nibbler Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Whistler lenders move to forecloseLast Updated: Wednesday, January 20, 2010 | 6:18 PM ETWall Street financiers say they are going to put the Whistler Blackcomb resort up for sale while the facility is hosting Winter Olympic events next month.Creditors who have lent $1.4 billion US to the ski resort's owners, Intrawest ULC, have effectively seized control of the company and are attempting to auction off its assets......"There's always a chance, but it's a very minuscule chance," Dan Doyle, vice-president of the Vancouver Olympic committee, said Wednesday of the possibility a new owner could interfere with Olympic events.Indeed, while the possibility exists of an owner refusing to host Olympic events, it's extremely unlikely to unfold, Jones said...Entire article available at CBC.ca Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AD Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 cancelled olympics? um, no. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larry_llama Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 no, they aren't cancelling them - just moving them to 12:05ZING! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StoneMtn Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Agreed. Not a chance.That said - shame on W/B for building that idiotic "Peak to Peak" gondola, at a cost of a zillion dollars, which opened up not a single iota of ski area as a result. Surprising news? A little; just a little. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jayr Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Umm...does that say that "Intrawest" has been seized by it's creditors or just Whistler/Blackcomb? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nibbler Posted January 21, 2010 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Intrawest creditor woes threaten staging of Games at Whistler Blackcomb: ReportBY JOHN BERMINGHAM, CANWEST NEWS SERVICEJANUARY 20, 2010A U.S. newspaper is reporting that a corporate standoff could threaten the Olympic Games at Whistler Blackcomb.The New York Post says creditors of the Whistler ski resort owner Intrawest are planning to foreclose on the company within the next 10 days, pushing it into insolvency, and casting doubt on the Olympics taking place at the ski resort.The impasse arises out of a US$1.4-billion debt owed to creditors, which include the failed investment bank Lehman Brothers, Intrawest's largest creditor.U.S. hedge fund Fortress bought Intrawest back in 2006 for US$2.6 billion, but recently missed a US$524-million debt payment.The Post also quoted an unnamed source saying Canadian officials may withdraw a US$50-million financial guarantee to Intrawest. But the boss of Intrawest said the Games are going ahead at Whistler Blackcomb."We have a 2002 agreement with VANOC to host the Winter Olympics and have every confidence that VANOC will honour its financial commitments," said Intrawest CEO Bill Jensen. "Intrawest is looking forward to a successful Olympic Games."Fortress and Lehman officials did not comment for the story, nor did the Canadian government. Original article here at timescolonist.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larry_llama Posted January 21, 2010 Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 oops sorry about missing that small $524 payment. i mean 524 MILLION. slipped our mindsmaybe when you owe money to a bank that doesn't exist anymore you figure you don't have to pay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nibbler Posted January 21, 2010 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Agreed. Not a chance.That said - shame on W/B for building that idiotic "Peak to Peak" gondola, at a cost of a zillion dollars, which opened up not a single iota of ski area as a result. Surprising news? A little; just a little.Whilst the articles discuss yet play down the remote possibility of Olympic interruptions, recent "too big to fail" corporate bailout experience suggests that the Olympics will go on without a hitch. (i.e. Canadian taxpayers will apathetically foot the bill) Here's a scenario not mentioned in the articles where the Olympics at Whistler would be stopped:If the Lil'wat first nation came up with the dough to buy the resort in the auction, they just might pull the plug on the games as soon as the bankruptcy auctioneers' gavel came down.FAQ: What does 'No Olympics on Stolen Native Land' mean?... 'British Columbia' is unique in Canada in that virtually no treaties were made in the process of colonization & settlement. Treaties were required under British, and later Canadian, law prior to any trade or settlement (i.e., the 1763 Royal Proclamation). Although today the government seeks 'modern-day treaties' with its Indian Act band councils, the fact is in 'BC' the land is clearly occupied by an illegal colonial system. The slogan 'No Olympics on Stolen Native Land' is a way to raise anti-colonial consciousness about the true history of 'BC'. Learn more about opposition to the games and British Colombia's unique history of land theft here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nibbler Posted January 21, 2010 Author Report Share Posted January 21, 2010 Intrawest foreclosure a threat to OlympicsBy JOSH