Twenty-five years ago, a friend of mine received a tape in the mail. It was a black, regular tape he had got from a friend from home, including the hottest hits at the time. For my friend, Terry, home was Canada, and that tape had the keys to Canadian Rock Wonderland, namely Bryan Adams’s "Reckless".

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Wake-up call: 5:55 am. Get dressed, walk out the door, meet a colleague at the edge of Stanley Park. Mission: To witness Arnold Schwarzenegger carrying the Olympic torch. Why the Governator would be carrying the Olympic torch in Vancouver on the last day of the relay was a mystery to me.

Sure, “The Austrian Oak” is a six-time Mr. Olympia, but he’s never participated in the Olympics. He’s not Canadian, he's Austrian American with no special connection to Canada as far as I know.

But, run he would, and that had to be seen.

And that’s why I headed out into the darkness, and that’s why I was ordering a tall latte at 6:15 am. I had five minutes to kill - I was supposed to meet Lucas at 6:20 – and, well, Starbucks is never far in this city.

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Greetings from Vancouver, the host city of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. It’s a long way from Stockholm to Vancouver (via London), and my total travel time, door to door, was 21 hours. I spent ten of them on the plane from London to Vancouver, sitting next to Victor Droop, a Dutch fellow on his way to the Olympics as well.

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Last weekend, I was in Minsk, Belarus, to see the Russian KHL’s All-Star Game. After the game, I was standing in the mixed zone, listening to former NHLer Ville Peltonen, also a Finnish national hero thanks to his hat trick in a World Championship final against Sweden in 1995, when some fans showed up.

They said, “pleez, pleez” and gave Peltonen some small flags, posters, and a pen. He said, “sure,” and signed a half a dozen autographs, and posed for a few photos.

(Some of my colleagues thought it was such a no-no that the KHL should be fined, but my story’s not going there).

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