Showing posts with label Olympics 2010. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Olympics 2010. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

CTV's Brian Williams interviews hornblower

Hornblower and family are going to the Victory Ceremony to see Maelle Rickers receive her gold medal!!!!!

She was interviewed by Brian Williams but unfortunately the tape wasn't running. All we have is a transcript and some still shots.


Brian Williams (BW): So, tell us how you feel?


hornblower (h): Oh, I'm just so excited. It's incredible, really.


BW: Now, it's been an up and down story for you, hasn't it?

h: Very much so. We watched Maelle win live over the web, and thought for sure we'd be seeing her on Wednesday because we assumed (wrongly as it turns out) that the medals are always given the next day. Then the CTV announcer said she would not have to wait and would receive her medal at Tuesday's ceremony. We were dejected.

On the other hand, we didn't even manage to get tickets until just recently when some more tickets were released to the public. A few weeks ago, we didn't even think we would be going to see anything. So we tried to cheer ourselves up. Of course we were looking forward to seeing Paul Brandt and whatever medals were awarded and we were just going to have fun.

BW: Tell Canadians how you felt at the moment when you thought you would not see Maelle receive her medal.


h: It was sad. I was disappointed. The kids were disappointed. My husband was delayed in his disappointments because he hadn't heard the CTV announcement. He was on top of the world until we told him. It was tough Brian. Really tough. I felt like I'd let my family down, bought the wrong tickets for the wrong night.

BW: You had practiced hard for this.


h: Oh yes. I've been online shopping for years. One of my wrists has been injured from repetitive computer use. Of course, I usually use MasterCard. In fact I know my number off by heart. Switching to Visa to purchase the tickets for the Olympics - well, that was a challenge, but I got through it and then, it seemed like it wouldn't be the golden moment we had hoped for.

BW: Well, you have to tell the people what happened next, because it's such a great story! The one about the cat!


h: Um, well (appears confused but gamely carries on), last night I had to rush out to Bosley's to get Pill Pockets for my elderly, chronically ill cat and when I came back, we were all watching the men's short program, and during one of the breaks, they mentioned that Maelle would get her medal on Wednesday after all!

BW: That's great! (quick peek at index card) Now, you have a lot of animals. Tell Canadians about that.


h: (confused pause). Well, yes. We have two dogs, one cat & I'm currently fostering another dog and three fancy rats.

BW: That's amazing. And how do they feel about you going to the medal ceremony?



h: I, ah, Brian, what the hell does this have to do with me going to the medal ceremony? Are you completely and bloody insane? Do you research minutia about people just to drive viewers nuts? And why do you keep doing that with your hand? What is that? A little hand puppet? Is it going to talk?

BW: Hornblower, it's interesting you mention that. I am completely insane. I remember Innsbruk in 1976, I rode one of those fat little ponies. I just love animals. Now, of course in Salt Lake City, the hotel cat slept in my bathtub. So I just need to ask you. Does your cat sleep in your bathtub?



h: Um. No. No she doesn't.

BW: So where do you go from here? What's next for you?


h: Brian, we're all going to start getting ready to go party at BC Place. Maybe get our picture taken in front of the cauldron fence first.

BW: Wonderful. Thanks for coming by.





Friday, February 12, 2010

Warning - foul language ahead

So. We were watching the Olympic opening ceremonies on ctvolympics.ca where we had been promised continuous coverage, just like on the TV. Hell, better than on tv because there would be mutiple feeds, more coverage yadda yadda.

In fact, yesterday and today we had been watching the torch relay cam & enjoying that coverage very much (though the fact that the tweets announcing the torch bearers' names stopped working early this morning was a bit of worrying sign of things to come).

Tonight everything is going fine. The feed is a teensy bit glitchy; we get an odd skip and a hop but it's working. We enjoy the show, though why the hell Brian Williams was asked back is BEYOND me & we do our best to drown out the bloody inane canned factoids he likes to trot out as if they're pearls of wisdom. Just put the fucking index cards away & shut up with your stupid stories.

We see Rick Hansen, Catriona Le May Doan, Steve Nash, Nancy Green, Wayne Gretzky. We hear that the hydraulics are acting up.

And then? Then the fucking CTV cuts their fucking online feed and we get NOTHING. We're still connected to the site, we can reload the page and watch their fucking boring blah blah blah canned videos but the FEED? Is GONE.

Thank you so fucking much CTV. The climax of the evening & your feed disappears and instead we get a little black screen with the helpful message that the video is not available at the moment.

I tell ya - I was alternately crying and swearing.

Then I had the brilliant idea of calling the ctv newsdesk & lo and behold, someone answered on the first ring and when I told him that the feed was dead there was a stunned silence. YEAH. Fucking amateurs.

The bloody CBC managed to do it right in Beijing - we watched the entire thing online. But CTV - you botched it.

About 15 minutes later, a TSN live feed kicked in, just in time to sign off for the evening. Yeah. Ok. Thanks for ruining the opener for us.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Catching the Olympic Spirit!!!!!

We popped out this morning to see the Olympic Flame go by!
Notice Big Heart Rescue's Bear is wearing red to show his Canadian spirit!