Vancouver, BC — Friday, February 19, 2010

Can’t believe that a week has already passed and that my time in Vancouver is nearly over. This is our last full day before heading home to the U.S.

GE's advertising campaign for the Olympic Winter Games focused on its medical imaging equipment. My favorite was this snowboarder.

Atmosphere: Much like television commercials on the Super Bowl, part of the fun of an Olympic Games is checking out the clever advertising that the sponsors come up with. Let’s face it, when you pony up $75-$100 million to become a Worldwide Olympic Partner, you had better come up with something eye-catching to promote your brand as an Olympic product!

One of the more interesting campaigns we saw was General Electric’s “healthymagination” series promoting its medical imaging equipment. Winter Olympic athletes in action are portrayed as if transparent, their circulatory systems and major bone groups on display. We saw at least four different variations at Skytrain stations in downtown Vancouver: ice hockey, snowboarding, figure skating and skiing. This is definitely whiz bang advertising at its best!

Overlooking Burrard Inlet from West Vancouver. The Lions Gate Bridge is in the distance.

Philatelic: I have to say that I had my doubts that we’d be able to make it to all 5 Olympic post offices (4 in Vancouver, plus the one in Whistler), but we did! The last one we visited was the West Vancouver post office that served the Cypress Mountain venue. Of course it wasn’t anywhere near there, but rather on the north shore of the Burrard Inlet. The drive through Stanley Park and over the Lions Gate Bridge was quite a treat, especially with the beautiful weather.

We found the post office tucked away on a small shopping street fronting the water. As at the other facilities we’d visited, the Canada Post clerks knew what we wanted (there were six cancels available) and let us go to it. In no time we were done and able to explore the nearby park complete with blue crocuses and bright yellow forsythia just coming into flower. The views across the inlet back to Vancouver were stunning!

Cover mailed from inside the Vancouver Olympic Village with a unique cancel.

Postal venues I’ve omitted discussing so far — mainly because I still don’t know all the details — are the facilities at the two Olympic Villages. I can, however, illustrate what was available at the Vancouver OV. In addition to the standard Olympic Village cancel that we’d already seen at the Vancouver Main post office, there was an additional surprise: a circular date stamp (cds) with the two-line “ATHLETES VILLAGE” inscription beneath the changeable date. It’ll be interesting to see if Whistler’s OV post office offered a similar cds.

Facing off at the Czech end of the ice. The Czech Republic beat Latvia 5-2.

Sports: Our final sport of these Games was ice hockey. When we bought our tickets last year there was no way of knowing what teams we’d see compete. Our Salt Lake City experience included too rather dull matches involving the French team (both times). This time we hoped for a bit more from the Czech Republic vs. Latvia debacle. Five minutes into the first period, the Czech team had already scored 3 goals. This wasn’t looking good for the underdog Latvians. With the crowd behind them yelling “LAT-VI-A, LAT-VI-A” they actually seemed to gain some confidence, scoring 2 goals over the remaining two periods. In the end the Czechs won, 5-2 … but at least we saw a very spirited Latvian team do their best.

So, readers, that’s about it from Vancouver for these XXIst Olympic Winter Games. I’ll continue to report from sunny San Diego, California as inspiration strikes, or new philatelic information comes to light.

Until next time … adiós!

Vancouver, BC — Thursday, February 18, 2010

Some more serious philately today, followed by our big event in the evening: the long program (finals) of Men’s Figure Skating.

Hudson Bay Company's (HBC) main Vancouver store all togged out with images of Canadian athletes housed the Olympic Superstore.

Atmosphere: Ever since the start of the Games, downtown Vancouver has been hoppin’! Everywhere you go the crowds are out having a great time. Vancouverites (or is that Vancouverans?), especially younger ones, were having a ball at all the free events around town. It’s amazing to me how long people are willing to wait in line for something free. I had heard (don’t know how accurate it was) that lines to enter the Sochi 2014 pavilion at times reached 10,000 during the first weekend! Judging from the daily block-wrapping queues from 8 a.m. to midnight at the HBC Olympic Superstore, I can believe it.

A terrific registered cover using the new Olympic gold medal sheetlet of stamps with the Figure Skating event cancel and Vancouver Olympic City postmark on Feb. 18, the day of the men's finals!

Philately: Managed to hit two more philatelic locations today — the Richmond post office which offered the speed skating postmark, and the Vancouver Station “D” post office on Pine Street. As with the Vancouver Main facility, the clerks were extremely helpful. There were no lines at either; I rather doubt the average person even knew special postmarks were available. I keep forgetting to mention that it is possible to mail your postmarked covers and cards without having them defaced with additional machine cancels. Just ask the clerk for the yellow “hand sort” piece of paper that you wrap around your mail and secure with a rubber band. So far, this system has worked for me.

