80.  The only thing close otherwise was over $150 each.   Pass for now, but keep the option open.

Another ebay auction – skeleton – got out of hand again.  Then bobsled, $200 each – seriously?  Finally, minutes after a posting on craigslist i got in touch with a seller looking to unload bobsled tickets.  $100 each.  Believe it or not, a bargain and within our budget.  SCORE !  Tickets secured (but only two) and actually another cool event that personifies the winter olympics

So thats 3 events for each of us going up to the games next week. More than good enough to look forward to, and leaving options open for something else that will “fall in our laps”.

PREPPING

Watching the x-games got me psyched for snowboarding – although those events won’t be in our time frame.  Starting to read up on the athletes and have someone to root for and finding out that seven of the 21 players on the US Womens hockey team have played for Wisconsin or currently do !  PLUS: The coach of the team, is from Wisconsin too.  Very cool. 

Looks like there will be a lot of extra atmosphere up there as well.   Going to enjoy an entire day at Whistler village surrounding our bobsled.  The city has a few different “celebration” spots to go watch with hundreds of other people too.  I heard some sponsors will have pavilions and special places too.   On my list:  checking out the Molson Canadian Hockey House and hopefully the Holland Heineken Pavilion and enjoy a couple cold ones.

Final plans are set and details and minor things still to take care of (packing: cold weather? warm, rainy weather? geez).  Set to leave on Weds, Feb 17th for the trip and will get to Vancouver late that afternoon and there for one week.

THOUGHTS?

So, let me know what you wanna know about, or hear regarding the trip.  I’ll be hopefully posting every day or two.   I’m hoping to be able to download photos too – we’ll see

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