Brush with Olympian Greatness
 

Here's a forum to share our "Brush with Olympian Greatness" stories.

Not the "I saw *** running the torch" or "You'll never guess who I saw walking on Robson Street yesterday", but rather your stories of running into Olympians or other celebrities doing the mundane daily stuff.

mine: Standing in line at the cashier at Choices behind someone in a track suit with a full cart of groceries. I'll admit I grumbled when there were problems with scanning their debit/credit card. Only later did I recognize him as the flag bearer when Norway walked in during the Opening ceremonies.

How the heck would you recognize a Norwegian flagbearer lol

nice TV closeup when they were entering BC Place.
Although I doubt I'd recognize him if we bumped into each other at Choices again. It might be one of those "geeez -- wasn't that ....?" thoughts that hit you minutes later.

Managed to get some pictures with Kevin Martin and Clara Hughes!:)

I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty sure I saw Shaun White near Robson Square lastnight, walking down the middle of Robson towards Seymour St.. I had to take a second look, but he has a, shall we say, rather distinct look to him. Long flowing orange hair (though mostly covered under a hood) and everything :P I think he saw me looking at him and he put his head down lol - it could have been a clone, but if not, it's about as big as it can get. I guess. Short of pretty much any hockey player.

http://wintersportswiki.com/images/c/c2/Shaun_white.jpg

I took a picture with Jennifer Heil today near the waterfront as she was heading out of the MPC after her press conference.

I was sitting near Jacques Rogge, John Furlong and Gordon Campbell for hours today. Does that count?

No, yes, and no. ;)

Rogge actually was an olympian though. :) Rowing I think?

I went to a scummy bar on Granville called Roxy lastnight with some friends, and there was a lot of Olympic peoples there.

Several members of Slovakia hockey team (no Chara :(), several Finland Olympians, several Slovenians, and a lone Swiss skier.

^ah the Roxy... giving better DNA to Vancouverite women since feb 2010.

It was 10x classier than some of the popular hangouts in Calgary, but still pretty scummy :P

Somehow some girl knew the owner so we didn't have to wait in line. And I wasn't willing to wait in line anywhere (and there were 3 hour long lines EVERYWHERE). I'm a cocktail lounge kind of guy :(

Not a flailing on the sticky dance floor while a cover band pays 80's music kind of guy.

try:

lucy mae brown - basement
salt - an alley of blood
goldfish - hamilton and restauranty but nice

or if you want an unbelievable bartender go to the Loden hotel's lounge. He gave us drinks we have never heard of and told us the history of them whilst making them from scratch.

The difference between those two guys is just a few rum & cokes.

It is almost like I can not get drunk. Can honestly say I never have been. I think it is my super power. Everyone else was falling over and blacking out and we all drank the same, I went home and did some work on the PC. :haha: Same thing happened in Las Vegas. I tried one of every single drink at every bar inside the Wynn over the course of 5 hours, and then went upstairs and finished up work. :frog:

Sometimes I think other people just pretend to be drunk.

The Swiss skier could sure knock them back, I tell you :P

I have the same problem and as a result don't drink. There's no fun in it.

The basement at Lucy Mae Brown wouldn't be too exciting now since they were shut down months ago. :tup:

There's a cool little place in gastown behind the Salt tasting room (not to be confused with salt) and the Irish heather, you have to walk thru them to get to a laneway and then into the place, there have been a few interesting guests there in there last week.;)

Were they haggling over who's gonna pay for this party?

I was walking down burrard past the hyatt when we saw a little crowd and lots of noise and people excited and than the SUV pulled off and drove on - I asked who it was and the guy sai it was Wayne Gretzky! missed him by a few seconds he was at the hyatt during the game i guess

I think we've drifted away from the "Brush With Greatness" that I was thinking of.

I wasn't going for the "Wasn't that whats-her-name--the actress in that car that drove by just now", but rather the day-to-day interaction like being at Future Shop and helping someone in a team Suisse uniform pick out the right SD card for their camera; or standing at the bar when you're asked by someone you vaguely recognize if the Granville Honey Pale you're drinking is better than a Molsons.

