photo from blogTO.com

What can I possibly say that could even remotely capture the feeling that was the 2010 Olympic games? For seventeen days, this entire nation, the entire world, was glued to their TVs reveling in all the competition and the excitement. For seventeen days, Canada demonstrated to the world its incredible hospitality, the amazing talent of its athletes, and the absolute spirit of this great nation. For seventeen days, it was as if all the citizens of Canada were as one. We celebrated together when Bilodeau won that first gold on Canadian soil.  We mourned with Joannie Rochette after hearing about her loss and cheered her on as she courageously took the ice. We drank with Jon Montgomery as he marched the streets of Vancouver. Our heArts went a flutter watching the heavenly Virtue and Moir. We randomly burst into song, belting out our national anthem night after night. We rejoiced and wept together every time our athletes won (or lost). We groaned and moaned collectively when Parise scored that wretched goal in the last few seconds of last night’s game. And of course, we screamed, drank, celebrated and paraded down the streets together when Sid the Kid won us that glorious hockey gold! It has been riveting. Electrifying. Straight-up magical. Never before have I ever felt so proud to be Canadian and I can’t even count the number of times I’ve gotten misty eyed because of all this pride welling up inside of me! With a total of 14 gold medals, not only have our athletes set a personal best for our nation, they’ve set a record that the entire world has yet to beat! It’s been an amazing ride and regardless of whether you were watching the games from Vancouver, the local pub, or just your own living room, the feeling of euphoria has been undeniable and unstoppable.

And so, if I may indulge myself for one last time (everyone shout it with me now)…CA-NA-DA! CA-NA-DA! CA-NA-DA!

photo from blogTO.com

Last night, jhr (Journalists for Human Rights) hosted its first ever tweet-up at the Cryptic Canvas Art Gallery. Now I already know the first thought that just ran through all of your minds: “What the hell is a tweet-up?”. Well, it’s a social gathering that gives the local online community the chance to come together and meet face to face…and if you’ve read any of my previous posts here at blogUT, you’ll know I’ve written a few posts about events like these.

As the co-organizer of #tweet4rights, let me give you the low down on what the whole night was about. The premise behind #tweet4rights was to educate jhr’s online followers, many of whom are avid users of Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, of how they could use social media as a means of sharing and promoting Rights Media – media pieces that create societal dialogue on human rights related issues. The whole idea for the event emerged with the realization that more and more ordinary citizens all around the world are using social media tools to reach out to a global audience to report on and expose the rampant human rights violations that are occurring every day. In the past few months, examples of this have been taking the headlines of major news sources (does Iran or China ring a bell?). The use of social media as a tool to raise and spread human rights awareness is becoming so much more prevalent these days that in 2009, a study by the Committee to Protect Journalists reported that for the first time, more online based reporters were arrested and detained that traditional mainstream journalists.

Thus, sets the background for last night’s #tweet4rights event. Despite weather constraints and an incredibly significant hockey game for our lovely nation, people slowly streamed in to the Cryptic Canvas to learn more about this newly developing concept and how they can make a difference. The evening was started by the Managing Editor of digitaljournal.com and Artistic Director and Founder of Toronto Poetry Slam, David Silverberg, who performed a spoken word piece on the importance of journalism and the media in our society. His performance was then followed by Education Specialist, Carissa Maclennan, who educated attendees of the concept of Rights Media and its place in the social media landscape. Her presentation even asked audience members to develop a 140 character Rights Media piece, which tweeps obviously had fun with!  The rest of the night, attendees had the chance to mix and mingle getting to know fellow catalysts for change.

Being jhr’s first tweet-up, the event was undoubtedly experimental. With such a new and uncertain phenomenon as social media, there is definitely lots of room to improve for the next event but nevertheless, the night can be considered yet another success for jhr (but again, I’m a co-organizer and thus potentially biased!).

If you were unable to attend the event but would like to learn more about Rights Media, you can find more information on jhr’s website here.

About a year and a half ago, I fell completely in love with Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir – a team of Canadian ice dancers. In light of their gold medal victory, I feel completely justified as many of my friends have expressed their awe after watching them. Personally, I also find it hard NOT to love them – I mean, they’ve skated together since they were 7 and 9, it’s obvious that there’s a lot of love and joy in their skating, they’re skilled, beautiful to watch and after meeting them at Skate Canada, I can say that they are wonderfully congenial people. In any case, let’s recap what they did at the Olympics, how they won gold and what their win means in the grander scheme of things.