KOSMAN and MARK DeCAMBRELast Updated: 6:03 PM, January 20, 2010The drama at ski resort and Winter Olympics venue Whistler Blackcomb may go beyond the competition related to the Games......Fortress bought Intrawest in a $2.8 billion leveraged buyout in 2006 but recently missed a $524 million debt payment. The hedge fund made a proposal to the creditors that would keep Fortress in control of the company, which also owns Stratton Mountain Resort in Vermont, but creditors nixed that proposal. According to several sources, both sides are no longer talking......The Vancouver Olympic Committee (Vanoc) guaranteed that it would make Intrawest whole for the time that its events take place at its resorts. But now, according to a source, Canadian officials are threatening to pull that roughly $50 million guarantee. That, the source said, has compelled Edens to privately say he has a legal right to keep the Games from taking place at Whistler......The fact that Lehman is a creditor is complicating things for Edens. While a typical creditor might be inclined to work with borrower, Lehman, through restructuring firm Alvarez & Marsal, is turning over every stone in search of cash to settle up more than $1 trillion in creditor claims associated with its own bankruptcy...Read the entire article at the New York Post website Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nibbler Posted February 10, 2010 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2010 When Snow Melts: Vancouver’s Olympic Crackdownby Dave ZirinThe Nationhttp://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/528319/when_snow_melts_vancouver_s_olympic_crackdownFebruary 09, 2010News Flash: Winter Olympic officials in tropical Vancouver have been forced to import snow - on the public dime - to make sure that the 2010 games proceed as planned. This use of tax-dollars is just the icing on the cake for increasingly angry Vancouver residents. And unlike the snow, the anger shows no signs of abating. As Olympic Resistance Network organizer Harsha Walia wrote in the Vancouver Sun, "With massive cost over-runs and Olympic project bailouts, it is not surprising that a November 2009 Angus Reid poll found that more than 30 per cent of [british Columbia] residents feel the Olympics will have a negative impact and almost 40 per cent support protesters. A January 2010 EKOS poll found that almost 70 per cent believe that too much is being spent on the Games."Officials are feeling the anger, and the independent media, frighteningly, is paying the price. Just as Democracy Now's Amy Goodman was held in November for trying to cross the border for reasons that had nothing to do with the Olympic Games, Martin Macias Jr., an independent media reporter from Chicago, was detained and held for seven hours by Canada Border Services agents before being put on a plane and sent to Seattle. Macias, who is 20 years old, is a media reform activist with community radio station Radio Arte where he serves as the host/producer of First Voice, a radio news zine.I spoke to Martin Macias today and he described a chilling scene of detention and expulsion. "I was asked the same questions for three and a half hours in a small room. They told me I had no right to a lawyer. I went from frustrated and angry to scared. I didn't know what the laws were or how the laws had been changed for the Olympics. I kept telling them I wasn't going to Vancouver to protest but to cover the protests but for them that was one and the same. This is bigger than me. We need to ask who is exactly ordering this kind of repression. Is it the government? The IOC? Why the crackdown?"Then insult on top of injury when they deported Macias and insisted he pay his own way out of the country. "They wanted me to buy a $1,300 plane ticket back to Chicago. I said ‘no way' and now I'm in Seattle."Martin's story is not unique. Two delegates aiming to attend an indigenous assembly taking place alongside the games were also detained and turned away.For people with just a passing knowledge of our neighbors to the north, it must all seem quite shocking. When we think of human rights abuses and suppression of dissent, Canada is hardly the first place that comes to mind. But there actually is a long history in Canada of this kind of abuse of power. The latest chapter in that history has been written during the pre-Olympic crackdown of 2010. Now as protestors and independent, unembedded journalists gather for the February 10-15 anti-Olympic convergence, as tax dollars go toward importing snow, the need to silence dissent becomes an International Olympic Committee imperative.As Chicago's Bob Quellos, who entered Vancouver successfully after accompanying Macias, said to me,"Walking the streets, residents here are very clear about who is responsible for the billions of dollars of Olympic debt they will be paying off for generations. They are outraged that the over $1 billion that is being spent on security has placed a cop on almost every corner of Downtown Vancouver. And they are outraged by the government's priorities. For example, while Vancouver's Downtown East Side struggles with poverty similar to third-world countries and social programs continue to be gutted, VANOC is spending an untold amount of money helicoptering in snow to the Olympic venue of Cypress Mountain that would otherwise be a mud hill due to the warm weather."It's not hard to deduce why the snow is melting: it's the heat on the street.Dave Zirin is the author of the forthcoming "Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love" (Scribner) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ollie Posted February 10, 2010 Report Share Posted February 10, 2010 Shoulda held it in Calgary! Reusing the existing infrastructure would have been the ultimate in efficiency with regards to keeping the environmental and economic impact to a minimum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaggyBalls Posted February 10, 2010 Report Share Posted February 10, 2010 Calgary? No way!Lake Placid!