Transcripts For WRC Today 20100215 : vimarsana.com

good morning, golden boy canadian skier, alex bilodeau, makes his country proud, winning canada s long sought, first gold medal on home soil. so, what s he going to do now? he s talking to us live today, monday, february 15th, 2010. captions paid for by nbc-universal television and good morning, welcome to today on a monday morning, day fo of the 21st olympic winter games, i m matt lauer. and i m meredith vieira. and i know it s early here. but you won t regret getting up, because your new national hero, alex bilodeau, will be joining us in just a moment. think this guy had a good day? there he is, just a couple of yards from us right now. we re joined by ann curry and al roker. this is the guy who put an end to the drought. it s been so talked about. the canadians had nev won a gold medal on home soil. they didn t do it the previous two times the olympics were hosted here in canada. he put an end to that yesterday, with a stunning run in the men s moguls. i was in a restaurant when this happened, the place went berserk. and you thought it was for you. i had no illusions. you re going to get to talk to alex in a little while. and sunday a good day for team usa, two medals including an historic first in the nordic combined. it brings the american s team to six medals, good enough to lead the medals count. germany in second with four, france and canada with three each. and coming up, we ll talk to four of team usa s six medal winners. and they all said they had not been to bed. so they re just really high on the whole experience. on a more serious note, the fallout continues from the deadly accident on the luge track during the training run on friday. the ioc is getting some fire for blaming the accident solely on the athlete. a 21-year-old from the republic of georgia. his father has now spoken out, saying his son was afraid of that track. we re going to have much more on that story in just a couple of minutes. also on a much happier note, the great one, wayne gretzky, is also stopping by today. canada s national hero and treasure. i can tell you re excited about that. but first we re going to begin with a first full weekend of competition here at the vancouver olympics. ann curry is here with that. and good morning to you. after the first week of competition it is the team usa is off to a very strong start. but on sunday night, as we ve been mentioning, it was an historic first, for the host country that is making headlines. oh, canada, the drought is over, alex bilodeau has won gold. it was an olympic dream that for canadians, was long overdue. it s an amazing feeling. you can t have a better feeling than that. capturing the first gold medal on home soil, alexandre bilodeau, took the top spot in the men s freestyle moguls. in front of a hometown crowd, including his older brother, who has cerebral palsy. bilodeau beat out an australian skier and mirren, bry wilson, who took bronze. everybody is skiing on fumes! earlier in the team, it was team usa that captured an olympic first in men s nordic combined. while missing gold by just .4%, johnny spillane s silver medal is the first ever for the u.s. in this sport. the combines ski jumping with cross-country skiing. we veorked really hard for a lot of years and have it finally be coming together for everybody at the right time is awesome. meanwhile, at the rink on sunday night, love actually was a fitting theme for the american pair. amanda uvora and mark ladwig who dazzled the crowd during the pair s short program. 24.76 receiving personal best scores. amanda s mom cried in the stands after her daughter s performance. but it was the chinese pair that finished with the lead. going into tonight s competition. the first american gold of the vancouver games belongs to hannah kearney. on saturday, kearney had a flawless run to finish the women s freestyle moguls. her teammate, shannon barkey, took bronze in the same competition. earlier on saturday, apolo ohno won silver in a dramatic finish to tie bonnie blair as the most-decorated american winter olympian. receiving the bronze was american newcomer, jrselky. from highs to heartbreak, the tragic lugin accident still haunts the whistler sliding center, following the death of a georgian athlete. over the weekend, competition resumed, after modifications to the course. but there was more fallout over a controversial statement blaming the 21-yeaold for his own death. it read in part on friday, griff was visible in bc place for a night of remembrance and also artistry, which was the most-watched opening ceremony of a nonu.s. opening winter olympics. but not without a technical glitch. it appears that one of the doors is malfunctioning at this moment. with only three of the four legs raised, the first-ever indoor olympic cauldron was lit. afterwards, wayne gretzky carried the flame on its final leg to the outdoor location. and the big events to watch today? bode miller competing in the men s downhill, the pairs figure skating final and the men s snowboard cross. meantime, the warm weather is still having an impact on at these games, because officials had to adjust the ski schedules, which means there will be more time for lindsey vonn to heal from the bruised shin. bad news, however, 8,000 snowboard cross tickets for today and tomorrow are now being refunded because of the crane has made the area where they were, people were supposed to stand, it s made that area unstable, meredith. ann, thank you very much. and with me now, the golden boy of canada, alex bilodeau. alex, good morning. [ cheers and applause ] this crowd is so proud of you. first gold medal on canadian soil for a canadian. so congratulations to you. alex told me a few minutes ago, that he only slept 15 minutes. how are you functioning? just high at winning? just a big high. i had an hour at the olympic village, to try to sleep, i couldn t. open my emails, too mh emails, closed my computer. went back to sleep. i did 15 and they came to get me. has it sunk in, alex, what you ve accomplished? i don t think so. i think it s going to come through more time during the day until the ceremony tonight. but everything went so fast. was there a moment as you were going down the mountain when you thought, i ve got this? no. never? i was so in the moment. i don t even remember that much. and focusing on my key words and stf. until i crossed the finish line. and even after i crossed the finish line, there was one more thing, you never know. we re a judged sport, any given guy, the top ten, there s so many good guys there. and guilbaut colas could have won, too, dale begg-smith, anybody. tell me at the moment when you realized it was your day, when you had won the gold. is pretty unbelievable. and when you look at the screen and you see the first, bilodeau, canada, you can t believe it. it s just about the dream, like you can t even believe that it s happening to you right now. and you dream about going to the olympics. you dream about winning a medal at the olympics, but winning the gold on your own soil. it s just you re so proud to be a canadian. and having your family there at the bottom waiting for you, including your brother, frederick, with cerebral palsy. you ve said in the past that he is your inspiration. how much of this win is for your brother? it was his birthday on february 8th. it was his birthday. yes. the first thing i said to him, happy birthday. he was really proud. he s got a big part, growing up with a handicap, cerebral palsy guy. has that shaped you as an athlete? oh, yeah, obviously as a person, as an athlete, it shapes your mental. it shapes your perspective of life. when you wake up in the morning, and you, you have nothing to complain. and you do complain. everybody, you complain. but that guy never complains and he s got all the rights to do it. and he always has a smile. and he finds the life super-nice. so you take yourself, i got that chance maybe to be one day an olympic champion? i ll try my best. and you succeeded. and right before we went on, this gentleman said to you right there, the way you handled yourself, you make all of us proud to be canadian. [ cheers and applause ] how do you feel? that s a pretty amazing thing for someone to say. how do you feel when you hear things like that? you feel more proud to be canadian. and i mean, i m just done my best for my country today, and so, yeah i m proud, there s no feeling to describe that. the if an american athlete wins, they go to disneyworld. what are you going to do? i don t know yet. i m going to go through the couple days and just try to settle down a bit. and go cheer for the other canadians coming up. there s going to be more medals to come. more gold for canada? more gold for canada. you receive your gold medal tonight. matt, over to you. as we mentioned, three of team usa s medals came in moguls. bryon wilson won bronze last night on saturday. hannah kearney won or first gold medal in vancouver. and teammate shannon barky took home t bronze. congratulations to all of you. i wanted to mention, you re not wearing your medal yet, because you didn t get it? yeah, i didn t get it yet. i ll get it tonight. hannah, congratulations, i was thinking, alex is probably the most popular guy on canadian soil today. you may the most popular person on canadian soil today. well i think alex to helped to get me off the hook. because it looked like a canadian in the women s moguls was going to win the event and came down last and took the medal. it was unbelievable, jen heil came down before me and i heard the roar when i was in the starting gate and i used it to ski the best run in my life. when i look at the runs, they go by like this. but what stands out in the run to you? what was the highlight? most of the middle session, i wasn t even thinking. my feet were just reacng to the turns. in the start gate, i was thinking, had is what i m here for, this is what i ve been training for, enjoy it. and when