Vancouver Sets Olympic Stage; NBC Takes Early Gold

Oh Canada!

Even a mechanical glitz couldn't fan the flames of an otherwise picture-postcard display of pagentry when the City of Vancouver welcomed the world Friday night to the 2010 Winter Games.

Leave it to our neighbors across the Washington State border to take the unnecessary pomp and circumstance out today's sporting world and replace it with grace, relevance and reserve.

NBC kept its feet out of the fire without pulling an alarm when four Canada sports legends were left to improvise their routines after one cauldron failed to emerge from inside the vast BC Place floor.

Instead, co-hosts Bob Costas and Matt Lauer, to their credit, waited for hockey icon Wayne Gretzky, two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Steve Nash, and alpine skier Nancy Green to jointly ignite the Olympic flame, while a fourth torch bearer, speedskater Catriona Lemay Doan, waited patiently alongside with nowhere to go. It didn't matter. She was already home.

Even Olympic officials, at the risk of underplaying the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvil, who died during a trial run earlier Friday, held point with a solemn tribute and dignified remarks, leaving the more personal task of eulogizing an athlete very few knew of to his countrymen.

In a day when yellow journalism has become unsensational, Vancouver had NBC eating out the palm of its hand without the need for penned notes.

The opening ceremonies took a worldwide television audience on a virtual two-and three-dimensional animated tour across the North American landscape before concluding with skiers and snowboarders suspended in air down the Canadian Mountains and into the host site along the Northern Pacific Coast.

In it's own right, the Vancouver opening ceremonies matched the elaborate staging in Beijing during the 2008 Summer Games. And NBC's production crew was at its best, capturing the program's intamacy without losing the scope of such a large-scale production designed to also entertain tens of thousands inside the football-sized domed stadium.

Special effects transformed the stadium floor into a sheet of fairytale ice, where whales dodged from one iceberg to another; salmon pushed foward against choreographed streams in the Candian Rockies; fiddlers from New Foundland tapped-danced to the spirit of Qwika; and a Montreal circus trapeast floated through the country's vast midland prairies.  

NBC has assembled an all-star roster of broadcasters for the Games. And much should be expected.

Before the ceremonies, during an interview with U.S. hockey team member Dustin Brown, Dan Patrick found that the defenseman had just arrived in Vancouver. The Kings standout had played the night before in Los Angeles, but was so intent on participating in the opening ceremonies that he would be flying out after the ceremonies to meet his team for Saturday's game in Southern California.

And Al Michaels, in-studio, was quick to point during an interview with speedskater Apollo Ono that the three-time Olympian would not be marching -- much to his dismay -- in the opening ceremonies because he would be beginning his chase to become the most-decorated U.S. Olympic athlete in the Winter Games the next day. 

Of course, U.S. athletes who carry the greatest anticipation for coin will be showcased during the next two weeks across the NBC cameras, inside and outside the sporting arena.

It's no pipe dream that snowboarder Shaun White will be one of those athletes paraded across the monitor at a moment's notice as if he was a made-for-television actors propped at halftime in a Sunday Night Football television booth.

Announcer Cris Collinsworth had the initial honors of salivating like at Saint Bernard in the Swiss Alps at every word out of the "Flyin' Tomatoe's" mouth. Afterall, "You're my man," said Colinsworth, seated in the stands with the 2006 gold-medal winner.

White was gracious, personable and enthusiastic, not unlike the opening ceremonies he bore witness too.