"Let the Games Begin" slogan machine cancel used across Canada.

One more suprise. Since around the time of the start of the Games, mail processing facilities across Canada have had the option of using a special Olympic slogan in their ink-jet machine cancelers. The slogan reads: “Let the Games Begin! / Place aux Jeux!” in two lines. From reports I’ve been receiving from other collectors, the clarity of the imprint varies with portions of the slogan missing on occasion.

Sports: As exciting as Monday’s snowboard cross event was, it couldn’t hold a candle to the finals of the men’s Figure Skating competition at the Pacific Coliseum. Twenty-four competitors took to the ice in four flights, with the best six in the final group. The draw within each group was by lot. The top American, Evan Lysacek, skated first, while Russia’s best, Evgeni Plushenko, skated last. I guess there are both pluses and minuses to being in either spot.

Evan Lysacek midway through his long program.

Based on what I saw, Evan’s program, while not as complex as Plushenko’s (Evan did not throw a “quad”), was technically much better. I don’t claim to be a figure skating expert, but to my untrained eye Plushenko’s more difficult skills were not executed to the same level as Lysacek’s. Plushenko clearly had to fight to land at least three out-of-kilter jumps. A less athletic skater would have ended up on his keester!

Despite this, I was almost sure that Plushenko would manage to eek out a gold. But with the new scoring system where perfection is rewarded (as it should be), Evan captured the top spot on the podium by a convincing 1.31 points. As expected, the Russian media hollered “FOUL,” but I doubt they had much ammunition to justify the claim when the breakdown of technical marks were released. In a subsequent interview, NBC’s Bob Costas asked Evan if he’d be back to compete in 2014 at the Sochi (Russia) Olympic Winter Games. Evan’s reply: “I don’t know if they’ll let me in the country!”

Until tomorrow … до свиданиядо (Do svidaniya! — Goodbye in Russian)

Vancouver, BC — Wednesday, February 17, 2010

After Tuesday’s rains it was something of a relief to greet Wednesday with crystal clear blue skies. What did we get with those nice blue skies? Spring-like temperatures which lasted the remainder of the week. Totally crazy … the Winter Olympics are supposed to be snowy and cold!

A group of French fans posing in front of the Olympic Rings in downtown Whistler.

Atmosphere: Bright and early it was off to Whistler for Men’s Doubles Luge. Our bus trip up the Sea-to-Sky Highway took us past some of the most beautiful scenery on the west coast of North America. We passed Bowen and Gambier Islands rising up out of the waters of Horseshoe Bay, before the road curved inland affording us breathtaking views of the distant snow-capped mountains of the Canadian Rockies. What had been advertised as a 3-hour trip took us barely two — it seemed faster.

We had plenty of time to wander around bustling Whistler, a true winter resort town transformed into a mini-Vancouver with all the usual Olympic trappings. Residents walking their dogs melded seamlessly with the eclectic mix of Olympic visitors crowding the narrow streets and small plazas of town. A group of French fans fancifully togged out in Gallic finery, some with horned helmets and blond pigtailed wigs, were an instant hit. Everyone (including me!) wanted a picture of them.

The Whistler Olympic City postmark on a combo postcard to the US. The 1988 Calgary 43-cent stamp and 2010 Vancouver 57-cent gold medalist stamp pay the exact $1 postage.

Philately: The Whistler post office was located adjacent to the Medals Plaza. As at Vancouver, the staff were prepared for those who wished to obtain the special Olympic event cancels. Contrary to published information, there were only 8 available cancels — the Whistler Olympic Village postmark was omitted. When asked, a senior postal clerk said they never received it because “this wasn’t the Olympic Village.” Well, I doubt that was the reason, but it didn’t change the fact that it wasn’t there. No matter. It was quick and easy to get all the cancels. As at Vancouver Main, an Olympic City cancel for Whistler could be used in tandem with the event cancels.

Coming into the final turn, the Canadian luge team of Chris & Mike Moffat finish 7th in the doubles luge.

Sports: Now down to the real reason for our visit: some seriously dangerous sliding. Following the tragic death of the Georgian luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili, the start line for the event was moved forward in an effort to slow the track down. To my eye watching these two-man teams flying down that icy chute, it didn’t seem particularly safe.