you hav fun you ski better. and shannon you, were here a couple of days ago on the show, talking about how nice it would be to get back on the podium after a silver in torino four years ago. you got the bronze medal. how did it feel for you? absolutely thrilling. it was the best feeling in the whole world. i loved what happened when you realized hannah had won the gold. you came out and you gave her the biggest bear hug. i almost knocked her over. it s so nice, these are individual sports, yet the team aspect does come into play and it s so nice that you can root for each other that way. well, you know, we were standing up in the tent getting rey. singing party in the usa and we wanted it to be us on the podium. so we were dancing. i knew as soon as she crossed the finish line that she won. she had done an incredible run. it was really cool. bryon, the night belonged to alex out there because he won the first home gold medal for the canadians. but talk to me about your run. you came through in a very big way. yeah. it s a great accomplishment for alex. and for canada. and for me, it s just amazing to be often the podium. it was pretty cool watching these guys the night before. i was jumping up and down when these guys did what they did it was kind of an inspiration for me going into the next day. and they seemed to have a blast with it and that s pretty much what i was trying to do, going into today. and you know, i just had fun with it. i think the mogul skiers more than anything, you guys always seem to be having a blast. there s a lot of, you know, in a kind of fun going on around here. especially with you. we mentioned earlier when you were here a couple of days ago, you re get married in the summer, i think it is? 10-10-10. now you realry are going to be mrs. happy? yeah, always. well, bryon, hannah and shannon, congratulations, we re proud of you all. will team usa win more medals? you can continue watching on nbc and hannah says, yes, we can. prime time coverage begins at 8 :00 p.m. let s check the other morning top stories from amy robach, back in new york with more. we begin with a deadly train crash this morning in belgium, where two commuter trains hit head on killing at least 20 people. many others were injured and it all happened in a suburb of brussels, in snowy conditions. the cause now under investigation. snow is being blamed for a series of multi-vehicle pileups sunday in kansas, one involving about 40 cars and trucks. several people were hurt. and in pennsylvania, part ever an ice rink collapsed during a youth hockey tournament. no one was injured there. u.s. and afghan forces are pushing deeper into a taliban stronghold in southern afghanistan in an major offensive. the u.s. is apologizing for an incident sunday, when two u.s. rockets killed 12 civilians. and the war in iraq and the treatment of terror suspects were big topics sunday in an extraordinary clash on tv. nbc s white house correspondent, savannah guthrie has more on that. savannah, od morning. reporter: good morning, amy. on one side it was vice president joe biden. on the other, former vice president, dick cheney taking their feud over national security to the airwaves. it was a split-screen sunday showdown. dick cheney is a fine fellow. but he is not entitled to rewrite history without it being challenged. i, i guess i shouldn t be surprised about i my friend, joe biden. never shy about criticizing the obama administration why do you think dick cheney is speaking out and being so critical of the president and the administration so publicly? all i know is he s factually substantively wrong. on the major criticisms he is asserting. reporter: but cheney continued the attack, saying the administration had botched the interrogation of christmas day bombing suspect, umar farouk abdulmutallab, by reading him his miranda rights. the proper way to deal with it would have been to treat him as an enemy combatant. i don t know what dick s been doing lately. we did exactly wha he did with the shoe bomber, richard reid. reporter: but cheney slams the administration for not using tougher interrogation tactics. you believe they should have the option of everything up to and including waterboarding? i believe you ought to have all of those capabilities on the table. reporter: watching the interview, vice president biden was quick to respd. that s dick cheney. thank god the last administration didn t listen to him at the end. reporter: cheney also scoffed at biden s clas that iraq will go down as an obama administration success because the war is ending now. i m glad he now believes iraq is a success. it ought to go with the healthy dose of thank you, george bush up front. we re pursuing the war with vigor like it s never been seen before. they are on the run. i don t know where dick cheney has been. reporter: former vice president di cheney did have one compliment for the administration saying he supported the president s decision to send more troops to afghanistan. amy? thank you. an amazing video of a huge wave that slammed into a crowd of spectators over the weekend at a surfing competition at half moon bay, california. look at that, at least 13 people were hurt, some with broken bones. it is 7:17. we ll head now back to matt, meredith and al all in vancouver. [ inaudible ] [ inaudible ] tomorw we get name tags. hello, my name is mr. roker, take it away. you re looking dead at me. i called him mr. roker last week. it s totally fine. it s all good. mr. roker, how s the weather? stop it, you re making it worse. let s take a look at see what s happening here in vancouver, where we can are you sure we re here? we are here. we continue to see this system, another one coming in. this is going to bring more rain and snow, but unfortunately, warmer conditions. and so the forecast looks like this. for downtown vancouver, temperatures in the 40s and 50s. whistler will see temperatures in the 40-degree range. two to five inches of snow. but cypress mountain will get rain and snow mix tonight. here in the lower 48, you re looking at a big system. clipper area bringing a cold front behind it. rain for atlanta, snow moves through the ohio river valley. anywhere from three to six inches of snow. some areas may pick up to nine inches between pittsburgh and cincinnati. and moving east, a strong area of snow around the boston area, where they could pick up anywhere from nine to 12 inches of snow over the next 48 well, thankfully light amounts for us and right now on to a clear start, we re in the single digits and teens in much of the region. it s just in the teens to near 20s in many areas. highs today will reach the mid and low 30s. we ll get some loigt rain and light snow mixing in. leaving just generally up to maybe a couple of inches around much of the region, a little bit more farther west and north and mostly rain south and east. and that s your latest weather. meredith? thanks. kiddo. al. as ann pointed out, it s already been an historic winter games for team usa and we re just three days in, johnny spillane won our first nordic medal and on saturday, apolo ohno tied the most medals for an u.s. olympian, ever. unbelievable, apollo won silver. with his blue bandana and signature soul patch, apolo ohno race aid cross the finish line to become the most decorated american man in the history of the winter olympic games. racing on the first day of olympic competition, with his father cheering in the stands, ohno secured silver in the 1500 meters. capitalizing on this dramatic fall by two south korean skaters, he had been trailing behind. it was crazy, a lot of contact in the race, a lot of bumping. i fought a very hard race. and i m happy. i won another silver medal. and it was amazing. south korean lee jung so took the gold and american teammate jrselski took the bronze. ohno s last medal marks his sixth career overall medal. he s going to have to keep going on and skating to have to be a five-time gold medalist. that may be true, but a sixth gold medal in this, his third olympics is a great achievement. dan jensen said this stood the test of time. it speaks to longevity. and that s the hardest thing to do, is stay on top. this is his third olympics that he s been on top. it s quite impressive. why was it important that you do this olympics? i learned how to speed skate in vancouver. my father would drive me back and forth, from seattle to vancouver. so i essentially learned how to speed skate in vancouver. and then now towards the end of my career, 27 years old you re that old? i think it s old when you consider i ve been basically the captain of the world team or you know, leading our team since i was 14 years old. he has three events left and one more medal of any color would make him the most successful american winter olympic athlete of all time. is that the kind of information that puts undue pressure on you? or do you sort of thrive on that? i do thrive on that. and the people in that category of athlete are truly amazing. and for me to even be mentioned in the same sentence is quite an honor. so i feel humbled. and our congratulations to apolo. just ahead, the weather has given her a break, but is lindsey vonn s shin feeling any better? we ll hear from her. but first, this is today on nbc. host: could switching to geico really save you 15% or more on car insurance? host: is ed too tall jones too tall? nurse: i m just gonna guesstimate. : geico. