At the start of this year, I couldn’t believe my luck when I learned I got into the University of British Columbia Master’s of Human Kinetics (MHK) program, and that I’m going to be in Vancouver for the 2010 Olympic Games. What an amazing opportunity!
My love of the Olympic Games started with an old black & white television, rescued from the garbage dump when I was about seven years old, which my dad fixed up. We got three channels out on our farm. The 1988 Winter Games in Calgary, Alberta on CBC Channel 5 was one of the very first televised program I ever watched. I was glued to the screen for that week, totally enthralled by the athletic feats and passionate commentators of this uniting of the world.
Homeless in Vancouver
My Olympic idealism had already taken a few solid knocks with the Beijing controversies, lost its stronghold atop the pedestal when I landed amidst controversy in my new ‘hood – the strip where Gastown meets Yaletown. You can’t deny the impact of headlines such as: Homeless in 2010 security zones to be removed (CTV, March 27, 2009) when you walk through the evidence every day.
Ignoring it isn’t an option, even if I wanted to, for my Grad program includes an Organizational Theory of Sport and Leisure weekly seminar in which we are challenged to think critically about currently events in our field. Not surprisingly, the Olympics provides relevant issues close to home.
While I still am awashed in national pride every time I see an Winter Games commercial on TV and I’m still quite keen to be involved with the Olympics in any way possible, I do so a little more sombre, a little wiser and with an eye towards the consequences.
