Lululemon 1 VANOC 0

Chip Wilson is no dumb dude.

The Kitsilano surfer and clothing tycoon founded Lululemon Athletica in 1998 and carved a lucrative niche with yoga-style sportswear targeted to twentysomething women.

The company -- listed on NASDAQ (lulu) and TSX (lll) -- is known for controversial, headline-catching marketing gimmicks. Remember when it offered free clothes to the first 30 customers who showed up at stores in their underwear in 2005? Remember when it claimed its clothes contained stress-relieving seaweed in 2007? (The New York Times debunked that one.)

On Dec. 9 its latest quarterly results showed revenue of $112.9 million (compared to $87 million for the same period a year earlier) and a profit of $20.9 million.

Just in time for Christmas -- and the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics -- Lululemon launched its "Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 and 2011" winter clothing line on Dec. 14. It includes toques, hooded sweatshirts and T-shirts in colours of Canada, United States, Sweden and Germany. No Olympic trademarks were harmed in the design or manufacture of the duds.

That cool sporting event in B.C. is not the B.C. Lions temporary move to their original field at Empire Stadium. It's the 2010 Winter Olympics and the organizing committee played right into Lululemon's clever strategy.

In what was supposed to be an attempt to protect its brand and that of official clothing retailer Hudson's Bay Company, a prepared statement was issued Dec. 15 by VANOC commercial rights manager Bill Cooper.

"We expected better sportsmanship from a local Canadian company than to produce a clothing line that attempts to profit from the Games but doesn't support the Games or the success of the Canadian Olympic team," Cooper said.

So, with just over one shopping week left until Christmas, the score is Lululemon 1 VANOC 0 because the world now knows where they can buy the "Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 and 2011" products.

Wonder if anyone at VANOC owns Lululemon shares?
n

Sooner or Purolator you'll get your tickets

Purolator is the 91% Canada Post-owned courier company that is also the official courier company of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

A courier company, by its very nature, is supposed to offer faster, higher-quality service than a post office. I might as well have been at a Canada Post outlet Tuesday night to pick up a package of Olympic tickets. I wasn't home when delivery was attempted on Monday.

There already was a lineup when I arrived at the Lonsdale outlet in North Vancouver around 6:20 p.m.

One staffer was so mesmerized by her paperwork and data entry duties at the front desk that she did not even acknowledge the growing lineup. The one employee who was handling customers disappeared for up to five minutes behind-the-scenes with customers' photo identification and the door-hanger left by the delivery driver to retrieve their ticket packages. A manager not wearing a Purolator uniform eventually showed up at the desk to handle other customers.

Idle chatter among the lineup, which grew to eight people, concluded that everyone was attempting to pick-up Olympic tickets. VANOC set a mandatory minimum $10 charge on ticket deliveries through Purolator. One middle-aged woman approached the staffer on paperwork and data entry duties and politely asked why she wasn't helping serve those lined-up and was greeted with a rude response: "I have work to do!"

I finally got my package and was out the door by 6:35 p.m. Clearly one Purolator outlet is not ready for the prime-time crush of Olympic ticket-holders and the experience only added to the frustration many have felt in their quest to get tickets to witness first-hand the Games they're already funding through their taxes.

Tell me your Olympic ticket purchase experiences: bob.mackin@sunmedia.ca or twitter.com/bobmackin

Paul and Pechstein: peas in a pod?

It's not something Ingrid Paul wanted to deal with on her birthday. And it's not something that speedskating needed on the road to Vancouver 2010.

The Speedskating Canada coach, who was born in Gouda, Netherlands, turned 45 on Monday amid allegations that she conspired to bribe a Polish speedster at the Torino 2006 Winter Olympics.

The Royal Dutch Skating Union and Netherlands Olympic Committee are investigating Katarzyna Wojcicka's claim that she was offered 50,000 Euros not to race the 5,000 km event. The allegation was broadcast Dec. 13 on NOS TV, the Dutch public broadcasting company. It includes archival footage from Torino 2006. Read the NOS story in English and watch the investigative report here.

Had Wojcicka quit, Gretha Smit of the Netherlands would have stepped in because she was the first alternate. Paul was Smit's coach.

"Where would I have got the money from?" Paul said, according to DutchNews.nl. "And as far as I am aware, the sponsor did not offer any money either."