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more. still ahead, he told his father he was scared of the track. plus the great one, wayne gretzky, stops by after your local news. [ engine revving ] he said he was a professional student. no. of life. [ laughing ] i m so sorry. single lane ahead. i ll be in that lane. [ male announcer ] the chevy malibu. a consumer s digest best buy with a 100,000-mile powertrain warranty. you can depend on it so people can depend on you. 7:26 is your time now on this monday, february 15. crews have been out all night trying to clear more snow in time for this morning s limited holiday commute. the snow emergency takes effect at 9:00 m. all cars must be removed from any snow emergency route. we ll good morning, for this presidents day holiday we ll have increasing clouds and temperatures warming to near freezing by noontime and then a rain and snow mix changing to periods of light snow ending off midnight tonight. a couple of inches in your region. then sunshine back tomorrow with blustery northwest winds, highs in the mid 30s, sunny wednesday and thursday. jerry, how s the traffic. finally a little relief over the american region bridge. now there s trouble in springfield with an accident. northbound along i-95. you look very carefully, it looks like a pick-up truck went up over the guardrail. concurring your cable bill may be as easy as changing the channel. 7:30 on this monday morning, february 15th, 2010. presidents day back in the states. day four of the vancouver olympic games. we re gazing on the olympic cauldron in downtown vancouver. you see the other lights in the upper left of the screen, that s the top of cypressress mountain. hopefully the alpine skiing competition can get under way at whistler. they ve had warm weather so the bottom of the courses, they re soft and i guess they re dangerous in that companndition. but if there s one person who has benefitted from the warm-weather delays, it s lindsey vonn. she s got the bruised shin and these delays give her time to heal. how much has she healed? we ll be talking to her about that. i caught up with her yesterday after a run on the slopes, not an official training run, but a chance to test it out. the first luge medals were handed out on sunday, just two days after a luger from the georgian republic died in a terrible training accident. officials said the track did not cause the crash. they blamed it on the athlete. but if that was the case, that the track did not cause the crash, why did they make changes to the course? we ll ge the latest coming up. we ll talk to a former u.s. olympic luger, duncan kennedy about all of that. we had alex bilodeau here a moment ago. you want to hear the crowd get fired up, i ll say two words wayne gretzky. wayne gretzky is live here this morning just outside our chalet, we ll talk to the great one coming up in a couple of minutes. let s begin with our interview with american skier, lindsey vonn, who was all smiles on sunday when i sat down with her shortly after she strapped on the skis. it was really nice. i mean it was a lot better than i anticipated. i mean i ve been up there on the hill and before you know, a couple of days for the inspection and things like that. but i haven t had a chance to push my shin and see how it feels. but today i got out there and the slalom. it wasn t an official training run? no, just training. how hard did you push yourself? i pushed it pretty hard. and it was painful, but it was dentally very manageable. everything has been canceled, so i ve just been taking the time off and today i went out there, testing it out and i was really pleasantly surprised. are you worried the day after a day after today? is this one of those injuries, where it s getting better just because of time and can a run like today when you push yourself means it will hurt more tomorrow. i m always careful not to push it too far. if it starts to really, really hurt, you know you ve got to back off. because i don t want to make it worse. but i think that just this time i ve had, these four extra days, that mother nature has given me, has just been a godsend. i don t want to make it sound two dramatic, but mother nature is a lindsey vonn fan, apparently. i think so. it s extraordinary, you re getting exactly what you needed and that s time. exactly. because of the weather and because of some of the shuffling of the schedule, as it stands now, and this is without any further scheduling shifts, you re going to ski five medal events in ten days. yeah. on an injured shin. it s going to be tough. but at this point, it s really manageable. so bring it on. when you look back at the last two weeks, lindsay and all that s happened since the time that you injured this and how you ve handled it, the way you ve dealt with it publicly and privately, is there anything you wish you could have done differently? you know i ve been really open and honest about my injury. and i wouldn t, i wouldn t change that, you know, i don t want to hide anything. i m laying it all out there and i m doing the best i can every day and that s all i can do. and we last spoke on tuesday night. which was the night you first told anyone that you had this injury and i could see in your eyes it was, it was very troubling to you. how would you describe your mood today versus then? well i m smiling. and it s a natural unforced smile. i was in a much different place mentally than i am now. you know, now i feel like okay, i can do something here, you know, it s not just, am i going to race, can i do this? it s okay, i want to win, i want to go out there and ski my best. at least now i know i can ski and i ll be racing and that puts a huge smile on my face. the first race for you is what now? the downhill on wednesday. if you win that race, people are going to say she made more of this injury than she should have. if you finished 10th in the race they re going to say these aren t going to be her games. are you going to lten to what they say at the end of the race? i think it s been helping me to not hear what other people are saying. you know, just stay focused on getting my shin better and trying to ski. i m not going to listen to what anyone says, i m just going to go out there and do my best. and that was yesterday as i sat down with lindsey vonn. pikabo street is a special correspondent for us and a medal winner in the skiing. she seems so much more relieved than when i spoke to her on tuesday night. you ve spoken to her, what s the realityhere? basically when i got lindsey on the phone, i was trying to hear in her voice as a friend. she s getting fired up. to me she s lying this little volcano that is getting ready to explode. and granted, she needs wednesday, she needs the time. but she wishes wednesday was here now. because of the smack talk that she s hearing going on. she s hear a lot of that. but when she says it s no longer excruciatingly painful, but it s still painful, what level do you think or expect that she can perform at? well whether or not she can race 100%, i don t think so. she s not going to be able to race at 100% at these games, but she can beat the world at about 8 0%, in my opinion and other people s opinions. the good news, the weather has delayed things, which has given her time to heal. the bad news is she s got to ski five medal events in ten days. on an injured shin. w difficult is that going to be? the thing about the shin now is as soon as the dead blood moves out of the area, the shin is no longer injureded and she s good to go. so she s got to hope that some of the activity and some of the work they ve been doing with ultrasound and laser is going to get the blood out of there. we re going to worry a lot about her chances for the rest of the winter games come wednesday. including her. because honestly, she doesn t know that much more than we do, matt. she s out there day to day, minute by minute. when you re an athlete at this level and you kind of plot your olympics, you say, i m going to train this day and compete that day. and i m going to train this day and compete that day. and the whole schedule gets thrown up in the air. how difficult is it mentally? it can be difficult on you mentally, if you came in with too much of a plan. but as an alpine skier, you came in knowing that mother nature is the boss. so you re good at it. now at the olympics and as much juggling that they re doing, it s getting difficult. they re going to have to crank down and help each other as a team to stay mellow and stay focused. and what they re used to with the familiar people around them. she seemed mellow. she is baking banana bread up at the house and promised to bring us some. pikabo, thank you so much. let s check the weather now with mr. roker. banana bread, i like the sound of that. we ve got some nice folks here. and we ve got today n the palm of his hands. very impressive, we like that. and this young lady here she got a today tattoo, that must have really hurt. what s your name? emily. where are you from? grouse mountain, right here. you re in our back yard, welcome. thanks, i love your canadian flag on the other cheek. let s che your weather. again we re talking on about a week ahead that brings snow to the northeast. much below-normal temperatures throughout two-thirds of the country,above-normal out west where we don t need it mid-week, do temperatures change? no. they stay above-normal out west. the eastern half of the country gets the below-normal temperatures with more snow. for the latter part of the week, temperatures normal out out west and good morning, some light snow about to move into the region, coming in out of the west as we look at the radar, it is now snowing in southern southwestern virginia. it s a cold morning, right now under a clear sky, 23 in washington and teens in the suburbs. in the mid afternoon, maybe some rain and snow mix and periods of lighsnow tonight should be ending after midnight leaving about a couple of inches around much of the region, a little more farther west and north. nd if you want to check the olympic weather or any weather around the world or the country, you can go to weather.com or the weather channel on cable. matt? . al, thanks so much. coming up, has the death of the luger in a practice run on friday up at whistler been handled the right way? we ll talk about it with of america s most successful lugers, ever, right after this. n and then he recommended lyrica. fibromyalgia is thought to be the result of over-active nerves that cause chronic, widespread pain. lyrica is fda-approved to help relieve the unique pain of fibromyalgia. and with less pain, i can do more during my day. how sweet is that? lyrica is not for everyone. tell you doctor about any serious allergic reaction thatauses swelling or affects breathing or skin, or changes eyesight including blurry vision or muscle pain with fever or tired feeling. lyrica may cause suicidal thoughts or actions in a very small number of people. some of the most common side effects of lyrica are dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain and swelling of hands and feet. do not drink alcohol while taking lyrica. you should never drive or operate machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. if you think you might have fibromyalgia, ask your doctor about lyrica. strawberries. i m catching the smell of strawberries. the smell of strawberries? 