Family attends Winter Olympics

When Maureen Hein and husband Ray Hein, along with Maureen's sister Mary Sullivan and her husband Paul Sullivan, took their children, to the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary they didn't realize it was such a popular trip that it would inspire a re-do of sorts 22 years later.

"My daughter (Mary Amanda) said it was the best time she ever had," Maureen said. "It was a surprise as a parent."

In fact, Mary Amanda enjoyed it so much, that she suggested that they attend this year's games in Vancouver, B.C. The mother and daughter began planning the trip in the fall. They ordered tickets for a couple of events and booked hotel rooms in the town of Mission, about 45 miles southeast of Vancouver where lodging was more reasonably priced. Maureen purchased University of Montana Grizzly fleece jackets for the adults and ordered some Montana pins to trade with other travelers they met at the Olympics.

Then, on Feb. 19 Maureen, Ray and Mary Amanda's family, consisting of her husband Tim Guffin and their two daughters Zoe and Mia, set out on a road-trip to Vancouver. They were set to go through the Canadian border on Feb. 21 after making better time than expected, but they didn't realize that they were trying to get into the country on "Super Sunday," one of the biggest days of the Olympics which included the first mens U.S. vs Canada hockey game.

"Everybody and their dog went up for the game," Maureen said. "Kids just went up to party up there. It was like Bigfork on the Fourth of July but with 100,000 people."

After some waiting, they finally made it through the border and up into Vancouver where they hit the crowded streets of downtown.

That night they went to dinner at a restaurant in north Vancouver and ran into some more surprises. First, they were the only Americans in the restaurant full of Canadians as the big game played on three televisions.

"Every time the Canadian team would do something well everyone would cheer except us," Hein said. "Then when the American team would do something well we would cheer and everyone else groaned. I now truly know what a minority feels like."

The Heins and Guffins got an up-close look at the games when they attended a mens hockey game and sat in the fifth and sixth rows. It was the first time Maureen had ever been to a hockey game and she said she loved the experience.

"It was really exciting, especially when the players smashed into the Plexiglass. They kept having to go out and replace it," she said.

The only down-side to the game was the unexpected tight security, which they found to be much more strict than the 1988 games.

"One thing we weren't prepared for, even though everything said go early, was the security," Hein said. "They were amazing. It was just like going through airport security. They emptied everything out of our pockets and scanned everyone, even my one-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter."

In addition to the hockey tickets, the family had pre-ordered tickets for a ski event on Whistler. However, logistics became an issue. No cars were allowed to drive to the mountain, so fans had to take a bus ride which took more than two hours.

The young girls were good travelers, but that much time on a bus was a lot to ask form a one-and-a-half year old and a three-and-a-half-year old in addition to the wait time they would have with security.

So instead of going to Whistler, the family decided to explore Vancouver.

They spent a good chunk of their time searching for souvenirs, which seemed nowhere to be found until someone told them that they were all located in one tent across town a little ways. When they reached the tent, they realized that there was line stretching three blocks away. Their initial reaction was to turn back.

"My son-in-law said, 'We've come this far and you have been looking for all of these things. We are waiting,'" Maureen said.

Although the line was long, it moved quickly and the 30 minutes they spent in the line was actually enjoyable.

"Waiting in line became the fun thing to do," Hein said. "You talked to people and found out where they were from and what all they've done."

The family received mixed reactions while representing the Treasure Sate.

"Some people from other places around the world didn't know where Montana was," Hein said "The volunteers, who were from Canada, kept saying 'We love Montana. It's the best state.'"

They also picked up on the rumor that the residents of Vancouver weren't too thrilled about their hometown hosting the Olympics.

"We felt that while we were there," Hein said.

The main reason the Canadians were upset was that the event was costing much more than anticipated as the city had to make adjustments for the uncooperative weather and other unforeseen situations. However, Maureen said that the city was also appearing to benefit quite a bit from playing host.

"There was construction going on everywhere," she said. "Everywhere you looked there were buildings, freeways and bridges being worked on and a lot of it was green building. They had a lot of signs about that. They are really into green building it seemed. Seeing all the construction going on was foreign to us because we don't have that here right now. We didn't even realize how foreign it was until we saw it."

One of the other "have-to's' on the Heins' and Guffins' list was to see the Olympic torch, which came with its own set of obstacles. A courtyard was built around the torch for people to congregate around it and get an up-close view, however it was deemed a security risk to have visitors so close to the building that housed the media adjacent to the torch. So, a large chain-link fence was put up as a buffer.

This made seeing the torch with an unobstructed view impossible unless patrons went to the nearby viewing deck.

The first time the Bigfork family tried to go to the viewing deck there was a two hour wait. They knew this thanks to the people sitting on large life-guard like chairs with whistles and megaphones who were announcing wait times, instructions and other updates.

"They became part of the fun too," Hein said. "People wanted to get their picture taken with them. It was just more of the lines becoming the event."

They later returned to the viewing deck line where they waited for just a half hour to get a closer look at the torch.

"The weather was great so it made standing in line not such a bad thing," Hein said. "Had it been cold or rainy, I don't think people would've waited in line so much."

In addition to the change in security, another difference that Maureen said she noticed in her visit to the Olympics this year compared to in 1988 was that people weren't swapping pins amongst each other in Vancouver.

The only people they saw doing it this year were pin traders who carried a larger variety of pins rather than just pins from their own hometown area.

Ray and Tim did bring something back with them, though — an interest in the sport of curling. One of the Vancouver TV stations had been playing only curling matches during the Olympics, and Ray, who is an avid bowler, started to take a liking to it.

Then one night when the family was heading back to their hotel, they stopped by a community center that had some curling lanes at it and both Ray and Tim threw a stone down.

"Now they're hooked," Maureen said. "Once you've done it I guess it's a lot more interesting then when you just watch it on TV."

Through all the craziness they encountered on their trip, which brought them back to the Valley on Feb. 24, Maureen said it was a great time.

"It was just the idea of being there and seeing all the faces and hearing all the voices and different languages," she said. "It was just the fun of being around all of the people."