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AD Posted February 10, 2010 Report Share Posted February 10, 2010 The logistics of Vancouver hosting the olympics in Calgary would have been prohibitive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ollie Posted February 10, 2010 Report Share Posted February 10, 2010 The logistics of Vancouver hosting the olympics in Calgary would have been prohibitiveYou forgot a period. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanada Kev Posted February 10, 2010 Report Share Posted February 10, 2010 The logistics of Vancouver hosting the olympics in Calgary would have been prohibitive You forgot a period. How about capitalizing "Olympics" too? :bonghit: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Velvet Posted February 10, 2010 Report Share Posted February 10, 2010 Woo-hoo!Six more days! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freak By Night Posted February 10, 2010 Report Share Posted February 10, 2010 "With massive cost over-runs and Olympic project bailouts, it is not surprising that a November 2009 Angus Reid poll found that more than 30 per cent of [british Columbia] residents feel the Olympics will have a negative impact and almost 40 per cent support protesters."From this, can we infer that 70 per cent of residents feel the olympics will have a positive impact and 60 per cent don't support protesters? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigger Posted February 10, 2010 Report Share Posted February 10, 2010 Should have just kept the events away from Vancouver , there is a long history of winter Olympics not being in large City centers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YearsAlongTheSea Posted February 11, 2010 Report Share Posted February 11, 2010 The logistics of Vancouver hosting the olympics in Calgary would have been prohibitiveYou forgot a period.That's what she said... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hal Johnson Posted February 11, 2010 Report Share Posted February 11, 2010 (edited) I lived on Vancouver Island for a couple of years. I freaking loved the winters there, and in Vancouver because , well, to be honest, THE WINTERS DON'T EXIST. When they gave the Olympics to Vancouver I immediately said it would be problematic considering WINTER DOESN'T EXIST IN VANCOUVER. Now they have to import snow. To the winter Olympics. Think about that for a second. Sometimes I feel like Im the only one who ever gives a shit about anything. Edited February 11, 2010 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phishtaper Posted February 11, 2010 Report Share Posted February 11, 2010 (edited) that lynx on the ski hill today was cool. sexy. canadian. i think this will be good PR for us. Edited February 11, 2010 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanada Kev Posted February 11, 2010 Report Share Posted February 11, 2010 Great shots of the torch at the BigPicturehttp://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/02/olympic_torch_relay_nearly_com.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Velvet Posted February 11, 2010 Report Share Posted February 11, 2010 I lived on Vancouver Island for a couple of years. I freaking loved the winters there, and in Vancouver because , well, to be honest, THE WINTERS DON'T EXIST. When they gave the Olympics to Vancouver I immediately said it would be problematic considering WINTER DOESN'T EXIST IN VANCOUVER. Now they have to import snow. To the winter Olympics. Think about that for a second. Sometimes I feel like Im the only one who ever gives a shit about anything.Cypress Mountain just had the warmest January in recorded history and Vancouver just had one of the warmest on record, I've heard rumblings of another el nino. All the Vancouver events are indoors, Whistler is famous for having metres of snow, and Cypress Mountain generally has tons of snow as well. Like, do you really, really think these people didn't check to see if snow is normal and expected for these areas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanada Kev Posted February 11, 2010 Report Share Posted February 11, 2010 Google Street View SNOWMOBILE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanada Kev Posted February 11, 2010 Report Share Posted February 11, 2010 Google inside the Games. Cool interactive schedule, street views, maps, etc.http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/games10/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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