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[ female announcer ] not good pizza. with lean cuisine you never have to compromise on pizza or anything else yummy, because you always get delicious and nutritious. you want shrimp? have shrimp. need your veggies? have your veggies. and cheese? bring it on. check the glossary in the back of the book. there s no compromise in there. and about that question on page 17. plaid is huge this year. lean cuisine. keep life delicious. and welcome back to our home atop groe mountain here in vaouver. the luge competition went on as scheduled over the weekend, in spite of friday s tragic death of a 21-year-old luge anywhere the republic of georgia. but questions remain about the track s safety and how the ioc handled the crash. nbc s peter alexander is at whistler with the very late earth. peter, good morning to you. reporter: good morning to you. the international luge federation had discussions reportedly even before this crash, about possibly implementing a speed limit of 85 miles per hour at future luge tracks. in the meantime, the olympic athletes here, the lugers, had very little time to mourn their loss. the officials wasted very little time reopening the track. even as they re still dogged by harsh new questions about whether enough was done to protect the athletes. felix loch captures the gold medal. reporter: with german felix loch capturing gold in the luge on sunday, the germans had reason to celebrate. but the international luge federation blamed the 21-year-old nodar kumaritashvili for the crash, saying there was no indication that the accident was caused by deficiencies in the track. that statement immediately sparked outrage. his deaths not because of the mistake he made. people should be asking hard questions as to why this death occurred. and try to rectify it so that it never happens again. the loss is particularly painful in the young luger s native country, the republic of georgia. i don t claim to know all the technical details. but one thing i know for sure, that no sports mistakes is supposed to lead to his death. kumaritashvili s father, david, a three-time luge champion himself in the old soviet union, was too distraught to watch news coverage of the crash. translator: i haven t seen it and i don t want to see it, he explained. his son called just days earlier to say he was terrified of whistler s track, the world z fastest where lugers have reached speeds of 96 miles per hour. it led to a preseries competition changes at the track. including a new wall, pads for exposed steel poles and to reduce speeds, lower starting lines. since the tragedy, olympic officials have defended whistler s track as safe. but say the changes made it even safer. since friday s deadly accident, there have been 340 runs down the modified track. and not a single crash. we re very happy, we re totally confident. i think you saw the competion yesterday. everyone who started finished, got do, there were no accidents. reporter: and organizers for the winter games in 2012 have been told that the trend toward faster and faster tracks stops now. beginning tonight, the women lugers take their turn on the track, with the medals being handed out tomorrow. peteralexander, thank you very much. only a world-class luger can understand what it s like to be out on the track. nbc sports luger duncan kennedy competed in three luge events for the u.s. good morning to you. good morning. i want to start with something that peter mentioned in his report. the president of the international luge federation said the group s members prior to the accident had discussed limiting the speed of future luge tacks. do you think that a speed limit could have prevented this accident? well i feel you can have a very exciting race, you can build a more technically-challenging track with lower speeds. and you know, with these high speeds, physics takes on a new realm, if you will. and unfortunately, they found out the hard way. the international luge federation did release a statement after the luger s death, concluding that it was his fault, essentially for what happened. it was athlete error. and no indication that it was the fault of the deficiencies in terms of the track itself. but then it did make modifications. so it seems like a contradiction there, duncan. well, they absolutely did the right thing by building the wall up and moving the starts down. the actual track itself, the sliding surface, was in great shape for sure. the infrastructure around the track that in my mind, has been a concern for years. but again, we get back to these speeds and what it means when the sleds get out of control. well nodar kumaritashvili s dad told our nbc s stephanie gosk, that he had spoke to his son right before the race and his son said he was scared, the track was too fast. but he was in vancouver to go as fast as he could. is there too much pressure on these athletes to compete at unsafe speeds? are they doing things they really shouldn t be doing? well, for the majority of the field, it wasn t really too fast. but at the same time, you have to account for everyone in a sport like this, that s gravity-based. it s not like you can snowplow into the first corner and slow your speeds down. not that you can tell racers to slow down, anyway. how did the athletes who are competing on saturday and sunday feel about the changes? the modifications to the track? nestly? the majority of the racers are not pleased with the lowered starts. these are racers at heart. they want to go after it. they want to go full speed. and it is a technically-challenging track that a lot of people enjoy. but out of respect for what happened, and again, creating a safe environment and a safe race, it was essential. but will this change the future of the sport? i believe it will. there needs to be a cap on the speed. i mean it can t get faster and faster. and again, i feel that course design needs to maybe go towards more technically-challenging tracks. you can lower the speeds even down to 75 miles per hour. there s some tracks on the circuit that are about 70, 75 miles per hour that are actually much more difficult than this track. so i think that needs to be taken into consideration. all right. duncan kennedy, thank you so muchor your insight. and still ahead, a man revered in canada, the lighter of the olympic cauldron. we ll take to wayne gretzky. but first, these messages. the stuff you want to reach for. now you can enjoy good choices even more. people who spent $100 a week at leading national supermarkets. on frequently purchased groceries. could have saved $55 in one month. by shopping at walmart instead. it s another cupboard filled. and another greatay for the savers. save money. live better. walmart. pediatricians trust children s tylenol. to help their fevers, aches and pains feel better. it can take so much out of you. i feel like i have to wind myself up just to get out of bed. then. well. i have to keep winding myselfp to deal with the sadness, the loss of interest, the trouble concentrating, the lack of energy. if depression is taking so much out of you, ask your doctor about pristiq. (announcer) pristiq is a prescription medicine proven to treat depression. pristiq is thought the levels of twoing chemicals in the and norepinephrine. tel your doctor depression worsens or you have unusual changes in mood, behavior, or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants can increase suicidal thoughts and behaviors in children, teens and young adults. pristiq is not approved for children under 18. do not take pristiq with maois. taking pristiq with nsaid pain relievers, aspirin or blood thinners may increase bleeding risk. tell your doctor about all your medications, including those for migraine, to avoid a potentially life-threatening condition. pristiq may cause or worsen high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or glaucoma. telling your doctor if you have heart disease. or before you reduce or stop taking pristiq. side effects may include nausea, dizziness and sweating. (woman) for me, pristiq is a key in helping to treat my depression. 