Authors: John Furlong
Patriot Hearts (25 page)
I told them no one loved the
RCMP
more than me, but in this case I had to disagree with their opinion. We may not bring everybody on for this portion, but the flame is going on that reserve, I said. Anyone worried about their safety is free to stay back.
And the flame did go on the reserve, where it was a huge success. The Mohawk leaders did everything they said they would, and hundreds of kids got a chance to see the flame as it ran by in Alwyn’s hands, a moment they would surely talk about for many years.
The run through Kahnawake was one of several days the relay spent in
la belle province.
Quebec was always a crucial player in our Olympic vision. Without French Canada, we wouldn’t realize our dream of truly making these Canada’s Games. It just wouldn’t do to have everyone on board but not the second-largest province in the country. That is why I set about early to get Premier Jean Charest onside.
I told Charest in a meeting in 2005 that Quebec was the perfect partner for
VANOC
because of its culture of winter sports excellence. It had produced great Winter Olympic athletes, and it was likely that several Quebecers would win medals in Vancouver. I even suggested that we were exploring the idea of having the torch make an appearance in some of the legislatures in the country— and we thought Quebec’s would be a natural. Although he liked the idea, Charest joked about bringing a torch into a place renowned for its passionate rancour. “Someone in here might try to use it to burn the place down,” he joked.
There would be many more meetings over the next several months. But Jean, who was a former federal minister of sport, was ultimately an easy sell on the value of having an association with us. In October 2005, Quebec was the first province to sign a cooperative agreement with
VANOC
that pledged a partnership on everything, including sport, culture, economic development and volunteers. It was the first of similar deals we inked with the other nine provinces and three territories, which provided us with cash and other in-kind contributions. In exchange, they would have their own day at the Games during which the wonders and attributes of the respective province or territory would be promoted.
ON DECEMBER
10, 2009, we took the flame to Parliament Hill. I had been to the House of Commons many times during Question Period and was always struck by how mean-spirited it was.
MPS
yelled at each other all the time. If anything killed my appetite for a career in politics, that was it. But I thought the torch, if we could get it in there, might change all that, if only for a moment. If nothing else, we could get parliamentarians to stop, stand and let the flame do its thing. For a few seconds at least, the House would not be so divided, and the whole country would see images of what the flame could do in a place where tempers often flared.
Organizing the mission was not easy. One of our problems throughout had been reading Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s enthusiasm for the Games. It was frustrating to try and figure him out. I was not sure his advisers had fully embraced the Olympics, and he seemed to be holding back a bit himself. And the opposition Liberals were immediately suspicious, thinking the government was behind the torch visit and that it was designed to make the Conservatives look good. I had to explain to Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale that we weren’t selling out to the Tories or anyone. This was about the country. Once we got House Speaker Peter Milliken to quarterback the torch’s appearance on the Hill, suspicions seemed to ease and the stage was set.
Then the question became who would carry the torch. There was talk of asking the prime minister, but it would look too political and he might well have declined. So we chose Barbara Ann Scott, the figure skater from Ottawa who had won a gold medal at the 1948 Winter Games in St. Moritz. I tracked down the woman dubbed “Canada’s Sweetheart” at her home in Florida and talked to her husband, ex-
NBA
player Tom King. When I got her on the phone initially she thought my call was some sort of hoax. Eventually she realized it wasn’t and was honoured that we were asking her to do something so historic—it would be the first time an Olympic torch had been in the House of Commons.
That day Peter Milliken held a little reception in his office before the big moment. Soon we were standing outside the doors of the chamber itself. I held the lantern that we used to light Barbara Ann’s torch, and the next thing we knew the doors to the House were being opened for her entrance. “This is going to be the most amazing thing you’ve ever done,” I whispered to her before she walked in. “Enjoy it.”
She was a bundle of nerves.
Her appearance was truly one of the highlights of the run-up to the Games. Members of both sides of the House were on their feet, clapping vigorously. Peter Milliken read into the record what had happened, one of the rare times that people other than elected politicians were allowed on the floor of the House. There were camera crews all over the place, recording the moment. I stood off in a corner, watching. The politicians broke into a chorus of “Go Canada Go! Go Canada Go!” After it was over, I ran into veteran political reporter Tom Clark from
CTV
, who told me it was one of the best moments he could remember in his long career covering the Hill.
Barbara Ann looked joyous, absolutely loving the spotlight. “Imagine an 81-year-old gal being asked to carry the torch into the Parliament Buildings,” she would tell reporters. Imagine, indeed.
There were many more highlights as the torch made its way across the country. Toronto gave it a huge reception, as expected. Ditto Montreal and Winnipeg. I spent Christmas with the torch team and their families in London, Ontario. Instead of taking Christmas Day off, we decided to visit a children’s hospital and bring the torch along. It made the kids’ day and put smiles on the faces of everyone, including my teammates.
ONE OF THE MORE
poignant stops along the way was in Mortlach, Saskatchewan, on January 10, 2010.
Mortlach was the small prairie town of a few hundred people in which Jack Poole was born and raised. Originally, Jack was supposed to run here, over his early objections to the idea. In producing our board chair, the town had made a major contribution to the Games and this would be a way to give something back. Jack eventually agreed and was starting to look forward to the idea when his cancer returned. After he died, I thought it would be great if Darlene could run in his honour. She agreed.
Mortlach looked very much like the town Jack had always described: a weather-beaten, Depression-era prairie town that didn’t boast much in the way of modern amenities. Jack had had an enlarged black-and-white picture of the town’s main drag on his office wall, showing a solid string of old clapboard houses. It reminded me of a village in Ireland we used to pass through called Inch. Blink and you would miss it. What it had in spades was heart, spirit and work ethic.
