Here’s a preview of what you may see in Precedent Magazine online later today.

The moment is finally here. After nine months of planning and anticipation, and following three days of watching the Olympics non-stop on TV, it’s finally my turn to hit the action in person.

I know I’m in for something special. As I board the monorail to Teminal 1 at Pearson’s parking garage, four people enter my car decked out in full Team Canada gear capped off by cardboard maple leaf cowboy hats fashioned from abandoned boxes of Molson beer. Maple Syrup beer doesn’t get more Canadian than that.

Thanks to the magic of Aeroplan, I had secured business class seats using my points but, even booking nine months in advance of the games, had to be routed through Edmonton on my way to Vancouver. At the time, this seemed like a minor concession. Now, hovering at 35,000 feet in a prolonged holding pattern over a fog-bound Edmonton, I began to panic fingering my Team Canada hockey tickets wistfully.

Finally, the fog lifted enough to permit my plane to land. I bolted from the jetway into the airport with only twenty minutes to catch my connecting flight to Vancouver. I stopped the first official I could find to ask for directions to my connecting gate. “Don’t worry,” said the kind man with the wings on his lapels, “It’s the same plane you just got off of and I’m your pilot. If I need to burn a little extra fuel to get you to the game on time, so be it.” God bless you Mr. Pilot.

True to his word, one hour and thirty-five minutes later I collected my luggage and boarded the gleaming new Canada Line train for the ride directly to Canada Hockey Place (more commonly known as GM Place and the home of the Vancouver Canuks) for a chance to watch the premier of Canada’s powerhouse men’s hockey squad as they take on Norway.

As I walk through the streets of downtown Vancouver clogged with pedestrian traffic and spotted with hundreds of blue-jacketed Olympic volounteers, there is a palpable excitement in the air. The city feels alive in some James Cameron-esque symbiotic celebration of co-existence. I feel compelled to high-five complete strangers on the street simply because they are there. The elderly gentleman dressed head-to-toe in a powder blue snow suit who is scraping his way past me in front of BC Place on cross-country skis (despite a complete absence of snow) hardly even stands out as unusual. High-five ski dude! And on I go.

I pass a squad of Norwegian horned Vikings draped in their country’s flag clearly on route to the same hockey game as me. We smile at each other, secure in the knowledge that the result of this game is not in any doubt but it will be a moment to remember nonetheless. Every one of Canada’s eight spectacular goals over the hapless Norwegians is greeted by an explosive cheer. As soon as the game is over, I shuffle out of the stadium, turn right around and line up again to return to my seats for the next game: Russia vs. Latvia.

You haven’t lived until you’ve chanted LAT-VI-A with 15,000 crazed Canadian fans who support the 500 underdog Latvians in drowning out the boos of 4000 Russians.

As I leave the stadium in search of the subway it is now 11:30pm Pacific time making it 2:30am for my body still firmly planted on the Eastern time zone. Despite that, I feel like lingering in the warm night air of downtown Vancouver. The streets are filled with revellers from all around the world. I pass a clearly odd yet reassuringly friendly man bedecked in the rhythmic tinkling of thousands of Olympic pins fastened to a massive vest so over-burdened that it drags across the ground as he shuffles by. Had I met this man on Toronto’s streets I would have felt compelled to furtively cross the street and avoid eye contact. Here, in the context of Vancouver’s Olympics, I just gave him a quick high-five and continued walking down the street.

I finally arrived at my host’s home just before 1:00am local time. Since starting my travels this morning in Toronto, I have now been awake for twenty-one straight hours. I wouldn’t change a minute of it.