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( sneezing ) i didn t take zicam cold remedy. but i did. can you do it by 3:00 ? yes, i can how about 2:00 ? hmm. get over your cold faster. by booking my family trip with expedia.mm. first i find the flight i want. then a great hotel my kids will love. yeah. but wait. here s the really cool part. when i book them at the same time. voila! i can save up to 450 bucks. and we all know that can come in pretty handy. book flight and hotel, and save more. where you book matters, expedia. dot com 7:55, is weather keep poundsing another little snowfall heading this way. fairfax school system is asking for volunteers to clear sidewalks and bus stops so students can get to school safety when schools do reopen. if you can help, you re asked to contact the schools and bring your own snow removal equipment. crews have been out all night frying to clear more snow in time for this morning s limited holiday commute. all cars must be moved from any snow emergencies route. we re going to have good morning, regional radar showing snow moving into western virginia, southwestern virginia. right now, it s 23 in washington, teens to near 10 degrees elsewhere, a very cold morning and beale have some sunshine this morning and clouding up this afternoon. around 10:00, we could have some light snow and light rain mixing into the afternoon and evening hours. and periods of light snow will be ending after midnight and ending in the morning. we ll have more farther west and north and farther- we have had a couple of accidents possibly due to ice. over in springfield they re dealing with a pick-up truck off the roadway 95 approaching the beltway. concurring your cable bill could be as easy as changing the channels. we re back now at 8 :00 on a monday morning, the 15th day of february, 2010. this was the scene this past friday night. legend, wayne gretzky and some others helping to light the olympic cauldron. and it was a wonderful scene. and where is wayne gretzky today? he s with us live here on grouse mountainmuch to the delight of his many fans. out here on the rink at grouse mountain, i m matt lauer and meredith vieira is helping to pick up a young skater. i m very familiar with that position. meanwhile it doesn t get any bigger than wayne gretzky here in canada, we ll talk to him live in just a couple of minutes. and the chinese dazzled last night s start to the figure skating competition. could they sweep all three pairs medals? and who are the other skaters to watch for here in vancouver. today s special correspondent, kristi yam gucci will break things down. and a grueling medal in the nordic combined. we ll meet american silver medalist, johnny spillane and his teammates coming up. but first, their performances were just some of the weekend s highlights and today s currentnatalie morales is here with more. the greatest celebration came last night when alex bilodeau of canada finally won gold for this country in the men s moguls. alexandre bilodeau has won gold! reporter: the sweet sound of victory. one of the greatest moments we have seen. reporter: 22-year-old alexandre bilodeau marking a major milestone in canadian olympic history, taking home the country s first gold medal on home soil. canada is the best, they bring the best out of me. and it s it s amazing. like it s an amazing feeling. a feeling he shared with his older brother, frederick. one of his biggest fans, who has cerebral palsy. with everything back into perspective. and you learn, you learn from people that don t complain. my brother never complains and he s got every right to complain. bilodeau surpassed defending olympic champion, dale begg-smith of australia while americanan bryon wilson took th bronze. from snow to the ice, where american pairs figure skaters got under way, where avora and mark ladwig set a career best of 57.68 points but finished with a 10th-place finish in the short program. the top spot went to shen and zhao of china, who broke their own world record and go into tonight s free skate in first place. and it s going to be no, korea wipes out, unbelievable. and apolo won silver. earlier in weekend competition, a record-thaiing performance for american short-track speed skating star, apolo ohno. it was a hard race. a lot of bumping, a lot of contact. but it worked out. his silver medal win in the 1500 meters marks his sixth overall medal. bringing him just one win away from taking the title of most decorated american winter olympian, from speed skater, bonnie blair. and it was also a triumphant weekend for u.s. women in the moguls competition. a bookend win with shannon bahrke taking the bronze and then hannah kearney, the gold. making for an emotional medal ceremony sunday night. such a great moment for the american women. meanwhile, be sure to tune in today on nbc as bode miller gets his shot at the elusive medal in the men s downhill. and also seth westcott looking to defend his gold medal from torino in the men s snowboard competition today. there are surprising new details this morning about the suspect in friday s deadly shooting at the university of alabama at huntsville. here s nbc s john yang. reporter: police say amy bishop opened fire at a routine faculty meeting, killing three colleagues and wounding three others. since then, disturbing revelations about her past. the latest, according to published reports, she was a suspect in a 1993 attempted mail bomb attack in the boston area, no oneas ever charged. the target was a harvard med school professor. it was common knowledge that they had an issue, that there was something that they didn t agree on. reporter: police in bishop s hometown have now also disclosed that in 1986, when she was 19, she killed her 18-year-old brother, seth. she shot her brother in the chest, fled the home. reporter: at the time, skate investigators called it an accident. but police in braintree, massachusetts, say bishop and her brother were arguing when he was shoflt. and adding to the mystery, the police files from 24 years og are missing. i don t want to use the word cover-up i don t know what the thought process was of the police chief at the time. the police chief said he done nothing wrong. anything that there s a cover-up, that s so far from the truth, i won t even get into it. reporter: authorities haven t offered a motive for friday s shooting. school officials said bishop was denied tenure last spring and last her appeal months ago. it is third day of a major offensive to retake the taliban stronghold of marjah in southern afghanistan. the mission was overshadowed sunday when two u.s. rockets slammed into a home, killing 12 civilians. and investigators are on the scene of a deadly train crash outside brussels. two commuter trains crashed head-on this morning, killing at least 11 people. and this is presidents day and the public is getting i first look at a new home movie showing the arrival of president kennedy in dallas the day he was assassinated. the footage, taken by a man who was a teenager in 1963 was donated to and released by the sixth floor museum. and in pennsylvania, a little girl s wish came true on valentine s day, 4-year-old paige benson s dad surprised her, returning home on a two-week leave if iraq. her photo, you may remember captured the heart of the nation when paige s father, staff sergeant, brett benson deployed to iraq eight months ago. it s 8:06, let s get another check of the weather from al in vancouver. al? thanks a lot, amy. we ve got big canada fans re. what s your name? ethan. ethan, you might want to have a doctor look at th,hat s really it comes look, your mom has maple leafs on her cheek. are you excited about how canada is doing so far? yeah. go, canada, go, that s the big saying here. go, canada, go! all right, downtown vancouver, if joe michaels would just put that graphic back up, that would be awfully nice. we ve got some morning partly sunny skies, clouds by the afternoon downtown. whistler looking for flurries, temperatures in the 40s by evening. one it five inches of snow. as you can see on the satellite, a clipper system coming across, snow sfr indiana into the northeast into new england. another storm system cong into the pacific northwest, bringing rain including for here in vancouver. sunshine in it is a frigid morning in northeast washington, we have got temperatures in the low and single digits. we have got storms pushing into southwest virginia. we should have a rapid warmup by mid morning. then during the afternoon could get some rain and wet snow mixing in from time to time and periods of . blblg overview of last night. surprises? a little bit of surprise, but not so much. i think the top teams skated unbelievable, it was like it s the deepest field we ve seen in pairs skating in decades. so it was really an exciting night. and they didn t disappoint. i know the americans didn t score as high as they might have wanted to. but talk to me about both the teams we focused on and how well you think they did. our national champions skated very well. they had a little bit of trouble on the side-by-side triple jump. here you see amanda evora and mark ladwig skated phenomenal. great for them and exciting for their first showing here at the olympic games. they came in 10th? they came in 10th place, which i think if our teams come in the top ten, it s a great combination. and the other american couple was in 14th place, not that far behind. not that far behind. i think they want to skate well and enjoy it. let s talk about the pair in first place now, from china, shen and zhao, they broke their own world record score, even. they wer the first ones out of the gate and what a way to set the bar for the rest of the competition. they skated unbelievable. a lot of passion on the ice and i think what was expected. so ? they ve already got two bronze medals under their belt. they re absolutely looking for gold this year. and the couple that came in second place is from germany. and they skated wonderfully. they closed the competition, had a lot of pressure, because everyone skated so well ahead of them. but skated beautifully send in the clowns was a wonderful, dramatic performance. and you know, a lot of prech on them coming in as two-time world champions. especially with the return of shen and zhao. but they did not disappoint as well. they have a strong, strong style to their skating. they go for it. and you know, they re just spectacular. and also a lot of pressure on the russian couple that came in third at this point, the 2010 european champions. the 2010 european champions, yuko kavaguti and her partner, schmirnof. a huge triple twist and her extensions are just beautiful. and their coach has already coached four teams to the gold medal podium. and prediction for tonight, whdo you think will take home the gold? on the spot, you know, i think the sentimental favorites are absolutely shen and zhao of china. they ve worked incredibly