Canada's Clara Hughes was first, Wojcicka was last among the 16-skater field.

The allegations follow the last pre-Olympic world cup meet in Salt Lake City, site of the 2002 Games. Among the competitors was German Claudia Pechstein, who set world records in the 3,000 and 5,000 metre races at the last North American Olympics.

She finished a distant 13th in Friday's women's 3,000 m, just behind Canada's Cindy Klassen who is struggling to return from double knee surgery. It was five-time Olympic gold medalist Pechstein's first meet of the season after a positive doping test in February meant a two-year ban from the sport. It was upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but the Swiss federal court gave her the green light to compete in Salt Lake while her final appeal is pending.

Coincidentally, Pechstein is a police officer and the Vancouver 2010 anti-doping laboratory is located inside the Richmond Olympic Oval speedskating arena.

Vancouver city hall posts Olympic rings upside down

Behold, the official City of Vancouver Olympic Lane sign.

Yes, you'll see these around the city wherever the lane restrictions exist. It'll be the express lane for the Olympic family, security vehicles and certain Coast Mountain bus routes from Feb. 4 to March 1. Taxis and public vehicles are not welcome.

When these signs are displayed in the new year, you can bet they'll be affixed properly to poles. This one is upside down and facing the wrong direction.

Yes, the Olympic rings are upside down in the Olympic city, across the street from city hall.

The same building where councillors spent most of Dec. 3 debating amendments to controversial bylaws aimed at protecting the Olympic rings and the International Olympic Committee's sponsors.

Only in Vancouver.

Graham cracks up security conference

Nobody will ever attempt a citizens' arrest of Victoria Police chief Jamie Graham on charges of being boring.

The oft-outspoken top cop of the land of the newlywed and nearly-dead was at it again Nov. 30 at the 12th Vancouver International Security Conference. The theme of the two-day get-together at the Marriott Pinnacle Hotel was preparing for the 2010 Winter Olympics. It is, after all, the biggest peacetime security operation in Canadian history and the most expensive at $900 million.

Graham revealed policing cost-overruns for the Oct. 30 launch of the Canadian leg of the Olympic torch relay and injuries to motorcycle cops. He shocked the crowd when he disclosed that an undercover police officer was at the wheel of a bus carrying anti-Olympic protesters from the Lower Mainland.

Members of the Olympic Resistance Network that I have contacted are shocked speechless after being infiltrated. They're planning to meet Wednesday night to consider their next move.

Listen here.

Eby has left the building!

There wasn't a lot of love for VANOC or the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit at Simon Fraser University's Harbour Centre campus on Nov. 26. That may be an understatement.

Am Johal's Impact on Communities Coalition forum on Olympic security and civil liberties lost its civil libertarian early when B.C. Civil Liberties Association executive director read a scathing open letter to VANOC and V2010 ISU and dramatically departed.

VANOC commercial rights director Bill Cooper was part of the panel while vice-president of sustainability Linda Coady was watching from the audience, along with other staffers.

Eby read an eight minute, 17-second litany of historical VANOC errors of omission and commission and earned a raucous round of applause from the audience upon his exit from stage left. The VANOC and V2010 ISU types were not clapping.

Here are excerpts from his speech.

"The things our community says mean little to your organizations at this stage... nothing anyone says here today will make you change your plans and tactics.

"I'm concerned with your wilful and continuous disconnect from our community.

"It seems trite at this point to mention the Inner City Inclusive statement and report that you broke your promises. But I will. And you did.

"You promised to protect low-income tenants, you did not do so. You promised to leave a legacy of affordable housing, you abandoned that plan when it looked like it might cost more than anticipated.

"You promised ot arrange the Olympics so they did not make the lives of the poorest and most marginalized in our society worse. Then you said you'd arrest those who squatted in your secuirty zones. Your leadership endorsed the plan to arrest the homeless who refuse to report to shelters and you ran two Olympic lanes up the middle of Hastings Street. You promised to fund a watchdog to ensure that you'd keep your promises. That promise too is a lie and hardly a surprise.

"VANOC, an organization that is funded by government, the majority of whose board is appointed by government, whose business plan is directed by government, and who, despite this, spent tens of thousands of dollars, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars, convincing a court they are exempt from the Charter or Rights and Freedoms, that engaged in such a practice for the remarkable purpose of preventing women from competing equally in a sport that men compete in.

