That sound you hear is the hush.
Most sports have that hush.
It's that one suspenseful moment at the height of competition when time slows, sound fades and eyes widen in anticipation of the joy of victory or the disappointment of defeat.
In curling, it's the moment the skip takes a last breath before pushing out of the hack with the last rock in the 10th end. In figure skating, it's the moment the skater freezes in position before the music starts. In biathlon, it's the moment the skier forces herself to slow her pounding heart so she can focus on the targets through her rifle sights. In skiing and snowboarding, it's the instant before the push down the slope.
This is the moment athletes devote years of training and mental preparation to be ready for. Their minds and bodies are sharp and in sync. There is only the shot, the target, the goal, the routine, the performance ahead.
Today is hush day in Prince George, as the city and its residents hold their collective breath before the start of the 2015 Canada Winter Games. There is last-minute work to be done, certainly, but time has run out on preparations. Prince George, the Games organizers, their platoon of staff and their army of volunteers are as ready as they're ever going to be.
It's game time.
This is a pivotal moment in Prince George's history and not just because the city marks its official centennial anniversary next month. The Canada Winter Games is to Prince George what first Expo 86 and then the Winter Olympic Games were to Vancouver - a time to celebrate excellence, community, past success, present accomplishments and future potential. It will be remembered with great pride and the number of people who say they were there as spectators and volunteers will increase with each passing year.
What led to this moment was not mere years but more than two decades of dreaming, planning, building and hard work. As former mayor Dan Rogers explained to Citizen reporter Samantha Wright Allen, the first piece was the construction of the Multiplex in 1994, now CN Centre, and the home of men's and women's hockey during the Games. In the short term, the Multiplex was needed to attract a major junior hockey team. That was followed by the Scott Tournament of Hearts in 2000 and the Royal Bank Cup in 2007. The facility and those major sporting events helped set the table for the Canada Winter Games.
Along with the Multiplex, the last 20 years have seen the construction of the University of Northern B.C., the Prince George Aquatic Centre, the Outdoor Ice Oval, the Northern Sport Centre and the new Duchess Park secondary, all important pieces of infrastructure during the Games. They were built for residents but they are all pieces able to help the city host special once-in-a-lifetime events like this one.
Prince George won the right to host the Games over Kelowna and Kamloops in September 2010 but it was a come-from-behind "worst to first" victory, Rogers recalls.
Already in for $40,000 by that point, the city had to commit another $420,000, with $100,000 of that set aside for the site visit and tour by the Canada Games selection committee. The Prince George bid had to be refined, upgraded and missing elements had to be addressed, taking up thousands of hours of volunteer time by a group of passionate individuals, led by Les Waldie and the bid committee.
They believed Prince George could be something greater than it ever had been before, could do something it never imagined itself being capable of accomplishing. Their belief translated into the We Are Winter campaign and residents bought into the dream. By the time the Games selection committee arrived in August 2010, they were welcomed to Prince George by an upbeat and enthusiastic city. On their way inside the Civic Centre for a tour and a formal presentation of the local bid, they were greeted with an outdoor party in the plaza that included ice sculpting and snowball fight.
In August.
"You can reach beyond what you think is possible," Rogers said. "We need to continually push beyond what limits we put on ourselves."
Prince George has done that to arrive at this point, the hush before the roar of the crowd. We've earned our opportunity to shine.
Let the Games begin.