Sliding experts proclaimed the Whistler Sliding Centre as having the fastest course in the world. While that may certainly be true, it wasn’t a course particularly well-suited to spectators. I remember watching the bobsled events at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games. There, the track was laid out in such a way that a spectator standing in the middle of the complex could view many curves of the track at one time. This wasn’t true at Whistler as spectators jostled with photographers along the perimeter for a view. Watching the sliders going some 90 m.p.h. through turn 16 to the finish line left no doubt that this would NOT be something I’d want to try. But I sure admire these daredevils for giving it a shot.

Until tomorrow … Tschüss (“bye” in German)

Vancouver, BC — Tuesday, February 16, 2010

In an attempt to be a bit more consistent in my posts, I’ll try covering three topics each day: the sports events, the atmosphere of the Games, and the philately.

Sports: First, let’s catch up on happenings early this morning … I mean REALLY early this morning. We had 5:50 am bus tickets to Whistler for the Men’s Alpine Super Combined Downhill event. The upside: in a driving rain we still managed to make it to the bus stop with time to spare. The downside: no sooner had we alighted from the car, an Olympic volunteer informed us that the event had been postponed due to weather. We found out later that the Alpine skiing event had been postponed to Sunday the 21st … unfortunately too late for us to attend.

A good example of a registered Olympic cover postmarked on the date of Canada's second gold medal -- this time in the Women's Snowboard Cross event.

Philately: All of a sudden, this unscheduled free day gave us the opportunity to start doing some serious philately. The first stop — Vancouver Main Post Office. Once Canada Post realized the silliness of a rotating schedule of postmarks, things fell into place.

The post office set up a special Olympic area in it’s main lobby where one could purchase all the various Olympic stamps, souvenir sheets, and first day covers without having to stand in lines. Long tables were set up nearby with all 24 event cancels freely available to the public. Interestingly, the post office permitted use on any item with or without a stamp. Most visitors appeared to be collecting the cancels on blank sheets of paper.

Thomas Lippert (IMOS), Brenda and Bob Farley (SOC), and Norm Jacobs (SPI) enjoying a coffee at Blenz coffee house in Vancouver.

In order to obtain the round Olympic City cancel for Vancouver, it was necessary to take your covers or cards to one of the clerks at the retail counter (not the Olympic counter in the lobby). In this case you had to have stamps on your item to use the Olympic City cancel (most people weren’t even aware this existed). The retail counter was also the place to create a registered cover (as shown above). The clerks were well aware of what serious philatelists were after and permitted registered covers to be taken out to the lobby so an event cancel could be applied, after which the cover had to be returned to the retail clerk for mailing.

“Birds of a feather flocked together” shortly after noon as philatelic friends from Europe showed up at the post office. Bob and Brenda Farley of the U.K.-based Society of Olympic Collectors arrived along with Thomas Lippert of IMOS, our German sister society. Already there was another IMOS member, Klaus Fink, who was busily attending to philatelic pursuits. Along with Norm Jacobs, my Olympic traveling partner from SPI, we trouped down to a nearby coffee house.

What kind of message was VANOC sending by preventing Olympic visitors from getting "up close and personal" with the Olympic flame?

Atmosphere: Now we get to the point of my subject header for this entry. There’s no denying that overall, VANOC did an admirable job of planning and executing these Games. But then there were those times when they really shot themselves in the foot. The siting of the Olympic cauldron was one of those instances.

Surely when a site for the cauldron was chosen, the basic Olympic security plan was already in place. Yet, somehow they managed to place the Olympic cauldron — which according to the rules of the International Olympic Committee is to be prominently displayed in a public place during the Games — in a non-public plaza adjacent to the International Broadcast Center. Not only that, the entire plaza was cordoned off with a 10-foot high chain link fence AND covered with opaque cloth. When we visited on Tuesday night, the cloth had been removed, but the chain link fence remained imprisoning the Olympic Flame. Despite the howls from the media, mayor of Vancouver and the public, that chain link fence never came down.

Okay … that’s quite enough for one entry. Ciao!

Canada had plenty of supporters on hand to root for their riders at the men's snowboard cross event.

Ok … so I’m not being terribly original with my subject header tonite. Sue me! Been a longggg day at the Men’s Snowboard Cross event at Cypress Mountain.Was it an exciting day? You bet. I must say, though, that the qualifying rounds (there were 2 of them) got a bit boring by the second round. Oh, sorry … I should explain how this works. We start out with 35+ riders dropping down the course one by one (and this is a very long course at that) with lots of twists, turns and jumps. From 2 runs for each, the riders with the 32 best times pass through to the elimination heats.

