Day 24: Thank-you Volunteers

Happy Birthday to Stacey!!!!

Second last day of the games and things are starting to wrap up.  All four of us went to Canada Olympic House for a volunteer thank you lunch.  It was a great event to see everyone together (since we usually all work different shifts and Mikaela isn't even based out of COH anymore) and of course eat some good food.  Marcel Aubut, the president of the Canadian Olympic Committee, made a speech to all the volunteers and thanked us for all of our hard work and long hours.  We were the ones who ran the house and without the volunteers it wouldn't have been possible to have a place for athletes and their families to relax and hang out.  We were also all given a scarf and a pair of mitts as a thank you.  And we got a picture from our first day orientation.  It was a picture of all the volunteers with took along with Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue.  The best part about the pictures we got is that they were all signed.  For Scott and Tessa to take the time to sign all of the pictures to thank the volunteers proved that our work didn't go unnoticed, and even though we had some long days it was all worth it in the end.

From the volunteer lunch we all headed over to the IBC/MPC for a tour.  Mikaela was able to get guest day passes for Doug, Lisa and Stacey so they all went over to take a look around.  We all thought it was impressive to walk through the MPC with all the yellow cubicle offices of all the major newspapers across the world.  We then went into the press workroom where all the journalists who do not have offices work.  These would be a lot of the ones reporting back to Canada (The Toronto Star, CTV, TSN, Waterloo Record).  After our walk through the MPC we went to tour the CBC studios.  None of us realized how much work it took behind the scenes to run what we see on TV.  There are so many employees and so much buzz with everyone running around getting things finished.  There are so many TVs and cables running every which way to get connections complete.  After we walked through the main work room and saw the radio stations and makeup room we headed to the main studios.  Everyone got to see where the "stars" are on the air every day.  Once again, pretty cool to see the behind the scenes to what everyone is watching back at home.  We hit CBC at an off time and there were no athletes walking around but it was pretty cool regardless.  After CBC it was down to the relaxation room for some time in the massage chairs.

When Doug, Stacey and Lisa left Mikaela went back to work at CBC.  The men's curling team were coming into interview and they were all just there to have fun.  I guess it's easy to relax after you win a gold medal and finally have some fun with competition being over and that's what they were doing.  With it being the last night before closing ceremonies and the last night to do major prime time interviews, there was a large lineup for the night to come.  Mikaela decided to take one for the team and stay as late as possible to help everyone out in the studio.  Radio Canada was doing a big wrap up show and bringing in many of the francophone athletes to interview.  Skiers, speed skaters, snowboarders and hockey players all came through the studios to take part in their interviews.  When all was said and done it was about 2 am when the time came to call it a day and pack up.  It was great to be there the whole time and experience first hand what it's like to work in broadcast, but it is something you would need to mentally prepare for ahead of time to be able to do it every day. 

Tomorrow is closing ceremonies and our last day in the park.  No one is quite sure what will happen after the games are done and if we will still be allowed into the park so for now we are soaking everything up as best we can.