2-1-1

No, this is not a mathematical formula for anything, 2-1-1 is their ranking for each portion of the competition. Tessa and Scott scored 42.74 in the compulsory dance (CD), the portion of the competition where all skaters skate the same routine on the ice so judges can get an idea of the teams’ skating skills. The compulsory dance at the Olympics was the Tango Romantica – a lyrical tango with intricate steps. As part of their training leading up to the Games, Tessa and Scott (along with their training mates and main rivals Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the U.S.A) trained briefly with Elena Tchaikovskaya, who choreographed the Tango Romantica. Nevertheless, it was the Russian team of Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin who won the CD, outscoring Tessa and Scott by 1.02 points. The Russians (as well as the French team, Isabelle Delobel and Olivier Schoenfelder) are known for their good CDs in which speed and power and crucial. Personally, I wasn’t very surprised or worried about the results and their chances at Olympic gold. In a normal competition, this would be a slight lead, although in Olympic competition with inflated scores, this lead was very very minute.

However, I was slightly worried that they would stay in second place after the Original Dance (OD) – the second part of the competition and is sort of the equivalent of the short program in the other disciplines. Each year, the International Skating Union (ISU) sets a theme and a rhythm for the music for the ODs. This year, the theme was a folk dance and Tessa and Scott chose to do a fiery flamenco. Tessa and Scott are sometimes weak in the OD – I was so afraid they’d stumble like they did at Skate Canada -  not to mention that Davis and White have a fabulous Bollywood-inspired program this year. The fear at this point was that the Americans were going to overtake Tessa and Scott for first, while the Russians would rank below the Canadians with their controversial, poorly-received and somewhat offensive Australian Aboriginal dance. Wonderfully enough, Tessa and Scott took the lead in this portion of the competition with a solid performance and the Americans took second place over the Russians.

One interesting fact about Tessa and Scott’s OD was that they were given a stack of about 20 CDs of flamenco music by their choreographer and coach, Marina Zoueva and they decided to skate to Farrucas by Pepe Romero. This was the same music that legendary pairs skaters Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov (who were also choreographed by Zoueva) used in the short program in the 1994 Olympics – they won gold.

The final part of the competition was the free dance (FD) - also Tessa and Scott’s biggest strength. Elegant, beautiful and touching, they delivered a breathtaking performance to Adagietto, the 4th movement to Gustav Mahler’s 5th Symphony. I could go on about their lines and free legs but I think all that needs to be said is that they delivered a golden performance with a program that was pure gold in itself. A few highlights – a lovely dance spin that was simple and uncluttered – a rarity that night, the bit when Tessa does an arabesque while holding onto Scott and of course, the “Goose” lift where she balances on Scott’s thigh and then falls into his arms. I hope they do the original version of that lift in their Gala performance – Tessa actually does a revolution off Scott’s leg to dismount, which is really incredible in light of the fact that she had to have surgery on her shins and go through a painful rehab process last year.

Another fun(ny) fact: Scott decided to prank Tessa after the Russians (the last of the night) skated. Apparently Tessa looks only at the rankings and not the scores, so Scott told her, “So that’s second,” after seeing the Russians’ free dance score. Tessa was graciously accepting the fact that they were going to win silver until Scott interjected, “But we still won.”

A Historic Gold

In winning gold, Tessa and Scott made history. Firstly, they are the youngest team (Tessa is 20 and Scott, 22) to win an Olympic gold medal in ice dance. Secondly, they are the first Canadian ice dance team to win gold as well as the first North American team. On a perhaps smaller note, this gold medal was also one that marked the end of the reign of coach and choreographer Natalia Linichuk whose teams include the Russian bronze medalists and 4th place finishers, Tanith Belbin and Benjamin Agosto. Linichuk had coached a string of world champions and podium finishers in recent years. (In the 2009 World Championships, the gold and silver team were coached and choreographed by Linichuk.) However the top two teams on the Olympic podium are trained and choreographed by Marina Zoueva and Igor Shpilband. Although the win ultimately belonged to Tessa and Scott, let us not forget those who brought them to gold.

One more fun fact – Tessa and Scott are also one of the few pairs that have broken the Russian dominance in the discipline, the others being Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat of France and the legendary Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean – the British dancers who are considered to be the best in ice dance history since they were the only ones  to have ever gotten straight 6.0s (a mark of perfection) under the old 6.0 judging system. Tessa and Scott are now being compared to Torvill and Dean with some claiming that they are even better.

I totally agree. You?

Congratulations on your Olympic victory, Tessa and Scott!

Pictures from the daylife photo bank.

Public Hearing that the Citizens were Heard and Made a Major Difference
1. The Dog hearing where The Mark of mrmillcity.com made his public debut
2. City Stat
3. Establishment of Cultural Affairs and Special Events Dept.

Major Winners Tonight
1. City of Lowell
2. Bernie Lynch
3. Technology

Not on the Winning Side Tonight
1. Those who spoke before listening or spoke without hearing
2. Lowell Sun Editorial
3. Those who forget that City Hall is here to provide services; and the employment component is only there to reach that goal

Note to some City Councilors
1. Stay on message when you are trying to make an argument

Oh yeah, in case you missed it Lowell is moving forward and CC Caulfield, thanks for the nod to the Lowell blogsphere.