Now it gets fun! Four riders, in rank order, ride at one time down the slope. You can believe that there is plenty of jostling for position and wipe-outs are a common occurrence. The top two from each heat pass through to the quarter finals, then to the semis, and eventually we have the final 4 riders taking the course together. Today’s final consisted of 2 US men — Seth Wescott and Nate Holland — along with Canadian Mike Robertson and Tony Ramoin of France. For virtually the entire race, Mike Robertson led … and the Canadian fans all round us set up a deafening roar, sure that another Canadian gold was soon to be theirs. But at the very end — and yeah, I mean the very end — Seth Wescott nosed ahead to take the gold. Now how exciting is that!

No pretty graphics could cover up the fact that the snowboard venue at Cypress Mountain was about as user-UNfriendly as Olympic venues go.

On the flip side … and yes, there is a flip side … the Cypress Mountain venue was a great disappointment. For so many reasons, VANOC really blew this one. First, they should have anticipated potential problems with weather. Snowboard (and the adjacent freestyle skiing facility) need snow and plenty of it. The absurdly warm weather has left the organizers scrambling to haul in sufficient snow for the course. In the end, they couldn’t provide the areas for general admission spectators to safely stand resulting in 4,000 canceled tickets for our session alone. There were many very unhappy snowboard enthusiasts when they discovered that they no longer had valid tickets. Multiply this by at least 3 additional sessions in which standing room tickets have been canceled.

Second, the facility itself required totally unrealistic physical stamina by visitors. The grandstand required one to climb 200+ steps just to get to the lowest rows of the spectator area. Imagine another 100+ steps if you were in the nosebleeds! And forget about visiting the portapotties … they were all the way down the hill from the grandstand (yes, another round trip up and down those stairs). Feeling cold? The single warming tent available held about 50 people. How many spectators were slated to use this venue at any one time? 10,000!

VANOC, acknowledging the problems with the lack of snow at Cypress Mountain, characterized the venue as a “special needs child”. I would have called it something quite different.

You may have noticed that there is absolutely NOTHING philatelic in my report today. Well … we left at 7:20 in the morning and returned at 6:00 pm. Needless to say any post offices we could have visited were long closed.  We’ll see what tomorrow brings after our trip to Whistler for the Men’s Alpine Combined Downhill!

From Vancouver … voyez-vous bientôt (see you later)!

Souvenir Sheet to be issued on Feb. 15 honoring Canada's first Olympic gold medal on home soil.

It was quite a day here in Canada as everyone celebrated the nation’s first Olympic gold on home soil. Canada Post was certainly not caught unprepared as tonight I received an email from Canada Post announcing that a booklet of 10 stamps and a souvenir sheet of two will go on sale tomorrow at post offices across the country. Oh … and I almost forgot to congratulate the winner himself, Alexandre Bilodeau, for his gold in the Men’s Freestyle Skiing Moguls.

On other fronts, this was our first full day of the Olympic Games. It began with a rousing good time at the Richmond Oval, home to Olympic speed skating. Today’s bill of fare offered a menu of the world’s best women at 3,000 meters. This included the likes of Canadian’s Kristina Groves and Clara Hughs, Nancy Swider-Peltz of the US, and Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic. As each of the 14 pairs raced it was clear that the best were saved for last. In the end Sabilkova, who raced in the 11th pair, managed to stay on top of the standings. Stephanie Beckert of Germany took the silver and Clara Hughs muscled her way in for a bronze, propelled on a wave of bleacher rockin’, foot stompin’ encouragement from the predominantly Canadian audience.

Canadian Cindy Klassen & American Catherine Raney-Norman trying to gain the edge in the women's 3,000 m.

It was certainly surprising to me that the Dutch girls couldn’t do any better than 7th. Don’t blame their orange clad fans for a lack of support. Even well-known traditional Dutch band, Kleintje Pils, was there to entertain the audience.

If you weren’t at an event, the place to be was either standing in line outside of Hudson Bay Company’s main store waiting to enter the Olympic Superstore, or wandering around the  upscale Yaletown district with its funky shops and pubs. I always find that an Olympic Games are as much about the sports as they are about enjoying the colorful atmosphere swirling around you. One never knows just what might be around the next corner. One pedestrian thoroughfare bordered by cafes and boutiques became a stage for a troop of young Canadian girls putting on quite a display of their double-dutch jump rope prowess.

Vancouver, decked out in all its Olympic finery, couldn’t have looked better!

The object (as demonstrated on this mocked-up bobsleigh postal card): match a stamp and postmark, then add the Whistler Olympic City Cancel to verify this mail was actually postmarked on a specific date.

