Canada's Flag Bearer

There is no greater Olympic honour than being selected to carry your country's flag at the Opening Ceremonies.  For the 2014 games, the Canadian Olympic Committee has selected Hayley Wickenheiser, from our Women's Hockey team.

I can't argue with the selection.  Hayley is a tremendous Olympian, and possibly the best women's hockey player ever.

Check out her credentials for this honour:

- Selected to Canada's first Olympic Women's Hockey team at age 15 (1998)
- Silver medalist, 1998 Nagano Olympics
- Gold medalist, 2002 Salt Lake City, 2006 Torino, 2010 Vancouver Olympics
- Named Most Valuable Player at the 2002 and 2006 Olympics
- 6 time World Women's Hockey Champions

She is also the first women to score a point in a men's professional hockey game (Finland, 2003), and she was even a member of Canada's Women's Softball Olympic team for the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia!  She joins Clara Hughes (flag bearer for the 2010 Vancouver games) as only the second Canadian female athlete to compete in both Summer and Winter Olympic games.

On top of all that, she has been named to the Order of Canada, and is involved with Right to Play (one of my favorite sports organizations).

Here's a list of previous Canadian flag bearers.

Note that the US has not yet selected their flag bearer for the 2014 games.  You can see some of the candidates here!

Ready for takeoff!

Well, almost time to take off!  I leave on Saturday morning, with a flight to Newark, New Jersey, and then an NBC Charter direct to Sochi on United.  I can't tell you how glad I am to be on the Charter.  It's a 10 hour direct flight, whereas if you fly commercial, you have to go through Moscow, which is 1600km out of the way, and add a 5 hour layover on top of that.

Plus, the NBC Charter has lots of free food and drink, and often there will be NBC talent on board, like Bob Costas.  I remember my charter flight to Beijing was filled with all the NBC interns. They were all plastered within a couple hours of take off, and I kept thinking they really needed to pace themselves better!  I land on the morning of Superbowl Sunday, though by game time it will be 3am on Monday in Sochi, and I somehow don't think I'll be up watching the game.  But, Go Seahawks!

Sochi has a "humid subtropical climate", which seems like an odd place to hold the Winter Olympics.  It is a resort town on the eastern shore of the Black Sea.  There are palm trees and beaches.  The average temperature in February is about 10C (50F).  It has been so cold here in Ontario this winter, I am really looking forward to the warmer temperatures.

The plaza area of the Azimut Hotel.

In Sochi/Adler, I will be staying at the Azimut Hotel Sochi, which is new, and has over 2800 rooms.  It is about a 30-40 minute Olympic Shuttle bus ride to the IBC and Olympic Park.  Oddly, you can also walk to the IBC in about 30-40 minutes too because the buses take such circuitous routes.  I'm not sure yet which will be best.  I guess it will depend on the weather, and how safe I feel on both routes.

Overview of the Azimut Hotel

I will be working 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week, as usual, and after the Opening Ceremonies, my regular shift will be 9pm to 9am (Sochi time), which is 12pm to 12am EST.  This means I will not be working when most of the events are taking place during the day (except evening events like Figure Skating!).  However, I will be working when NBC is producing their afternoon and primetime shows back to the US.

It's actually a pretty good schedule.  I will be busy monitoring the studio shows and helping control room staff with communication issues during most of my shift, and then at around 6am most of the venues will be starting to wake up for the day and I'll be doing the daily check-ins with them to make sure everything is working correctly and that the control rooms and production people in the IBC know how to communicate with the venues they will be working with that day.

I haven't decided yet whether I will sleep after work, and do my exploring in the late afternoon and early evening before heading back to work, or whether I will spend the mornings looking around, and then sleep in the afternoon until it is time to go back to work.

Anyway, thanks for following me on this (hopefully interesting) journey.  I can't wait to get started!

Welcome!

Welcome to Sean's Sochi Olympic Blog!  Once again, I have been fortunate enough to be invited by NBC to work in COMM's for them at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.  I am heading off to Sochi on February 1st and will be returning home on February 24th.

During my time in Sochi, I hope to be able to keep you up-to-date on what's going on "behind the scenes" in sport and in broadcasting, as well as giving you a glimpse of any unusual, interesting, or extraordinary things or places that I might have a chance to see or visit.

This is my 9th Olympic games working for NBC, and my 5th time keeping a blog. There are links to my London, Vancouver, Beijing, and Torino blogs in my sidebar.

I feel I need to temper expectations a bit.  Sochi is not like London, Vancouver or Beijing.  I may have limited access to anything other than the "Coastal Venues" in the Olympic Park, and the IBC.  I'm also not sure how much Internet access I will have.

The "Coastal Venues" are actually located in a small town called Adler, which is just outside Sochi.  This is where I will be spending most, if not all, of my time.  Hopefully, I will find enough things to do and see in this area to keep you interested.

I've never been to Russia, so I am excitedly looking forward to my time in Sochi. I expect to be captivated, astonished, thrilled, or terrified by something every day. I hope you will be too!

Cheers - Sean