hard and are looking phenomenal. all right, kristi thank you so much. coming up, the great one, wayne gretzky. but i try not to let it hold me back. whether i m at the batting cages. down by the lake or. fishing at the shore. i m breathing better. with spiriva. announcer: spiriva is the only once-daily inhaled maintenance treatment for both forms of copd, which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. i take it every day. it keeps my airways open. to help me breathe better all day long. and it s not a steroid. announcer: spiriva does not replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms. stop taking spiriva and call your doctor right away if your breathing suddenly worsens, your throat or tongue swells, you get hives, have vision changes or eye pain or have problems passing urine. tell your doctor if you have glaucoma, problems passing urine or an enlarged prostate, as these may worsen with spiriva. also discuss the medicines you take, even eye drops. side effects include dry mouth, constipation and trouble passing urine. my doctor said i could be doing more to breathe better and now i am. announcer: ask your doctor about lifestyle change and once-daily spiriva. [ female announcer ] pure cane sugar and the stevia plant. two of nature s sweetest wonders now in new sun crystals, the only 100% natural sweetener made with pure cane sugar and stevia. with just 5 calories a packet. new sun crystals all-natural sweetener. i went to the dentist. he was poking around, he found the spots, and he said, are those spots sensitive? he recommended that i use sensodyne. i noticed it was working when i was drinking cold things and i wasn t even thinking about it. i never thought a toothpaste could fix that problem. the sparkly flakes. the honey-baked bunches! the magic s in the mix. my favorite part? eatingt. honey bunches of oats. taste the joy we put in every spoonful. honey bunches of oats. we call the bunches in honey bunches of oats the prize in the box. well, now there s a prize inside the prize. pecans! pecans! baked into crunchy oat bunches. taste the delicious surprise in every spoonful. honey bunches of oats with pecan bunches. beautiful. we re back in vancouver, british columbia, canadians are excited to watch all the events here at the winter games, but there s one that units this country like no other, and that s hockey. we ll talk to the great one, wayne gretzky, but first, nbc s kevin tibbles has a look at the sport that revolutionized the country. reporter: here in hockey, they call it a religion. and they carry the hopes and dreams of a nation on their shoulders. scores! the crowd, wham, he let it go, shot, scores! reporter: every four years, team canada takes to the ice with one goal in mind winning gold for a country that is mad about hockey. for many canadian kids, that dream begins here at the local rink. mia elliott at the ripe old age of six, is hooked. so bright and early, every winter saturday, that canadian family ritual of suiting up for the rink is in full swing. at the elliott s brklyn, ontario home. if you can walk, you re on skates, that s prett much the rationale. it s a national passion, dare i say obsession. teamwork, identity, pride. here, the love of hockey echoes up from the ice and in the stands, whole families turn out it cheer them on. canadian prime minister, stephen harper is such a fan he took the time to meet up with us, rinkside. in every community you re in, whether it s the south, whether it s far in the north, english, french, the rink is a prominent gathering place. reporter: from the frozen pond to the local rinks, kids here dream of wearing the red and white of canada. each and every time they touch the puck. canadian heroes in many cases are the ones who have made it to the national hockey league. and when the storied toronto maple leafs take to the ice, they ve met by legions of wide-eyed kids who stand and watch and dream. in no other country does it have the prominence and dominance in cultural life that hockey has in canada. if you re a captain, you got to step up! i told you not to interrupt. stop that stuff! reporter: every saturday night, millions tune in to watch coaches corner on hockey night in canada. and if you want to know how important hockey in canada is, ask the always-colorful host, don cherry. we invented it, we re the best at it, nobody can touch us in the world. reporter: and because of that, the pressure is on to win gold. the men s team last won at the salt lake city games in 2002. the wednesday are the reigning champs from torino in 2006. in vancouver, a nation will be watching. and don cherry has this very canadian, very cherry-esque message for the players. you respect your opponent, but if your opponent doesn t respect you, straighten them out. reporter: back at the local rink, 6-year-old mia likely isn t thinking about that. she s on the ice, she s with her friends and she s having fun. and that s the purest form of the game you ll ever see. and matt, the prime minister loves this game so much, he s even writing a book about it. say hi to the great one for us. [ inaudible ] kevin, thanks very much, you re out of your league there. wayne gretzky joins us now. wayne, good morning. we re three days away. but i want to go back. i want to go back to friday night. you had the honor of helping to light the olympic cauldron. what was it like to walk into the stadium? it was amazing, when he we actually did the dress rehearsal the first night at 1:00 in the morning, when we walked into the room, to find out who was all involved, wow, like you re here, you re here. it was so nice to see nancy green and stevie nash. the four of us were so excited. and when rick hans rolled the torch in the first time and he saw the lights and the smoke, it was overpowering, we re all very proud to be canadian. we hung out a little bit two days earlier on wednesday. and could you hook a buddy up? i said, hey, what are your commitments, what are you doing here? and you said, just your show, that s it. and you couldn t have given me a wink, and let me know you were lighting the cauldron. well they said, if you tell anybody, you re out. so we obviously all four of us kept it so quiet. so it was such an honor to be asked. so you weren t the only one that didn t know. i got the cold shoulder. the moment when the fourth leg of the cauldron didn t come up. you said you had gone through rehearsals, what was going through your mind. because there was the awkward minute or two. we were nervous for everybody and we were sitting there, we had earpieces, they were talking us, telling us relax, stay calm. and then partway through it. we heard the producer, david atkins say, wow, can we hand-crank it and get it up? that s when we knew there was an issue. and i was standing there and i knew i was running out of the building to light the one outside. so i was kind of saying well if somebody tells me to switch with katrina, she can light this one and all four of us will get to light something. but i didn t know in it was surprise. you were a member of the canadian olympic team in 1998 in nagano. give us a sense of what you think that was obviously on foreign soil. what do you think is going through the olympians minds, the canadians, as they re competing here on hom soil? is. well obviously they re very excited. and the greatest thing about the olympic games is staying in the village. in 1998 they asked us if we re going to someday in the village or a hotel. and i said, we re staying in the village like everyone else. you get to mingle with the other athletes and cheer each other on. i know we got a great gold medal yesterday, and that s pretty exciting for our country. but the players are sort of secluded with the other athletes and just be able to sit back, watch the games and enjoy it. the pressure that s on this team is enormous. but i think they ll handle it very well. and in particular, the hockey team. i mean, everybody wants that gold medal in hockey. first of all, do you think they have a chance to do it? can they do it? and what kind of disappointment would it be if they don t do it? well if they don t do it, obviously it will be something about we ll talk about for four years until the next team is picked to go to russia. but i think they have to be the favorites. i think they re as good as any team in the tournament. and the home-crowd advantage will be something that they can really strive with. and the pressure is on them, being in this country. but the excitement and the atmosphere of the canadian fans will put them to another level. so i think that they ll be favored. i think that don cherry said it best. you got to respect your opponent. and if we respect the russians and the u.s. and the swedes and the finns and so on, then i think we ll do very well. obviously you re canadian. most people know you live in los angeles and you re raising a family there. you ve got dual citizenship, don t you? yes. i took my two little ones yesterday to the speed skating and my 6-year-old was asking me who she should cheer for. and i said, the canadians are in red and the u.s. is? blue. and she said, i ll cheer for the canadians today. i m totally canadian, so i ll cheer for the canadians. but if canada can t win, i ll cheer for the u.s. your country paid you back by giving you the ultimate honor on friday nit, allowing you to light the olympic our time is 8:26, we have 29 degrees outside right now. i m joe krebs, a lot of sunshine out there, but that s going to change. the district is once again declared a snow emergency this in anticipation of the snow we re expected to get later today. crews were out all night long preparing for this morning s commute. all vehicles must be moved from any snow emergency routes. we ll good morning temperatures in the teens and low 20s. we ll have some light snow leaving by dawn tomorrow. just a couple of inches generally throughout the region. sun returns tomorrow with blustery winds and remaining