Patriot Hearts : Inside the Olympics That Changed a Country

A riveting behind-the-scenes account of the transformative Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Gamesoan extraordinary story of visionary leadership, love of country and the ability to dream boldly. When John Furlongemigrated from Ireland in 1974, the customs officer greeted him with "Welcome to Canada. Make us better"-- an imperative that has defined Furlong's life ever since. A passionate, accomplished athlete with a track record of community service, Furlongwas a volunteer for Vancouver's 2010 Olympic bid movement when it began in 1996 and then spent the next 14 years living and breathing the Olympics. Furlongand his organizing team, including 25,000 volunteers and many partners, orchestrated a remarkable Winter Games. Patriot Heartsis the story of how they did it. Working with Globe & Mailcolumnist Gary Mason, Furlongrecounts the lead-up to the Games and describes how he handled seemingly insurmountable setbacks -- such as the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, a global recession and the washed-out snow at Cypress Bowl -- to achieve a runaway success and, ultimately, a pivotal moment of nationhood. Patriot Heartswill be published on February 12, 2011, the anniversary of the 2010 Olympic opening ceremonies. Furlongwill donate part of his book royalties to the Own the Podiumprogram.

from the IntroductionI felt strangely relaxed from the moment I woke up that Sunday, the last day of the 2010 Winter Olympics. Call it an old athlete's intuition, but I liked Canada's chances in the gold medal men's hockey game. In fact, even though the United States had defeated us earlier in the tournament, I felt assured about the outcome of the rematch that would be played that afternoon. It was a game I had dreamed about even before we won the bid to host the Games in Prague, back in July 2003. That seemed so long ago now.I walked out on the balcony of the suite I had been staying in at the Westin Bayshore during the Games. As I had every morning since they began 16 days earlier, I checked on two things: the cauldron at the waterfront and the weather. I was always relieved when I saw the flame still burning. A clear sky made me feel even better.Sometimes the entire Olympic experience felt like a dream to me. Occasionally I would think I was going to wake up and discover it had all been fiction. That morning was no different. Had this all really happened? So many days it had felt surreal walking around and knowing you were part of something so massive in scope, so dramatic in its telling. Something that was so important to entire nations. The biggest event to ever be organized on Canadian soil.You could tell by the number of Canadians who were watching the Olympics on television and devouring daily accounts of the Games in the newspapers that interest was off the charts. A day earlier, somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 per cent of the country had tuned in to watch the coverage. Those were never-before-seen-or-imagined numbers. Ecstatic Olympic broadcasters expected them to be even bigger for the gold medal hockey game. And they would be.Face-off was set for noon. Before the game started I had to attend a team meeting to review our plans for the many challenges the final day posed. There would be 80,000 people cramming into two arenas in the space of four or five hours. For everything to start on time it was going to take military-like precision and discipline. After that meeting finished, I had to attend a wind-up news conference at the Main Press Centre. I would be struck by how different the questions were at the final session with reporters compared to the ones I had to handle a couple of weeks earlier when the common perception, certainly among the British press, was that the Games were in trouble. Now many of those same reporters were writing that we had staged perhaps the best Winter Olympics in history.Shortly before 11 a.m., I hopped in a car and started heading to Canada Hockey Place, where the game was being played. On the way I passed several downtown restaurants and bars, outside of which stood hundreds of colourfully-clad people waiting to get in. I'm sure records were set that day across the country for most beer sold on a Sunday. By the time the puck was dropped the crowd was on its feet, chanting, making more noise than I'd ever heard in a hockey rink. Imagine a 747 revving its engines inside a hangar - that's how loud it felt. All around me were adults and children screaming their hearts out. I could only shake my head in wonder at how sport could transform a cross-section of Canadians into a roiling mass of kinetic energy.I knew nothing about hockey before arriving in Canada from Ireland. But I quickly learned just what the game meant to people here. It was to Canadians what Gaelic football was to those back home. And the more I came to understand the game, the more I realized Canadians had rallied around a sport that defined them and their spirit. Hockey players were among the toughest, most fearless athletes of any sport. Canadians were among the most resilient and courageous people. In so many ways, the sport and the people who loved it were a natural match.Large parts of the gold medal game remain a blur to me. I had a million things on my mind that afternoon, as I did most days during the Games. The closing ceremonies would be taking place just a few hours later. Getting 60,000 people into BC Place Stadium was a massive undertaking. I worried about that. I had a speech to give as well. I was fretting about how my French was going to go over. There was still a cross-country skiing race to get off up at Whistler. So my focus wasn't entirely there when Canada went up 1-0 in the first period and then 2-0 in the second. I couldn't haven't told you who scored the goals at the time, but now can, of course. So thank you Jonathan Toews and Corey Perry. I will never forget, however, the sound in the rink when the pucks went in, the blast of the horn, the spontaneous delirium of the crowd. Jacques Rogge, normally so reserved, stoic, expressionless, even cracked a smile.He quietly wanted Canada to win, I thought, because he understood what it would do for the country and what it would mean, ultimately, to the Games and the place that would be reserved for them in our annals if the Olympic experience was capped off by hockey gold.Before the second period was finished, however, the United States would make the score 2-1 on a goal by Ryan Kesler, whom I had often watched play in this building for the hometown Vancouver Canucks. Now he was the enemy, no doubt an odd feeling for him and the many Canucks fans in the rink that day. After his goal I felt the energy seep out of the building a little bit. I could sense the