Some time after we hit the streets to celebrate along with the whole of Vancouver after the Canada-USA gold medal hockey game I realized it was time to put away my camera. I had just watched one of the greatest and most meaningful games to be played in Vancouver and wanted to be part of the wave of euphoria rushing through the streets. About an hour in -- and mindful that I had to move later on that night, I stuffed my two cameras back into the bag and just was swept along.

The day began almost too quiet. People were excited but wanted to dim their anticipation with the sober thought that the Americans had arrived at the finals without a loss while Team Canada had nearly lost twice and lost truly against the same USA team a week before. Vancouver fans are knowledgeable hockey fans and are used to seeing humble ends to storybook beginnings. So when the winning goal was scored in overtime pent up joy from decades of frustration exploded onto the streets.

From Yaletown where I'd watched over the crowd at LiveCity from a vantage point of a good friend's apartment to a human mash of cheering, screaming people from Granville to Georgia I could not help but be carried along by a surge of elation. Everything was red - white. Strangers hugged, high-fived each other, kissed and those were the sober ones.

At one point trying to take pictures was useless as one after another boozy patriot crushed my metal bodies into my chest as they squeezed me and then let go to assault someone else. There's quite a few shots in my rolls that were mostly blurs or big faces blearing hot breath right into the lens.

By the time I got out of the crush -- it took me twenty minutes at one point to get through the intersection of Robson and Granville -- I was exhausted and so were many who'd streamed into there and made it out the other end, chewed up like a sausage. Somehow I even managed to change film in the middle of the crush.

I stayed as long as I could and then drifted away from the party to start my move. A few hours later I was mostly in place, staring at an empty apartment as the rest of the city continued to buzz.

It's a week later now and things are back to normal. Vancouver has reverted. Almost:

Out of around ten rolls of 35mm and some oddities like Polaroids thrown in there I got forty or so picks. You can take a look in my Olympic Flickr set.