cold. time to take a live look in and out on e bridge, a quick check elsewhere. we re looking pretty good along 66 as you head to the capitol beltway. news4 today, concurring your cable bill may be 8:30 on this monday morning, presidents day, february 15th, 2010. we re spending the holiday with our new friends here, north of the board, grouse mountain in vancouver. and they seem more than happy to celebrate with us. we thank them for coming out. just ahead, one of our favorite winter athletes is joining us. seth westcot is hoping to repeat today when he takes on his event, snowboarding cross. does he have any unusual game-day rituals, we ll talk to seth about that in a couple of minutes. that s right. and now you guys have been walking around, have you seen these japa dog carts? well giada delaurentis will tell us about the must-eat foods. did you guys get a load of kd lang s performance, she is here this morning. i think it was the best performance of all the opening ceremonies, i really do. she s here. we loo forward to that. but fit, johnny spillane, american johnny spillane made history on sunday when he won the sver medal in the nordic combined. our country s first medal ever in the sport. which features a ski jump and a cross-country skiing race, his team mates todd lodwick and are here. historic for us, first time americans have won a medal in this particular kind of race, how are you feeling this morning? i feel great. it was a good team effort by everybody. it took a lot of people to get to this point i feel fortunate to be standing here now. you were out ahead towards the end. in the end, jason lamy chappuis from france, he sort of caught up with you, .4 of a second between you and him at the end, he was ahead. are you allowing yourself to even think about that? well you know, i gave it as good of an effort as i possibly could. i was really tired at the end of the race. he snuck in there. he got through, but i m still very satisfied with silver. it s beautiful. todd, let me talk about your race, you were second after the ski jump and you ended up nishing foth. how did you feel about the event? to tell you the truth, i gave it probably the race of my life. i gave it everything i had. i left it on the table. to come up fourth definitely is disappointing. but i think we ve achieved something as a team and that shows a lot. is it true, that one of your big wishes and one other goal of yours was that you be on the today show ? is that true? what s wrong with you, todd? well, no, i m here, so it worked. the fact that you guys finished out of the top six, three americans were enter there. is this a turning point for the team, do you think? it s been a long time coming, we ve had a lot of really good results, starting with johnny s world championship victory in 2003 and we became world champions last year. i think it s a windfall of things that have led to this and now we ve gotten our first olympic medal in 8 6 years, i think there s hopefully more to come. two events left to compete in, the individual large hill event and the team relay event. any predictions? well we can just say that we ll do our best and we think right now our best will be competitive with anybody. the medal looks really nice around your neck. i ll say that, thank you all on behalf of all americans. you inspired a lot of young kids at home. i know you did. congratulations. we re cheering you. now we have the sacrificial fire pit. all right. mr. roker? suddenly it took an ugly turn. let s check your weather. we re basically looking at the temperatures. anywhere, 15 to 25 degrees below normal through the southeast and the mid plains. warm out west, including the pacific northwest. as you look at the afternoon temperatures, teens and 20s in the plains, 50s, 60s and 70s in florida. 70s and 80s in the southwest. clipper brings anywhere of three to six inches of snow. good morning, for this presidents day holiday morning, it s been sunny and cold all around the region. we re just in the teens to near 20 degrees. highs today should reach the low and mid 30s by early to mid afternoon. and by that time we should see a little light rain and snow mixed in from time to time during the afternoon and periods of light snow tonight ending after midnight and by dawn we should have a couple of inches across the region, sun returns tomorrow with blustery winds and still cold. olympic-sponsored dreamworks animation is getting ready to release a new movie how to drain your dragon. in the olympic spirit, they furnished us with how they would imagine the olympic games would have looked 1,000 years ago. let s look back at the origin of the medals ceremony. now to award medals for the greatest of all viking sports, dragon training. starting with the well-deserved third place, the horn medal. second place, the granite medal. and our symbol of excellence, the ham medal. oh, right, yes, dragons love ham. brought to you by dreamworks, how to train your dragon. and how to train your dragons opens in theaters nationwide on march 26. back in a moment, but first, friday s opening ceremony had a lot of spectacular moments. one in particular, though, seemed to mesmerize the audience inside bc place, shane poisoon s poem of more. we are millions of millions of voices shouting, keep exploring. we are more, we are surprised what the world has in store for you, it s true. canada has the what in what s new. shane joins us here at the chalet, shane, good morning and congratulations. i spoke to the creative director and producer of the show, beforehand, david atkins and i said, where did you find this guy, shane. and he said, i found him on youtube. and he approached you and said i would like to you do the poem at the opening ceremony and you were a bit stunned. my initial reaction is one of, this is never going to happen. so of course i ll say yes to it. and he really went up to bat for it and it ended up happening. so i was like, oh, my god. you originally wrote, we are more for the canadian tourism board. that s correct. and it was a little bit longer. what was the biggest audience you had performed that r, prior to opening night? well i perform in a number of different bands as well, so i ve done a lot of folk festivals. so i ve been in front of large audiences. but it was the realization, that, billions of people are going to see this. you re standing on the stage and thinking three billion people a watching this all around the world what was your level of nervousness? three the roof, terrified. first of all, i m tremendously scared of heights. so to be up at that level was thanks, david atkins. he made me feel very safe. he had me tethered in and it was a lot of room to work with. but one moment he asked me, maybe you know, walk around. and i was like, if i get near that edge, i m falling off. the poem had a couple of really very poignant moments. and you talk about the civility of the canadian people. i d like to run a little clip on that and talk about it on the other side. sure. and some say what defines us is something as simple as please and thank you. and as for your welcome? well, we say that, too. we are an experiment going right for a change. with influences that range from a to zed, and yes, we say zed, instead of z. the crowd liked that. can you explain the zed thing for people who don t live in canada? i was surprised that about the reaction to that. the only reason that was in there is my last name is corzan and it has a zed in it. and checking into hotels and going on flights, spell your last name for us, k-o-y-c-zed-a-n. that was just a small cultural difference and i didn t expect people to react the way they did. i know the response has been overwhelming since friday night. there have been all kinds of comments. what do you do for an encore, shay? i have a lot of projects on my plate right now. which unfortunately i m not allowed to talk about. but i have no plans and vanishing, i ll continue to do the spoken word for a long time. sit back, relax and enjoy it. thanks, shane, it s a pleasure toeet you. up next, can seth westcott make two gold medals in a row in snowboard cross? we re back now with today s athlete to wap. he is seth westcott, who is going to try to defend his gold medal in snowboard cross when he takes to the slopes today over at cypress mountain. i caught up with him recently and i asked him how he plans to stay on top in his wild sport. about a board like the way from z-deck. westcott! this is the essence of snowboard cross right here, westcott with the gold. going into the games in torino, not a lot of people had seen snowboard cross and so it was kind of bursting onto the scene. what was your mindt going into those games? it was a huge thing. i mean, being that it was going to be the first time for the event, the chance to make history. and seth westcott did just that taking home the gold in what turned out to be a very tight race. and basically, a photo fin h finish. i remember watching the final and for a long bit i thought you wrg go finish second. and this move that got you the lead and you hung on. it was intense. was it just the greatest moment of joy you experienced? absolutely. we never thought that we would have gotten olympic acceptance, let alone snowboard cross. it s such a feeling of you ve done it for your country. how long did it take for that aspect of it, the flag, the anthem to sink in? i don t think that sunk in until that night down in the medals plaza. that was really special. looking down from that podium and all these people that were there for me, in a lot of ways, that was, that was like, got to make all this happen. and they got to enjoy in kind of sharing in that moment. since that shining moment in 2006, a lot has changed in seth s life. he became a restaurant owner. this is kind of my home away from home. i eat dinner here every night. built a new house from the ground up. equipped with the perfect place to display his many medals. this is my budda, he s been