Olympic Collectibles

February 13th, 2010

I am very excited about the Olympics – as always – and am trying to get Ursula in on the action. (Curling + Johnny Weir + Apolo Ohno = Hooray! Even horrible Evan Lysacek cannot dampen my spirits. What does Tanith see in him?!?!?!). So, last night, we decided to watch the opening ceremonies. This lasted through about 15 Bob Costas Canada facts and some ski jumping. I finally said (around 8:15est – 45 minutes before the ceremony started) “Do you want to go to bed?”. She said “Is the ceremony over?”. I said we’d watch it today and put her to bed.

Brief musing – how did they do those orcas?!?!?! Who knew Donald Sutherland was Canadian?!?!? Why does the USA always have pretentious Ralph Lauren outfits? I can buy Canada red mittens for $10 (well, if they weren’t sold out). A USA hat & mitten set is $95 and it’s NOT EVEN THE SAME HAT THEY WORE.

Anyway – today, we watched the ceremony. I was impressed that she could describe the Canadian flag when I asked (before they showed it). She was very into the snowboarder intro and all the First Nations stuff (yes, even those “totems”). Then it was all over for her. At one point midway through the parade of nations I was like “See! All the different countries are coming in – you can see their different flags and clothes!”. “I KNOW! It is boring!”. Grr…

Now, there was a (good) reason she was distracted. We were looking at the Olympic mascots online. I do not think there is another child in the US who could tell you more about Quatchi, Miga and Sumi. Did you know Sumi likes hot chocolate and Miga is partial to salmon? (Quatchi will try anything. Also, I had to interrupt bedtime stories to fact check with her). She can also tell you their favorite sports and I think their fave colors (if not, I remember them). Oddly, she even knows facts about them that are not on the official site. For example: “Sumi is an animal spirit who lives in the mountains of British Columbia. Like many Canadians, Sumi’s background is drawn from many places. He wears the hat of the orca whale, flies with the wings of the mighty thunderbird and runs on the strong furry legs of the black bear.” However, Ursula is quick to tell you that Sumi also has “the face of a chihuahua”. I am not exactly sure what chihuahuas have to do with Canadian First Nation spirits, but who am I to question?

There is also a 4th mascot you can buy, but who doesn’t have a bio – he’s Mukmuk and as far as we can tell he is some sort of superfan, but not an actual mascot. He looks like a Zhu Zhu Pet – I think they threw him in to sell more stuff.

The Olympic site does have all sorts of fun games and printables. Her favorite is the Which Mascot Are You Like? quiz. She has done it roughly 57 times. The questions change, but not that much. Plus, with her superior mascot knowledge, it is very possible that she is tailoring her answers to get a certain result. Though I’m not sure if she’s that wily.

Anyway – one of the questions is “I want to be at the 2010 Winter Olympics and compete in”. The choices were “Paralympic Downhill Skiing”, “Ice Hockey” and “Snowboard Halfpipe”. She says “Snowboarding” (surprising) then “I would like to learn to fly”. (I asked about later, and I am pretty sure she actually meant flying, not ski jumping, not piloting. Just flying).

One of the reasons we were looking at the mascots is that I told her I’d buy her a mascot souvenir. Which led to much much hemming and hawing – the excessive quiz taking seemed to be to settle on compatibility. She decided on a plush Sumi, though I did have to veto the non-mascot superfan Mukmuk. Then I told there that every Olympics (from here on) she could get a mascot souvenir and have a little collection. I remembered that China had adorable mascots, Sumi and crew are cute – this is a great plan, right? So we Google prior mascots…

Beijing – see? Cute!!!! Good idea!!!!

Torino. Don’t you remember Neve and Gliz? The snowball and ICE CUBE?

Okay – Athens. Birthplace of the Olympics! And also ancient fertility dolls..

Salt Lake City didn’t let us down too much. Ish.

Great. Great. Great. This will be one awesome collection.

BTW – The Beijing site is BY FAR the best Olympic site I’ve found – if you need Olympic factoids, check it out: http://en.beijing2008.cn/

This is not a joke – I looked up all those mascots before I started this post (well, obviously, since I wasn’t planning on writing about this when U and I looked them up). However, it is not until right this very moment that I decided to Google and see what I could find out about future Olympics. (Like, um, where again is 2014? Sochi, Russia!). Doesn’t look like there are mascots yet. But we do have THIS logo to look forward to. For reals.