The tide begins to turn

The sun is finally shining on “the worst Games ever,” and it’s about time.

What started in tragedy, rain, fog, and mechanical error has rallied under an endless blue sky, and even the harshest Olympic critics, those refugees from Fleet Street, have moderated their scorn.

If the Brits ever win a medal, the dirge could turn into an all-out rhapsody.

Even local critics of the Games (myself included — I’m still having trouble with a $105-million, lethally dangerous toboggan slide, not to mention a $6-billion price tag) have been blown away by the negative reaction of the international press.

However, a combination of spectacular weather and Americans have turned the tide, and now the media, never a bunch for independence of thought, are now climbing all over each other to praise what they previously pooh-poohed.

Watch as we all wake up to the story that almost got away: All you have to do is walk down the street to experience the amazing transformation of Vancouver into the Feel-Good Capital of the World. Thousands of people who don’t write columns for a living are absolutely into it, and the buzz is phenomenal. People stand in line — willingly — for hours, waiting to touch a gold medal at the Mint, or buy a pair of red Olympic mittens at the Bay, or bay at Stephen Colbert and his goofy American shtick.

You gotta love the Americans: By mid-week, if anyone owned the podium, it was the USA and their amazing athletes:  Lindsey Vonn, Shaun White, etc. With all that good news to report, NBC stopped looking for trouble and focused on the restoration of the Natural Order of Things, complete with a Super, Natural backdrop. Welcome to Vancouver, Calif.

Meanwhile, down on Jack Poole Square, the Olympic torch is still in jail. Here’s a piece of free advice for VANOC officials, who apparently never met a chain link fence they didn’t want to erect. Pull down the stupid fence altogether. Put up a nice red-and-white velvet rope and assign a 24-hour honour guard of Mounties in their eternally cool full-dress uniforms to guard the flame.

A cliché? You bet! But if anything can ensure a happy ending, it’s a heap of Mounties standing on guard for thee with the true north strong and free right behind them! Mountains, ocean, unshackled Olympic spirit and multi-cultural, gender balanced Mounties! I guarantee unlimited photo coverage! Go Canada Go!

As for getting the RCMP to co-operate, are you kidding? They’re desperate for anything that will turn around their Taser-tarnished image. And no media savvy anarchist would try to spoil that shot. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

– Paul Sullivan is a Vancouver-based journalist and owner of Sullivan Media Consulting;
vancouverletters@metronews.ca.