JSBM Olympic Update: Alberta House

I can tell you one thing right now; It's going to be so fucking weird walking around downtown Vancouver without bumping into 200,000 people. The party last night was absolutely insane. It felt like and looked like there was easily a million people out on the streets partying and celebrating last night. It was probably less than that but there were so many people that it took us about 45 minutes to walk one block. But perhaps I should start from the beginning.

I've got a bunch of friends in town right now (surprise!) so the last week has been a ridiculously fun blur. While I was making myself a greasy hangover remedy yesterday I got a text from one such friend saying that her and her friends were going to Alberta house to mingle with our provincial brothers and sisters, and to watch the Canada game. So I make my way down there and get in a fairly large line up. "How long did they say the wait is going to be?" I ask the lady in front of me. "About 2 hours" she says, looking really happy to be standing in the rain, waiting in line. But hey, at least there were TV's pointing toward the street so we could watch curling and try to rationalize why the fuck we were waiting in this stupid line. So I text my friend and tell her I just got into line and I'd probably be inside in a couple hours, which would still get me in there just in time for the puck drop. She texts me back with "I'll see what I can do". Next thing I know a big security guard walks down the line up, comes up to me, asks if I'm jeanshorts, and then asks me to come with him. We get to the door, he leans in and says "go find your friend, she'll tell you what's up". So I find my friend, break out my wallet and immediately ask how much we owe this dude.

So after security guard who takes his job way too seriously makes me palm him a 20 like I'm Larry David or something, I finally settle in and start in on some delicious pints of beer as the entire rooms watches nervously as Team Sweden forces Cheryl Bernard to an extra end in the woman's curling final. We all know how it turned out, and it was a bummer, but those Swedish bitches are damn good at curling. And Cheryl Bernard had a pretty wicked tournament so I think we can all be happy with a silver medal. And she's still hot so she gets a pass.

During the half hour lull between the end of the curling match and the beginning of the ice hockey game some hot girl from Calgary came on stage with her band and played some kind of jazzy business to try and bring every one's spirits back up in time for the game. During her second song, all of a sudden the sound of symbols and drums start filling the streets. Next thing you know a full on marching band marches right past Alberta house, causing everyone to get up out of their seats turn away from the stage and start cheering and clapping for the marching band, all while this girl is trying to sing her song. I felt bad for her but she took it in stride and got everyone to give it up for them once her song was over.

We see the boys skate on to the ice for the puck drop and everyone starts going insane. They blast Trooper and AC/DC to get everyone more riled up and away we go. You know how you can tell people are super excited to be Canadian? When everyone is hugging complete strangers and jumping around after Patrick Marleau tips in a goal in the first period to start things off. I can't even imagine how amazing it was to be in GM Place during these last couple of games, but I think the mood at Alberta house, and all over the rest of the city for that matter was pretty comparable. You could literally feel the mood change when the Slovaks got their second goal. It got really quiet and subdued. But once Luongo made that ridiculous save during the last minute, and we chipped the puck out of our zone with about 10 seconds left everyone got to their feet and the place went off. I got the entire room to join me in what I consider the greatest rendition of Oh Canada of all time. It was fucking amazing. The celebration was on! I've said it a million times before but if the mood was that crazy after beating the Slovaks in the semi-final I can't begin to wrap my head around how amazing it's going to be when we win the gold medal.

Before I go any further I just want to say that I had so much fun shooting the shit with Oiler fans. There's not too many of us out here, and it doesn't happen very often but when it does we're pretty excited to find each other. At one point I was in the bathroom and I heard a dude say "So are you guys actually doing that stupid fucking "Loooouuuuu" chant or are you guys booing?" And his buddy was like "I'm half Loouuuin half booing". And I was all like "Atta boy, that's exactly what I'm doing". And the first guy asks me "You're not from Edmonton are you?" So just like Clark Kent I opened up my sweater to reveal that beautiful Oilers logo adorned on my chest. Everyone started cheering and high-fiving and it was just a ridiculously stupid moment. In the end we all agreed that we can't not love Luongo right now, but as soon as the closing ceremonies wrap up we are going right back to hating on him.

After we settled all our bills (which by the way were extremely reasonable. Leave it to Alberta House to have the cheapest drinks and food out of all the pavilions) we decided to join the massive stream of people making their way to Robson square to watch the fire works and lose our minds. Normally it shouldn't take any longer than 10 minutes to walk from Alberta house to Robson square but nothing about these last 2 weeks has been normal. After about a half hour we finally get there just in time for the laser/fireworks/guys cruising down the zip line dressed up like athletes show. We were joined by a couple people (I didn't bring my camera with me cause I had no idea where the night would end up so I'm going to have to make due with these cell phone pictures that don't really do the scene justice).



I still can't believe how well behaved everyone has been. You'd think with hundreds of thousands of alcohol fueled douchebags shoulder to shoulder with each other that someone may get a little irritated. But outside of a roided out guy freaking out on some big fat guy last night on my way home I haven't seen or heard about any incidents whatsoever. There's a sizable police force walking around on the streets but they haven't looked busy at all. I think that's fucking rad and shows just how kick ass Canadians really are. All we want to do is party and celebrate being fucking awesome. No one wants to spoil the party by being an asshole. Atta go Canada!

Eventually we made our way to this place called Roxy Burger. It was literally the only place on Granville without 200 people lined up outside waiting to get in, and even still we had to wait before they let us. Roxy Burger is a pretty sweet place to wind up at 2 AM after a night out on Granville. They've got wicked food and everyone is usually just stoked to be eating, so it's usually a pretty fun time. Last night, however, was so over the top I couldn't believe it was the same place. Cowbells were ringing every 2 seconds. Some weird chick in circa-98 visor and cargo pants was dancing up on any dude that walked past her. Everyone was singing Oh Canada, chanting "We Want Gold" and at one point we got the entire restaurant to sing happy birthday to a friend of a friend that was there with us. I haven't had that much fun at a restaurant since I went to Rocky And Bullwinkles for my 6th birthday. The last thing I really remember is some of the people that we were with writing their names on the table with the ketchup bottle. I'm pretty sure it was time to leave at that point.

There's only 2 days left in the Olympics and I'm kind of torn. On one hand it will be good to rid my body of all this alcohol and fried food I've been stuffing myself with the last 2 weeks. I know my liver will be happy. My wallet as well. It's taken the biggest hit of all so far. But it's been well worth it. Which brings me to the other side of the coin. This has been one of the most fun times in my life. Even just walking around in the day time and soaking in all the energy and excitement from people all over the world is amazing. And then the night life kicks in and it's the biggest party you can ever imagine. Take the 06 cup run and multiply that by about 1000 and you'll start to get an idea of just how insane the last 2 weeks have been. I'm so fucking glad I got to experience this. I never really thought much of the Olympics outside of watching hockey and cheering on Canada but I completely understand now why people from all over the world come to these events. You'll never experience anything else like it in your life. Thank you for coming Olympics. I'll never forget you!

-jeanshorts