Highlights of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies

The opening ceremonies began with a pretty impressive shot of a snowboarder coming down a mountain as the 21 different Winter Olympic games years and places were listed. The snowboarder entered a Maple leaf design made with torchbearers when the Calgary Olympics were mentioned. The sequence ended with the snowboarder coming down a ramp into the stadium.

The theme of the entertainment was mostly the First Nations of Canada. Representatives of the First Nations welcomed people to the XXI Olympics as giant ice looking totem poles rose their arms in welcome.

After the parade of nations there was a four part show about different parts of Canada. The first part began to really show off the projection technology they relied on for most of the imagery of the show. The imagery showed the Aurora Borealis on circle screens that came down from the ceiling of the stadium. The floor imagery included it being ice and turning into open water. The most spectacular part was when it showed orcas moving across the floor and water spouts coming out of the floor.

The second part of the show was related to Quebec. It featured a fiddler in a canoe coming from the ceiling. It then proceeded to have a lot of fiddling and tap dancing.

The third part was about the prairies of Canada. It was a simple one man acrobatic show. The floor featured the prairies as the acrobat landed.

The final part of the show featured the Canadian Rockies. For this part mountain peaks rose from the floor. Skiers and snowboarders came down from the ceiling to appear to be riding on the mountain.

After the show the official Opening Ceremonies stuff began. This stuff is much the same as other Olympics. A moment of silence in honor of the Gerogian luger that died earlier that day on the training course was added, though, as the Canadian and Olympic Flag were put at half mast.

The lighting of the cauldron began with the final leg of the torch relay including four people inside the stadium. It began with a Paralympian, Rick Hansen. The most surprising torch bearer was NBA player, Steve Nash. The final torch bearer is always kept a secret, but pretty much everyone guessed that it was Wayne Gretzy, so not much of a surprise. The surprise, though, was that the cauldron was not lit just by Gretzy, but rather all four lit the cauldron after an awkward pause due to a malfunction that caused the fourth leg of the cauldron to never come up from the floor. The legs just rest on the central cauldron, though, so it was not structurally necessary.

The final highlight of any Opening Ceremonies is usually the lighting of the cauldron. This was not the end, though, as Wayne Gretzy continued on the streets of Vancouver to light a second cauldron to fulfill the requirement for a cauldron visible outside the stadium. This cauldron was just like the one inside, however, all four legs of it were up. Each leg and the center have a flame, which probably is related to the five rings of the Olympics symbolism.