"What do you say to representatives of VANOC? A group already exempt from Freedom of Information laws, but who nonetheless pioneered the idea of a meeting where no minutes are kept, so that freeodm of information requests to government partners will not reveal what hidden policy agendas they're pursuing. How can we as citizens demand any accountability when it's simply impossible to know who's steering the Olympic ship into the rocks at what time?

"This evening it's my luxury to ignore your concerns...

"Just as for the last five years you had better things to do than listen to our community, this evening I have better things to do than to listen to you. I wish you a good evening."

Fuel for the Flame: No foolin'

On May 15, I told you about the hole that crews dug (and covered) at the centre of B.C. Place Stadium's floor.

That's where the Olympic cauldron is going, say my sources. It's a logical spot because it's the most visible location as far away as you can get from the air-supported fabric roof while still being indoors. See the video.

Now I have more fuel for the fire. A natural gas pipe was installed in the east end zone tunnel next to section 227. I shot photos after the B.C. Lions' regular season finale on Nov. 7. The cauldron will be fed with natural gas to keep the Olympic flame burning Feb. 12 to 28.

VANOC's virtual disgrace

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at the Saturday morning gong show in the VANOC headquarters and at Tickets.com!

The Nov. 7 online and phone sale of 100,000 tickets for the 2010 Winter Olympics in the Canadian market could have generated, by my estimate, at least $15 million in a single-day if all sold out. That's money that cash-strapped VANOC needs so it can avoid relying on a line of credit to get by.

The first signs of trouble were apparent shortly after 10 a.m. PST when not even the virtual waiting room was open. Many prospective customers got a page that said tickets would go on sale at 10 a.m. PST on June 6! That was the start of phase 2. This was supposed to be phase 3.

Anger mounted on Twitter and after an hour some people said they would give-up. The silence from VANOC and Tickets.com was deafening. It was as if they didn't know what was wrong themselves. It is clear to see that VANOC is not equipped with crisis communications skills. This was a crisis in consumer confidence.

The website cited high demand, but that wasn't what VANOC spokesman Chris Brumwell said. A man who answered the phone and said he was assistant to Tickets.com executive Tom Benson said "They're all in meetings right now looking at it."

Finally, a news release was issued at 1:14 p.m. PST in which Tickets.com CEO Larry Witherspoon apologized. The news release explained there was a configuration difficulty "between the virtual waiting room and the ticketing transaction site."

In plain English: somebody wasn't doing their job properly. The virtual waiting room seemed to work during phase 2 in June. Most complaints had to do with the long waits to get out of the waiting room and into the ticket-ordering website. But the demand-management measure didn't work on the phase 3 launch day. It was a multimillion-dollar mistake that left egg on the face of both VANOC and Tickets.com.

I wonder how many Tickets.com techies will get virtually fired?

I wonder if VANOC will swallow its pride and offer something to recognize the time spent by prospective ticket buyers on Saturday morning? A free souvenir pin to each and every one who tried logging on would be a nice gesture. (Certainly the VANOC servers should have recorded digital footprints.)

I wonder how many unhappy customers will hold their noses and try again when the ticket window reopens Nov. 14?

Turn off the spin, because it's reality check time

Olympic reality check #1

Statistics Canada reported that the 2008 gross domestic product for British Columbia was $199.214 billion. That's the total estimated value of goods and services produced in the province for the year.

A Nov. 5-published PricewaterhouseCoopers report on the effects of the 2010 Winter Olympics says the Games will benefit the
B.C. economy by $4.2 billion from 2002 to 2010. That's 18 years. Do the math and that's $233.3 million a year.

The same report also said the Games produced as many as 20,850 jobs between 2003 and 2008 in a province where the government pegs the workforce at 2.2 million people.

Any Olympic financial spinoffs are greatly appreciated, but in the grand scheme of things, it's just a mogul on a mountain. Premier Gordon Campbell would lead you to believe that the Olympics are the driver of the economy. They're not.

They are, however, costing taxpayers at least $2.5 billion, according to a 2006 B.C. Auditor General's report. Add related infrastructure projects and it's more than $6 billion. And then there are the disruptions to businesses caused by Olympic security and transportation. Suddenly it's no longer the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that Campbell said it would be. None of that was considered by PwC, because it wasn't a cost/benefit analysis.

