SkiFreak

For those of you in Canada, that want a little world cup souvenir; Dollarama has world cup player fidget toys by Montoy. They look like a foosball table player with a LEGO minifigure head. You hold them between two fingers and squeeze the arm in and they spin. They come with a foam soccer ball and a display stand. They have 5 players in the set: Ronaldo, Mbeppe, Neymar, and two versions of Messi. They sell for $4 each. I looked around online and looks like another company is also making them and have other players like Haaland. They aren't official FIFA licensed product but make a neat little addition if you are collecting world cup stuff. You can find them on AliExpress and Temu as well, but they're cheaper at Dollarama.

I'm late to the party but have been busy as I pivot my career again, and hopefully its the last time I have to. Didn't get to watch a whole lot of matches this year, but the ones I did, I enjoyed. A few friends were able to get over to Vancouver to watch some of the matches at BC Place. Still don't get why we (Canada) didn't play Davies more. He only got 16 mins the entire Team Canada run (ok, I can speculate). Good to see more exposure for the sport here in Canada. BC Place has now hosted the World's Fair, Winter Olympics, and FIFA World Cup. And I was there during the grand opening of the stadium at age 4 back in 1983. I still have a plastic drinking cup from the grand opening. Wonder if BC Place could still host 3 other international events: Commonwealth Games, Pan Am Games... Olympic Games? Unlike the recent Olympics and the demise of HBC, FIFA actually made souvenirs available. Got a couple pins, a Team Canada hat, a scarf, and a Maple moose mascot. It was nice to see McDonald's offering the drinking cups and happy meal toys. Got a few of those too. I still don't get why they pulled out of sponsoring the Olympics. Overall a great month of Soccer. And congrats to Donald, I mean Spain, Argentina, and England for the top 3 spots! Looking forward to the 2030 tournament. Up next, Commonwealth Games!

CBC covered it today in an article. Lots of complaints from the para-athletes about the slushy spring conditions. CBC News March 11, 2026: Calls grow for Paralympics to be moved earlier as slushy conditions cause chaos I know from skiing Nakiska (88 Olympics alpine venue) that once March hit, the snow was crap. Heavy, especially the bottom quarter of the ski area. 75%-85% of the snow at Nakiska was manmade and it really got heavy in March.

And here we go: CBC News: Calls grow for Paralympics to be moved earlier as slushy conditions cause chaos Not surprised one bit. As a non-amputee I can attest that spring skiing conditions are hard. The slushy, heavy snow has to be crazy challenging for the para-athletes. The article outlines some options other than what the IOC has already said, about moving the main games to January, and Paralympics to February.

Something just hit me watching some of the Paralympic downhill events today, that I realized was absent a few weeks ago during the Olympics... what happened to the virtual reality broadcasts that they had in Beijing? Was it brought back this year because, if so, CBC didn't have it. Really enjoyed flipping thru some of the camera angles at the halfpipe and other venues. Are they thinking about brining it back at future Olympics or was it considered a dud?

This article pretty much states all my comments a couple posts ago. Published March 4 2026:

Just reading now that NATO may get involved due to Turkey, but these were just Facebook posts. And now Azerbaijan got hit. Time to start rationing food and collecting bacon grease?

Did he add more gold to the walls? It's looking more and more like Liberace's place or the Kremlin. I wonder if he melted down the Olympic hockey teams' gold medals for the decor. 😜🥴

About a week before the Winter Games, gas here in Kelowna was down to $1.09 a litre. It has been going up and down each week between about $1.34 and $1.17 all winter. Today it shot up to $1.56. Would be nice if Alberta would start building that other pipeline (or more refineries). I think Energy East or a line up to the Port of Churchill would be a better idea now.

The pics of McMahon Stadium in Calgary in the video, the 88 photo is looking north. The current photo is looking south. The cauldron is still at the north end but was slightly moved over.

If anyone couldn't get there hands on the Lululemon Team Canada gear, there is an alternative. Costco was selling light blue hoodies by Mondetta that features Cortina and international flags of some of the competitors (Ha, no US flag on it). Mondetta got away without actually using any IOC logos. The hoodies sold for $39.99 a few weeks ago before the games, and are now reduced to $14.99. They also had a red and white one that was geared towards Team Canada. The local Costco was already sold out of the red ones, but I picked up a blue one.

I looked thru some of my old photos, and the last world cup bobsleigh that was held at WinSport was in early 2019. The track has been closed since then. The normal hill and big hill (90 meter) jumps were already closed prior to 2011, but they kept the smaller training jumps open to around the end of winter 2017. Michael "Eddie the Eagle" Edwards was there in early March 2017 to do a demo jump for the local club. And I believe that was the last time anyone jumped there. Michael came back in July 2018 to appear in the Stampede's Grandstand Show and also, and later in the year again to show support for Calgary's attempt to get the 2026 Winter Olympics during the "Vote Yes" rally. The west side of the ski jump bowl was converted to host freestyle skiing (moguls and aerials) and equipped with the old triple chair which was relocated from the west side of the park near the bobsleigh track. But with the chairlift there, the jumps can't be used. In my opinion, the entire facility should've been built out in west Bragg Creek as originally intended as shown in the 88 bid book.

As long as you have great athletes...

If Tokyo was up for it again, I'd like to see them get another shot to recoup the losses during the pandemic games. I'd love to see their venues filled with spectators.

So... did they start dismantling the sliding track today? 😉🤪