James Hope Howard Liveblogs the CBC Feed of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics Closing Ceremony

9:50 AM

Well, good morning, sports fans! Hey, how 'bout that hockey game earlier today, huh? Canada can breathe easy for the next four years, now, after a Gold Medal game that was very exciting and not at all anticlimactic.

(cough)

We're live from (the CBC broadcast feed of) Fisht Stadium for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics Closing Ceremonies, so I'll do my best to keep up with it; let's you and I experience whatever's about to happen together, as the natural pairing bookend to my previous 2014 Opening Ceremonies liveblog (as well as the opening and closing ceremonies from 2010).

They've just flashed a notice that the Ceremony proper isn't for another 27 minutes -- I presume they're starting it at fourteen past the hour, as they did with the opening -- but I'll kick off from the top of the hour and we'll figure it out from there. (It's all just montages, right now, so, y'know.)

10:00 AM

The hockey and curling montage taking us into the top of the hour featured The Tragically Hip's classic "Blow at High Dough", which really just made me miss the Rick Mercer vehicle Made in Canada. Man, I liked that show.

Exciting footage of athletes walking! So many athletes! So much walking!

We join Scott Russell and Diana Swain -- what, where're my Ron & Peter, I was looking forward to those two -- Scott & Diana in the Fisht broadcast booth, who kill some time by listing the upcoming rebroadcasts before throwing it to various interview snippets from Canadian medal winners. Including an appearance by the Jennifer Jones team, which was nice; I lit out bright and early to take in that St. Vital Curling Club watching-party event earlier this week, it had a breakfast buffet at 6:30 AM and the bar open at 9:00 AM, it was super great.

Back now with Scott & Diana, who plug Collider Films before now throwing to -- aww, man, another The Olympians feature? Erghhhhh can we just get to the vaguely terrifying Russian wackiness already, c'mon hurry it up already

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Ha, well, so much for my earlier plan! I wish I had a super-cool story about the very important and dramatic events that kept me from having this post out earlier, but the truth of it is just that the Olympic hockey is on way late at night (and onward through to morning!) so I'm on some very wonky sleep patterns. These are very important patriotic considerations! This'll just have to be a Sunday feature, I think, until all that gets sorted out. Please bear with me in the meantime.

So hello and welcome to a Manitoba Links Weekly! Brace yourselves for the week's worth of content, it's quite the flurry today.

This week on Winnipeg Internet Pundits I opened the show by not working a telephone correctly, because I am the smartest there is. (Well, okay, in fairness -- it was actually a switch outside the studio that needed flipping, rather than anything to do with the phone machinery itself. But it took me a minute or two to properly diagnose that while still keeping it together on-air.) Once that got settled, though, it was a very good show! Rather a good show, and I hope that you will enjoy it.

Let's light up the ManLinkWeek!

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The Mr. Bones mascot skeleton statue has been kidnapped, and it is currently being held for ransom, and the ransom is a pizza. Winnipeg is a live-action cartoon. [ via ]

Hello and welcome to Manitoba Links Weekly! God, what a week.

This week on Winnipeg Internet Pundits we began the task of chipping away at the wall of newsworthy topics this week; I also played a couple of thematically-appropriate tunes during the hour, and I'm interested to know whether you the listener think they helped or hindered the flow of the show, so let me know by email or in the comments below what you made of it.

James Hope Howard Liveblogs the CBC Feed of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies

9:50 AM

Hello out there, sports fans!

I'd done this for the 2010 Olympics' opening ceremonies (and for their closing ceremonies as well), and while the Sochi Olympics are a tad more... problematic, I figure I may as well keep an eye on the ol' zeitgeist and see what happens.

The hosts for this CBC coverage are Peter Mansbridge and Ron MacLean, who are doing their best to fill time until the ceremony proper; interviews with various CBC personalities, footage of a Russian police choir singing Daft Punk's "Get Lucky", y'know, standard fare to build up to the top of the hour.

10:00 AM

There will come a time when "Fish Stadium" ceases to be funny to me, but today is not that day.

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Hello and welcome to Manitoba Links Weekly!

It's been another big week, hasn't it? Another busy ol' week. Let me fill you in briefly on what I've been up to! When last we left off I was headed to the final Mondragon Party, set on braving the crowds --