Colbert Nation Gathers in Vancouver

On Wednesday morning, I had the pleasure of lining up with a few thousand 'iceholes', some 'syrup-suckers' and 'Saskatchewhiners' to take part in a live taping of The Colbert Report (that is pronounced 're-pour' a la francais) with Stephen Colbert.

Stephen Colbert is the host of The Colbert Report which is a very tongue-in-cheek political satire of the US conservative right. Think Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck but with intelligence, wit and a heavy dose of political satire.

This past fall Colbert began a campaign to discredit the Richmond Oval where all the long-track speedskating events are taking place. He accused the Canadians of favouritism and not allowing others access to the ice for training. This was picked up by the press and so began a good-natured ribbing. Colbert coined the terms 'ice-holes', 'syrup-suckers', etc. to describe Canadians - I think anything which brings Canadians to the attention of the US is great. Even though we share one of the largest unprotected borders in the world with our neighbour to the south, they surprisingly know very little about us.

Michael Buble and Stephen Colbert singing Oh Canada to the tune of Star Spangled Banner-surprisingly it didn't sound too bad.

When a Dutch bank went bankrupt and left the US speedskating team without a sponsor, Colbert stepped in and became their honourary team psychologist (booster). His Road to Vancouver 2010 segments are hilarious and worth checking out.

Stephen Colbert got his start on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
(would be fun if they would run for office in 2012)

The taping of the show went very well. The crowd was in a great mood despite us having waited for 3 hours for the show to start. All-in-all it was well worth our time and we all had a great time laughing with and at each other - one might say a cultural laugh-in.

Whenever the taping stopped, the crowd would chant 'ride the moose, ride the moose' until Colbert finally relented and had his last guest, Bob Costas mount the moose at the end of the show. For those not familiar with Canadian symbols, the beaver is actually the official symbol of Canada (appears on our nickel), however the moose comes a close second and graces our quarter. We value our animals, literally.

Not to be outdone, Stephen held up the stuffed beaver (insert joke here) :-)