Monthly Archives: February 2010

Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor

After tonight’s broadcast and after looting our hotel mini-bars, we’re going to try to brave the blizzard and fly east to home and hearth, and to do laundry well into next week.  Before we leave this thoroughly polite country, the polite thing to do is leave behind a thank-you note.
 
Thank you, Canada:
 
For being such good hosts.
 
For your unfailing courtesy.
 
For your (mostly) beautiful weather.
 
For scheduling no more than 60 percent of your float plane departures at the exact moment when I was trying to say something on television.
 
For not seeming to mind the occasional (or constant) good-natured mimicry of your accents.

For your unique TV commercials — for companies like Tim Hortons — which made us laugh and cry.
 
For securing this massive event without choking security, and without publicly displaying a single automatic weapon.
 
For having the best garment design and logo-wear of the games — you’ve made wearing your name a cool thing to do.
 
For the sportsmanship we saw most of your athletes display.
 
For not honking your horns. I didn’t hear one car horn in 15 days — which also means none of my fellow New Yorkers rented cars while visiting.
 
For making us aware of how many of you have been watching NBC all these years.
 
For having the good taste to have an anchorman named Brian Williams on your CTV network, who turns out to be such a nice guy.
 
For the body scans at the airport which make pat-downs and cavity searches unnecessary.
 
For designing those really cool LED Olympic rings in the harbor, which turned to gold when your athletes won one.
 
For always saying nice things about the United States…when you know we’re listening.
 
For sharing Joannie Rochette with us.
 
For reminding some of us we used to be a more civil society.
 
Mostly, for welcoming the world with such ease and making lasting friends with all of us.

Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor

We’re here in Vancouver because so much of the world’s attention is focused here—and judging from the emails to us overnight, a lot of our viewers have been understandably focused on the takeoffs and landings going on behind us.  For an aviation buff, its a great perch…we get to watch them come and go all day.  They are superb pilots, used to flying in all kinds of weather extremes, and they fly extremely durable, hardy aircraft—many of them fly Otters, easily the most ubiquitous prop plane in this region. The only problem is: they seem to take off right when we’re ready to talk.  Last night I was fighting the aircraft noise at the top of the broadcast, at the bottom of the broadcast and in between.  Bob Costas opened last night’s prime time coverage with a live report from one of the aircraft (as it came in for a landing) and Lester 
Holt (fellow aviation geek) is going to do a story on the robust flying business here. I think it might make better live television, however, if we change our backdrop a bit—so starting tonight, you’ll see me against a different view of downtown Vancouver. It should mean that airplane noise will be less of an issue.  Sadly, our extraordinary run of beautiful weather here has come to an end. The rain is starting to fall as I write this, and it looks like we’re in for a damp rest of the games—snowy on the mountains.

Another thing to look for: the two Brian Williamses. As our Canadian viewers know, I’m not the only on-air Brian Williams in North America. The OTHER one is the anchor of CTV’s Olympic Coverage—more accurately, he’s the Bob Costas of Canada.  He’s a great guy (we’ve been in touch over the years) and a few days ago, with NBC and CTV cameras rolling, we had a great time together and hammed it up as we visited each other’s facilities.  We’ll show you a brief bit tonight, and I’ve put together a longer version for Today on Wednesday morning.

We hope you can join us tonight from Vancouver!

Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor

It strikes me, as I sit next to Al Michaels during the commercial break before our daily news update segment—that he is the man who gave us the number-one call in the history of broadcast sports—right up there with “The Giants win the Pennant!”  Last night at the hockey game, I thought of Al. We knew watching it (I was lucky enough to be there) that it was one of the best, and perhaps the most exciting, that we would ever see. We really did have mixed emotions—while wearing our USA gear and cheering for Team USA, walking out of that arena and into the streets of Vancouver was…interesting.  We listened to the sad analysis on sports radio all the way back to the hotel.

The games continue here—the news from home couldn’t be more serious: terrorist plots, health care do-overs, Toyota’s troubles. We will have it all for you tonight.  We hope you can join us.

Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor

Olympians are not the crowd I usually hang with. And yet here at these games, working for NBC, you run into a staggering number of people—those you never think, as a TV viewer at home, you will ever get to meet or know.

For example: Every day, I seem to run into former U.S. Ski Team member Picabo Street. Today she was walking her son in a stroller and talking with retired women’s hockey star (and NBC analyst) A.J. Mleczko.  Last night, after my wife and I attended figure skating, we got into the hotel elevator and I looked over and saw that the man with us was Dick Button. The one and only Dick Button. We got off at the same floor, and he gave us a world-class 10-minute instant analysis of the night’s skating. Just now, en route to do my usual daily segment with Al Michaels, I ran into America’s newest gold medalist: Evan Lysacek. I had profiled Evan before the games, and it was great to see him and congratulate him in person.  The people you meet around here!

We have all sorts of news covered for you tonight: from Woods to Lysacek, anthrax to Austin and everything in between. We sure hope you can join us from Vancouver.