We’ve just learned that Canada Post jettisoned the idea of “rotating” postmarks, at least at its Vancouver Main post office. This is good news as now it will be easier for collectors to actually receive a postmark from a specific sport on an event day.

A couple of guidelines to help select what postmark to apply. First, try to match one of the 24 sports postmarks to the stamp you are using. If it’s an ice hockey stamp, use the ice hockey postmark. For events with no matching sport stamp, use something similar if possible – a skiing stamp with snow sport postmark. Another possibility: use the Vancouver stamp for Vancouver event postmarks and the Whistler stamp for … well you get the idea.

Second, the event cancels are what we call “range dates”. This means that the cancel lists a period – in this case February 12-28 – rather than a single date. The result is that you have no real record of when a “range date” postmark was actually applied. However, there may be a solution. Vancouver and Whistler are among the 32 cities using the special Olympic “City Cancels”. The dates in these cancels change each day. When combined on the same cover or postcard with the sports event postmark you have a piece of Olympic mail which can be verified as having been mailed on a specific day! Hopefully the Vancouver Main and Whistler post offices will have these City Cancels available for collectors to use. If all else fails, ask for a standard circular date cancel – it may not be fancy, but it does the job!

I’ve reached the conclusion of my 5 tips to create eye-popping Olympic philately. So with the Olympic Opening Ceremony just hours away, go forth and have some philatelic fun! I’ll be winging my way to Vancouver tomorrow morning and hopefully will have a location report later in the evening.

On this mock-up, the Miga 98-cent stamp, when combined with a 2-cent caterpillar stamp, exactly pays the $1 letter rate to the U.S.

Tip #2: What stamps to use –Exercise your creativity!

Canada Post has afforded collectors a wonderful opportunity by issuing Olympic stamps with face values other than the domestic first class letter rate. In 2009, there were definitives for U.S. and international mail as well as for so-called “oversized” mail. While these rates have changed as of January 12, 2010, the stamps can still be used – you just have to be a bit creative.

For Canadian addressees, your choices are varied. There are of course the “Permanent” stamps issued in 2009 for 5 sports as well as the 2 emblem stamps. Don’t forget that these come in varieties too: the sports stamps are in both booklet and souvenir sheet formats, while the emblem stamps come in coils and souvenir sheets. Mix them up on your cards and letters!

Next, you have the new 57¢ domestic rate stamps showing the skyline of Vancouver and mountains around Whistler. On February 22 there will be two more 57¢ stamps available.

Both postcards and letters to the U.S. require $1 postage. I recommend using last year’s 98¢ mascot stamp showing Miga as a freestyle skier. Just add a 2¢ definitive, available at post offices, to make up the correct rate. If you still have (or can find) any of the Calgary Olympic Games stamps from 1988, the 43¢ value is perfect — just add it to a current 57¢ Olympic stamp to create a terrific “combo” cover linking Canada’s two Olympic Winter Games!

International mail has even more choices to satisfy the new $1.70 rate. There is last year’s $1.65 Quatchi ice hockey goalie stamp to which may be added a 5¢ definitive. You can be really creative and slap on 3 domestic rate stamps (57¢ x 3 = $1.71 … don’t sweat the penny). Even using one of the $1.18 Sumi sledge ice hockey stamps with a 57¢ domestic rate Olympic stamp will work. While this puts you over the rate by 5¢, it’s still within the generally accepted (by collectors) range of 5%.

The best deal of all are the postal stationery cards that come with a preprinted stamp. These are good for delivery worldwide. Currently there are the 5 sports stamp cards, the 3 mascot cards and the 2 most recent ones for the Vancouver and Whistler issue. On February 22 when the final Olympic stamps are issued, there will be 2 more postal cards to choose from.

Tomorrow: Tip #1, which postmark is best?

Olympic wrestler postal stationery mailed at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics to a friend in the U.K.

Tip #4: Where to send it – Don’t forget friends and family.

Wouldn’t it be dull if that bag of M&M’s you bought were all one color? Well philately is rather the same way. If every piece of postmarked mail in your collection bears your own address that’d be mighty boring! Instead, take the opportunity to send cards to friends and family. To make preparing cards and covers a breeze, take along pre-printed self-adhesive address labels for all the family and friends to whom you’ll be sending mail.

There’s a second reason for sending your Olympic mail to a variety of places. By varying the destination – domestic, U.S., worldwide – you can take advantage of different postal rates. This will come in handy if you wish to use the wide selection of Olympic postage that Canada Post has issued (more about that in Tip #2 later this week).

And don’t forget to ask addressees to save their cards and covers for you (unless of course you can recruit a new Olympic philatelist or two)!

Tomorrow: How to sent it.