It was bitterly cold under a blue sky as Darlene ran the last lap of the relay up to the steps of the local school, where a special tribute was held and a cauldron lit. Darlene fought back tears as those in attendance gave her a long, heartfelt round of applause. Darlene spoke, telling the spectators, including some of Jack’s friends who had flown out from Vancouver, that her husband had remained a prairie boy at heart, which is why it was important for her to bring the torch to Mortlach. She had taped a photo of Jack to her torch.
“He had to run with me,” said Darlene. “This was his time. I couldn’t run it alone so he helped.”
Jack’s oldest daughter, Gwen, was also there and said a few words. I told the crowd about how Jack often spoke about Mortlach in the many conversations we had had over the years. I knew how important the town was to him. Afterward we walked around the village. We saw inside the house where Jack grew up with no electricity and no running water. We all shook our heads and marvelled at how far Jack travelled from his humble beginnings.
Form Mortlach, the relay continued its journey westward. Calgary was another highlight, a homecoming of sorts. We arrived late in the day and were greeted by tens of thousands of people, many of whom who were wearing jackets and torch relay track suits from the ’88 Games. My friend Frank King, the Calgary Games president who so generously had shared his thoughts and experience with me, was there cheering madly. It was great to see him.
On January 21, 2010, the relay left Banff for Golden. Crossing the B.C. border was a big deal for us. We could smell the magic of the Games now. Life was about to change. Former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed handed over the torch at the border to
BC
Lions football coach Wally Buono, who was excited about being involved in the relay. Premier Campbell was there to welcome the flame to British Columbia. The crowds were massive. It was bedlam everywhere the torch appeared, a reaction that exceeded many people’s expectations but not mine. The Olympic spirit was quickly enveloping the province. Resistance was gone.
Less than a week later, the torch was going to be appearing in Prince George, my old stomping grounds. I had always planned to be there so I could celebrate its arrival with old friends and my son, Damien. Damien is as solid a citizen as you’ll find and a major backer of the Games. I phoned him up the day the torch was arriving and said he needed to get to Exhibition Park with the family early because organizers were expecting big crowds. I could tell that Damien, who would be bringing my grandkids, Ethan, Max and Orla, thought that I was exaggerating just a bit about how enthused the community was going to be about the torch coming to town.
Sure enough, the place was jammed. Thousands showed up. It took Damien forever to find a parking spot. I brought Ethan up onstage with me. He was wide-eyed. I was asked to say a few words and talked about how great it was to be home in Prince George where my Canadian journey had started and how special it was to be celebrating the moment with my son and his family. The crowd gave me a loud, generous ovation. At this point, there were maybe 18,000 or 19,000 people jammed into the park.
Afterward, Ethan and I went looking for his father. Damien greeted his son with outstretched arms and me with a big smile. A quiet, introspective young man, my son seemed in awe. Later on, as we said our goodbyes, Damien looked at me proudly and said, “Jesus, Dad, from now on I’m going to be taking you a lot more seriously.” We both laughed. It meant so much to me, and to Damien, to be able to share that moment together. It was a big day for him and Stacey, his expectant wife, and their children. I wished I could have done the same with all my kids.
The torch relay ended up being everything we ever hoped for, a unifying force like nothing we had ever experienced before as a country. It would lay the groundwork, I believe, for the passion that would spill over during the Games. If we hadn’t touched so many people with the relay, the reaction in Vancouver and across the country may not have been so powerful. If we hadn’t included our Aboriginal neighbours in the countrywide torch parade, who knows how their participation in the Games might have ultimately been remembered?
I only wished Jack could have been there. I knew he was watching, though. He was always watching.
T
HE OPENING CEREMONIES
are often viewed as the jewel of any Olympics. Anxiously awaited, they set the tone and mood for everything that follows. After the Games are long over, they are often remembered by a shining moment that occurred during opening ceremonies— Muhammad Ali lighting the cauldron in Atlanta, a ski jumper flying through the night sky in Lillehammer, the archer and flaming arrow in Barcelona, the fireworks spectacle in Beijing.
After the display that the Chinese put on in 2008, many in the media wondered how we would possibly match it on February 12, 2010. We weren’t going to. Never planned to, never could. First, we didn’t have that kind of money to play with. Second, and more importantly, that’s not what our Games were about. We wanted our opening ceremonies to make Canadians proud, while at the same time tell the world our story. Our opening and closing ceremonies were always going to be about hearts and minds, about touching the soul of the country.
We needed to find someone special, someone who had the horsepower and creative ambition to stage a wondrous production that captured the deep essence of our country, striking a proud and emotional chord among those watching at home, while captivating those taking the ceremonies in live at
BC
Place Stadium.
Whoever we found would have to deal with the lingering albatross that was our bland contribution to the closing ceremonies in Turin in 2006. Fair or not, our production there had created doubt among some of our Olympic partners about our ability to pull off something as big, complex and important as the opening ceremonies.
After Turin, we formed a committee to find the right company to stage our ceremonies. We realized there were no more than three or four big players in the Canadian entertainment world who would be possible candidates. And then there were a number of international figures who had the depth of experience to handle something of this nature. We had Terry Wright put together detailed specs that set out the scope of the project and then we put out a call for tenders. We told prospective bidders to submit their credentials and tell us why they were especially qualified to do the job.
We realized that we were going to have to be somewhat kinder to any Canadian applicants. In an ideal world, the producer would be a homegrown talent. We got an excellent response and eventually put together a field of 16 contenders, including controversial impresario Garth Drabinsky. I met him a couple of times but discussions went nowhere. But we also got strong proposals from Scott Givens and Don Mischer, who produced the events in Salt Lake City; Andrew Walsh, an Australian who had a long list of high-profile events to his credit; and Blue Mountain Concerts, a B.C. firm.