"Even in Economics 101, large-scale projects are evaluated on the principle of opportunity costs," said Impact on Communities Coalition's Am Johal. "If we spent the equivalent amount of public money in other priority areas, what would be the economic spin-off of that? Rather than spend $900 million on security for the Olympic Games, for example, we could have spent $900 million on social housing which would have used a lot of B.C. wood products and put alot of construction workers on a job site."

Well, enjoy the party, hope most of the gold medals remain in Canada and pray for snow on the mountains and blue skies!


Olympic reality check #2

Health Services minister Kevin Falcon claimed the H1N1 virus -- not the 2010 Winter Olympics -- was the reason why the government was ordering ambulance paramedics to return to full service. The paramedics, who have been prevented from a full strike by essential services designation, are considered one of the three major risks to the 2010 Winter Olympics by the IOC, according to a VANOC memo.

VANOC medical director Dr. Mike Wilkinson gave the B.C. Ambulance Service an Oct. 1 deadline because emergency planning for the Games was three months behind.

"At the latest IOC Coordination Commission review in August, the (British Columbia Ambulance Service) strike and uncertainty was raised as one of the three major risks to the Games from the IOC's point of view," said Dr. Mike Wilkinson's Sept. 14 memo to BCAS executives. The memo was copied to VANOC executive vice-president Cathy Priestner Allinger.

Falcon did two things wrong. First, by not disclosing the real reason for the back-to-work order. Second, by fanning the flames of H1N1 paranoia.

Now is not the time to exploit pandemic fears to score political points.

Exclusive: 2010 Olympics went cap in hand to government

Turns out that VANOC chief financial officer John McLaughlin has either been muzzled by his employer or isn't a man of his word.

I'm hoping it's the former. McLaughlin has answered my questions before -- even though some of the answers were vague. But at least he took the time to do his best to represent his organization. For some reason, McLaughlin couldn't talk about the VANOC bid for a bailout from taxpayers and the unusual accounting for Olympic stadium construction.

When he was on a media teleconference Oct. 26 to discuss VANOC's annual report through July 2009, I asked about a letter he wrote March 26 to Philip Steenkamp, CEO of the B.C. government's 2010 Winter Games Secretariat. See above (click to enlarge). I got it via a Freedom of Information request to the B.C. government. In that letter, McLaughlin sought more taxpayers' money to pay for the Olympic torch relay and opening ceremony at B.C. Place Stadium. How much money? Well, that was censored by some bureaucrat, based on the fear that disclosure would compromise financial interests.

I also asked McLaughlin about the Feb. 5 invoice for $3.5 million for Games-related B.C. Place Stadium upgrades. It's also above. Until then, only $300,000 was spent. McLaughlin told media on a June 16 conference call that the VANOC board okayed on May 20 an $8.3 million withdrawal from the construction rainy-day fund.

The report for the period ending April 30 included an extraordinary footnote about the board decision, which made the B.C. Place budget $12.1 million. VANOC has never explained how the extra funds would be spent, citing the need to keep secrets to preserve a surprise for the opening ceremony. None of the government documents I received gave a hint. Such withdrawals from the construction rainy-day fund are supposed to be backed-up with paper work to the Secretariat, the B.C. government agency overseeing VANOC.

Could that money have actually been diverted to the torch relay and opening ceremony operational budgets, as per the March 26 plea? Could it have gone to payroll?

McLaughlin said on that Oct. 26 conference call that he would "be happy" to talk to me about these matters. "We'll arrange to talk after this," he said.

McLaughlin didn't respond to subsequent emails over the following week and VANOC communications vice-president Renee Smith-Valade and her staff claimed he was "unavailable." I had similar luck trying to get Steenkamp to talk.

When reporters hear "unavailable," it really means "doesn't want or not permitted" to comment. But I got to thinking, maybe VANOC is right. Maybe McLaughlin really is unavailable.

Maybe he is:

A. sick with H1N1;
B. vacationing in Mexico;
C. playing the Mario and Sonic Olympic video game;
D. writing more bailout request letters to governments at all levels;
E. recovering from H1N1 in Mexico by playing the Mario and Sonic video game between writing letters seeking more government bailouts.