Olympic Opening

I watched the Opening Ceremony last night as I usually do when the Olympics are on. I'll start with the Canadian National Anthem being song. "O Canada" was song by a 16 year girl from Montreal and was sung in both English and French (even though according to the Canadian Government there is only an official English version and an official French version, but there is no official bi-lingual version.)When she was singing it was hard to make out the words - English or French. It wasn't like when the American National Anthem is sung and every word is crisp and clear.

After that the First Nations came out and "welcomed" everyone. At first it was interesting and then it just kept going and going. Towards the end it felt like I was watching "Pocahontas" on Disney On Ice. I am all for representing all the different groups in Canada (the First Nations, Anglophones and the Francophones) but sometimes things go on too long to the point of being boring.

Then the Parade of Nations started. Greece was first since the Olympics started there and then the rest of the nations walked out according to the International Olympic Committee's country list (where the United Kingdom is Great Britain and Taiwan is Chinese Taiwan.) When Georgia came out they received a standing ovation in honor of Nodar Kumaritashvili who died that day while practicing. There were also mentions of him and a moment of silence throughout the ceremony. The US team got more noise from the audience when they came out then the Canadian team did.

Then they had a bunch of odd performances that were supposed to show the different regions of Canada - I didn't really care for any of them. Nelly Furtado and Bryan Adams also sang, but I could barely hear or understand what they were singing. A poet read about what it means to be Canadian - it was interesting to hear how they see themselves. Some speeches were made and the K.D. Lang sang "Hallelujah." That was one of the worst performances of that song I have ever heard. I like that song, but didn't care for the singer or how she sang it.

Then the lighting of the torch took place. Four "well-known" Canadians came out (one of them was Wayne Gretzky) and then after a very akward time of waiting 3 large metal things came out of the ground (there were supposed to have been 4) and the four people lit the torch. It would have been a very cool ending had everything worked right, but instead it was a flop.

All-in-all I didn't really care for the Opening Ceremony. I have to say that it is one of the worse and most boring I have seen in a long time. While many things may have looked good on paper they did not translate well in live-action. It seems that this year's Olympics is cursed from the start (the death of the Georgian luge athelite and the poor performance at the Opening Ceremony.) Hopefully, the actual events will go off without any issues.