Scott Baker (left) and Dee Dhaliwal travelled from Kamloops to volunteer at Cypress Mountain during the 2010 Winter Olympics (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Chad Klassen

2010 OLYMPIC VOLUNTEERS

Kamloops volunteers reflect on their memorable experience at 2010 Winter Games

Feb 26, 2020 | 5:15 PM

KAMLOOPS — The 2010 Winter Olympics commenced 10 years ago and started what was a magical time in the province’s history.

With 2,500 athletes competing and thousands of delegates, the organizing committee needed 25,000 volunteers to make the Games run smoothly. While many of the volunteers came from the Lower Mainland, others came from across the country, including a group from Kamloops who spent the 17-day Games in Vancouver and Whistler to take in the once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Dee Dhaliwal and Scott Baker remember it well, both travelling from Kamloops to volunteer at Cypress Mountain.

“The atmosphere was phenomenal. Everybody was happy and positive and all the entertainment,” said Baker. “It was a really nice thing to be apart of and see the province and the country come together.”

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Dhaliwal added, “I will remember downtown Vancouver as well. It was kind of like swimming in pure joy when you went to downtown Vancouver because everyone was happy.”

Dhaliwal was in transportation, moving people around on buses and making sure they got to the right place. Baker was on the hill part of the aerials maintenance crew.

“Standing on top of the hill. They land on about a 39 degree slope, so every time they land they make a divot, so our job was to go and fill in the divot, stand on your skis and sidestep down the hill, make it nice and smooth again,” Baker noted.

Dhaliwal, who would write daily recaps and email them home to family, says the highlight of her Games experience was witnessing Alex Bilodeau win gold in the moguls, Canada’s first-ever gold medal on home soil at an Olympics.

“I was at the very top where I could see the top part of the course, saw him come down, then I could watch the big screen and watch his jump,” Dhaliwal recounted. “There was a bunch of RCMP standing there waiting for their shuttle and we were all, nobody was paying any attention to anything other than the screen. We all started cheering and yelling. It was a really neat moment.”

It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for each of them. But could the Olympics happen in this province again? Former VANOC CEO John Furlong wondered aloud last week about Vancouver hosting the 2030 Winter Olympics.

Both Dhaliwal and Baker say they would volunteer again.

“I probably would, yeah,” noted Dhaliwal. “It was very rewarding.”

Baker added, “Absolutely, yeah in a heartbeat. I would take time off work, I would take my own vacation, I’d go there and be part of it.”