You may not bump into Wayne or Nikki or George since they are super-famous (and 'their people' can buy the right SD card at Future Shop), but you might have bumped into Alexandre or Maelle last week before they became Gold Medal famous -- when they were still somewhat anonymous and doing ordinary things like shopping at Pacific Centre.

Whilst at Sochi2014.ru/Russia Dom Monday, my girlfriend and I met former Soviet Goaltender Vladislav Tretiak. Not a current Olympian, but he was at one point. He is currently the GM of the Russian men's Olympic hockey team.

LMB done? WTF

Theo Fleury, who played for Canada in both the 1998 and gold medal winning 2002 men's hockey team was signing his book at Chapters on Robson today!

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j155/starfcuk/Fleury.jpg

He's not an Olympian, but he is great, I followed Trevor Linden off the Skytrain (yes, he took Skytain to the games) to Canada Hockey Place for the Sweden-Finland game. That was pretty sweet. Saw Gordo near the flame a couple days ago but he's not special.

i saw plushenko coming out of the shangri-la on saturday with a woman (gf?)

The other day I saw Steve Yzerman and Wayne Gretzky at work in the Shaw Tower.

Today i saw Kevin Lowe and his wife Karen Percy ( she won the bronze medal in Alpine Skiing in Calgary). Gold medalist Jon Montgomery passed by today for a few minutes to say hello and took some pictures.
Also spoke to the captain of the Canada's Gold winning Womens hockey team from 2006 games, Cassie Cambell....very nice woman and so down to earth.

My buddy has enjoyed schmoozing with some of the great players and the veritable who's who of Canada's media family while at work in the Shaw Tower the last couple weeks.

Yeah, i see someone famous almost everyday.

Today, Cuba Gooding Jr. was back. He came for lunch and then left to go watch the 2nd and 3rd period of hockey at GM Place and then came back for some drinks. I got to speak with him for a couple minutes, funny guy.

Another hockey star decided to join us today for drinks and it was none other then Chris Chelios! He and Cuba left together later.

who is chris chelios?

Chris Chelios is an NHL hockey player (now he plays in the AHL). He was one of the oldest players in the NHL. He was drafted by Montreal in the 80s and won a stanley cup with them. He went on to play with Chicago and now Detroit. Now he is on Detroits farm team and he is apparently going to retire soon.

Some trivia: he also scored the last ever NHL goal in the Pacific Coliseum, eliminating the 95 Canucks from the playoffs. Ouch!

Actually, the Chicago Wolves are the Nashville Predators farm club and according to interviews is in love with playing in the AHL.

ah

my sister and her husband sat one row in front of gretzky at the canada - germany game. she took a photo of him and he signed their tickets.

My sis saw the president of Slovakia at the Aquarium along with his posse and an RCMP escort.

My dad saw Shaun White at the Bay. Snapped a pic too...

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g296/raggedy13/P2130230.jpg

What!? Don't sell him short - Trevor Linden was on Team Canada in Nagano in 1998!!

^That reminds me that I saw Trevor Linden at the men's Canada-US game. Can't quite see his face in this pic my dad took though:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_Y9DNiOijTIk/S4Lh4w3tHjI/AAAAAAAAJAw/iF7pySnxoCg/s640/P2210105.JPG

^That's Trevor alright! I never knew he was on the Nagano 98 squad...

Linden scored with a minute left to tie the game 1-1 with the Czech Republic. Nobody was scoring on Hasek in that tournament, they ended up winning gold against Russia 1-0.

Hockey genius coach Marc Crawford put these 5 guys out for the shootout:

Theoren Fleury, Ray Bourque, Joe Nieuwendyk, Eric Lindros and Brendan Shanahan.

Looks ok except for the guys he didn't choose: Steve Yzerman, Joe Sakic, Wayne god-damn Gretzky.

Bourque was the biggest mistake, of course.