worry and dread and yet I remained, well, at least cautiously optimistic.Beside me, meantime, Rene was absolutely delighted. "All we need now is another American goal," he said during the second intermission."Another goal," I screamed at him. "Are you out of your mind?""No, no, John," he said, smiling. "It would be unbelievable for the ratings. We need this game to go to a shoot-out. That would be perfect.""No it would not," I screamed. "Now you stop that right now, do you understand? We do not want or need overtime. We do not want a shootout. We want this game over, finished, wrapped up, now."I spent most of the third period tightly clutching the edges of my seat. I wasn't alone. I swear I could hear my heart beating, or maybe it was the collective sound of everyone else's. The last minute of the regulation was pure torture. When the U.S.'s Zach Parise tied the game with 24 seconds left I closed my eyes and covered my face in my hands.Nearby, Prime Minister Stephen Harper was doing the same.I looked over at Jacques. His face was ashen. I looked at Rene. He couldn't stop smiling."Rene," I said. "I'm just telling you that if the U.S. scores in overtime I'm going to stab you in the heart with my pen. I am Rene. I am going to do that."And then I took my pen out of my jacket and held it high in the air. "Remember," I said. I'm not sure I was smiling.I don't remember leaving my seat during the intermission. I was paralyzed with fear. On that front I was no different than most everyone else around me. We all wanted it so badly. You could read the tension on the faces of most people in the building. No one was smiling. People rubbed their hands nervously. Others chewed on fingers. Those who were religious prayed.I'm not sure I took a breath again until seven minutes and 40 seconds into overtime. When Sidney Crosby scored I jumped up and raised my hands in the air. It was like a valve blew in the arena and a beautiful energy was released. Everyone was hugging and kissing and jumping up and down. I saw many people crying. People looked so relieved. Some looked exhausted. It was as if they had played in the game themselves.On some level they had. It was like all of the country was on that bench alongside the players. I looked at Jacques Rogge and he seemed relieved. I looked at Rene and he was smiling. Despite his hopes for a shoot-out I believed that in his heart Rene wanted Canada to win too. He loved hockey and he knew how much the game meant to most everyone in our hockey-mad nation. I thought back to the two of us in Salt Lake, after having watched Canada's men capture gold there. (After the women had already won gold themselves, of course, just as it would be in Vancouver). But this was 20 times the feeling of Salt Lake. The building was twice as big for starters. And the arena was filled almost exclusively with Canadians. Beyond that, the Salt Lake gold medal game had none of the dramatic tension that existed in this one. As the crowd continued to sing and chant and immerse themselves in the moment, I stood watching, saying nothing. I thought of that wonderful scene in the movie Chariots of Fire when Eric Liddell, the devout Scottish Christian, lines up as the underdog in the 400 metres at the 1924 Olympics in Paris. He had been the favourite in the 100 metres but because the race was held on a Sunday it would have been against his religion to compete - so he didn't.Against all odds he wins the 400 metres. The camera pans to the crowd where his coach, Struan Rodger, is standing amid all those cheering and celebrating, his hands in his coat pocket, a satisfied smile breaking across his face. Rather than going nuts, he was passively soaking it all in.That's kind of how I was as the crowd continued to sing and wave Canadian flags. I wanted to look and admire and completely immerse myself in the moment. A few minutes later my daughter Maria was by my side. Maria is a tough, disciplined cookie who ran marathons. I often thought she had inherited her competitiveness and intensity from me. There was a time in our lives life when our relationship wasn't the best. It had taken some time for it to grow back into something that resembled a normal, healthy father-daughter bond. We stood looking down at the ice, not saying much. The red carpet was rolled out. Jacques Rogge was getting ready to hand out the gold medals.He started with goaltender Roberto Luongo, the Vancouver Canucks goalie and local hero whose play is often celebrated during games by chants of "Luooooooooooo." And so when Jacques put the gold medal around Roberto's neck the chant began: "Luooooooooooo." Eventually he got to the overtime hero, Sidney Crosby, and the place went crazy. Jacques hesitated a few seconds before putting the medal around the Sidney's neck so Canada's newest hockey hero could enjoy the moment. And then it was time to play the Canadian national anthem.Almost as soon as it began the crowd started singing as the Canadian flag was raised. I looked over at Maria. Tears streamed down her face as she sang along. It was such a warm, happy moment for us both. After it was over Maria and I hugged and said goodbye. Behind where I was sitting was a bank of televisions. On them were scenes of celebration taking place on streets from Halifax to Victoria. Then they cut to what was going on in downtown Vancouver. Thousands of people had poured out of bars and restaurants to join in a mass street party. I couldn't helping thinking that some of the celebration would be mixed with a little sadness that the Games were coming to a close. For two weeks the entire country had been on a very rare kind of vacation. Now it was over. Now it was time to go back to work. For life to return to normal but maybe a new normal.There was little doubting something profound had taken place. Thanks to the Olympics, there would be thousands of young Canadian children getting out of bed the next morning with new heroes and new dreams. They would now want to be on that Olympic stage one day themselves, playing hockey or blasting down a mountain on a snowboard. How many kids were going to want to try skeleton now thanks to Jon Montgomery, the cheery prairie boy who'd won gold for us? These Games would be a gift to the country for generations.The Olympics were going to be judged a success regardless of how the men had done that afternoon. I knew that. Everyone at the Vancouver Organizing Committee knew that. But we wanted more than that. In order for people to feel like they'd woken up in a new country the next day we needed something extraordinary to happen. Sidney Crosby made it happen. I believe we did rise the next day in a different Canada, a more proud and confident one. A Canada that would never again go to an Olympics feeling like the underdog. A Canada no longer the underdog at anything.