the collector of my medals. the crown jewel of what the budda has gotten to wear, the olympic gold from 2006. i try to keep contributing to the buddha s success every year. at 33, seth is one of the older members of team usa. something he sees as an advantage. so compare the pressure now as you get ready for 2010, being the reigning gold medalist in the olympics, to the pressure going into 2006 as the reigning world champion. is it different? i think it s different, because i feel much more prepared. i hired my own personal wax tech outside the team. i spent a week redesigning all my board shapes in switzerland this summer. like i ve done all of my homework. you re saying all of this to me, seth and now i m saying, okay, you just put a lot more pressure on yourself. if you ve done all that homework and you ve taken all those steps, you have to expect to win there. yeah. the thing that i m excited about is i m going to get back to that stage. and i know that emotional energy that i ll gain on that day again. like so ny athletes, seth has his own race-day rituals. take me to the start. you know, you re standing in the starting blocks, you re looking down at the course. you re thinking of, i just i do a little positive self-talk. and i know by the time i m getting there, i shouldn t need to do anything. positive thoughts? hey, look great in this jacket? no, when i was in the start gate in torino for that final, i just kept telling myself like this is your opportunity. and this has been your dream for so long. it s time to live the dream right now and make it happen. it worked. yeah. seth spends his time away from competition heliboarding on the untouched mountains of alaska. a place where he says he finds his inner peace. i go through amazing personal progression up there every year. you still get the same thrill out of it? i do. and it s really for me, getting back to the simplicy of just being a sole mumen being out on a mountain peak, getting to interact with the mountain. one other place seth hopes to stand alone is on top of the podium in vancouver, proudly wearing another gold medal around his neck. i remember going into torino, you said to me, if i can also just shed a good light on the sport, that will be important. it seems as if you ve raised the stakes on yourself in this one. you ve already become the face of the sport. how disappointing would it be for you if you don t win the gold? i don t think it would be disappointing at all. my hope is that i perform to my capability on that day. i m the only person in the world who has ever done it. i feel like it s going to be a good day. and as we mention, themen s snowboard cross is today. you can check out complete coverage of that event right here on nbc. up next, have you ever tried a sparkle cookie? we ll talk about some of the most popular things to eat on any trip to vancouver. but first, this is today on nbc. this morning in today s olympic kitchen, the must-have foods when visiting vancouver. our good friend, italian chef, giada delaurentis has traveled the city to find them. vancouver is a food-lover s delight, a wonderful city, you re going to take us on a culinary tour with seafood. we ll start with chef robert clark of sea restaurant. what have you brought for us today. bc is known for its seafood, this is albacore tuna, some wild alaskan salmon. we have great muscles, sardines, clams. this is scallops. nice firm scallops. sea urchin oysters and bc prawns. phenomenal, tasty, sweet, got to have them. that s what you guys focus on, sustainable fish. we re moving on to hot dogs. i mentioned earlier. i was outside earlier walking around and people were swarming this cart. this is a street cart, this is japadogs and this is noriki. i ll speak for him because his english is not so great. basically they are, there s a few different types of variety of hot dogs, what makes these japadogs very special are the toppings, as you can see there s shaved seaweed. there s japanese mayonnaise, wasabi. and shaved daikon and we have edamame directly in the hot dog and people wait for hours in line to get to one of these japadogs, it s very specific to vancouver and i thought very cool. try that one. i was saying before, i never thought anything would smell more than seafood, overpower the seafood, it s the chocolate. and this is thomas haas, a fantastic pastry chef, they ve won tons and tons of accolades, he makes wonderful confections and what he s known for is the sparkle cookie. tell us about it. well it s basically a baked chocolate truffle. so best served hot, fresh from the oven. it melts, because there s no flour in it. just ground almonds, rich, dark chocolate. it s the gooey chocolate interior. now you ve had a taste of the japadogs, are you ready to go to the chocolate? i don t know. they have a sugar coating on top, right? just a little bit of icing, sugar, because we re on top of grouse mountain. ooh! that s fantastic. they melt in your mouth because it s still warm and gooey inside. one is more than enough, though, right? well let s ask the audience. less is more, right? you want to give everybody a little cookie for being here so early? everybody want one? yes. i m no food, i want to wash it down with wine. nice, thomas, thank you. all right so to end it all off. when i was here about a year and a half ago, i fell in love with this place called the salt tasting room. and this is curtis colt. there s no kitchen, there s no chef. it s in a nondiscreet back alley in gastown, vancouver. they have the most fantastic local cheeses, international cheeses, cured meats and wines that they pair with it. and they have fantastic condiments that go with it. honeycomb, a grainy guinness mustard, quince. it s so fun, kind of on the light side, really great place to go. local foodies go there. why do you think there s so much food culture in vancouver? vancouver in the last 15 or 20 years has really grown and it s been a phenomenal mixture of all different types of foods. i think today you can see what we have to offer. thank you so much. coming up, kd lang will talk about her opening ceremony performance, it was outstanding, right after th. our time right now is 8:55, we have 23 degrees right here in the nation s capital. you can tell the clouds are moving in. i m joe krebs, on this monday the 15th of february. in the news for today, the district is once again declared a snow emergency. this is in anticipation of the snow we re expected to get later today. crews are all owl night long trng to clear more snow in time for this morning s commute. the snow emergency takes effect in about four minutes from now. all vehicles must be removed from any snow emergency routes. we ll take a break now and come back and look at good morning, regional radar showing flurrs and light snow in western virginia and southwestern virginia. all part of a system that will be approaching the area this afternoon. right now in in washington. and we ll have some sun this morning and then by noontime freezing and part lir sunny. and during the afternoon we ll have some light snow mixing with rain from time to time. and overnight tonight, just periods of light snow and ending before dawn tomorrow. leaving about one to two inches on the ground of new snow across much of virginia, the district of columbia up to baltimore, farther north and west, up to four inches possible in some of the isolated locations there and mostly rain farther south and east and then sun returns tomorrow with a blustery wind. pretty light volume right now, although i expect that to increase as people get out and about. one more stop this go around, we ll check out the topside of the belt way. be careful getting out on the interstate, potentially icy. on news4 today, conquering yo we are back now with more of today on this monday morning, the 15th day of february, 2010. you re looking at a field of people who have gathered to join us here at grouse mountain, our home away from home for the next cuff many weeks as we cover the 21st winter olympic games. i m matt lauer along with meredith vieira, ann curry, al roker and natalie morales. coming up, a wrap-up of all the olympic action so far. drumroll, please, team usa jumped out to an early medal lead. the americans have won six. and germany is in second with four total. france and canada have three each. and one of the folks who tran transfixed the world during friday s opening ceremonies was native kd lang. she sang her heart out, yes, she did. and she is here this morning. she s going to be joining us live here at grouse mountain. what a beautiful song that was. also the beauty and the danger of this beautiful land. we actually sent our lester holt out to do a little search for some grizzly bears. and we re going to show you what he came across. a couple of them. that was lester s last story. he s live, too. we haven t seen lester since. that bear is big. right now the latest olympic news as she does every morning, ann s got a wrap-up of that for us. after the first week of u.s. olympic competition, u.s. is off to strong start. but it was an historic first for the host country that s making headlines. a, canada, the drought is over, alexandre bilodeau has won gold. it was olympic dream that for canadians was long overdue. it s an amazing feeling. you can t have a better feeling than that. capturing the first gold medal on home soil, alexandre bilodeau took the top spot in the men s freestyle moguls. in front of a hometown crowd, including his older brother, who has cerebral palsy. bilodeau beat out an australian skier and american bryon wilson, who took bronze. everybody is skiing on fumes as they come down the final stretch! earlier in the day, it was team usa that captured an olympic first in men s nordic combined. while missing gold by just .4 of a second, johnny spillane s silver medal is the first ever for the u.s. in this sport. that combines ski jumping with cross-country skiing. we ve worked really, really hard for a lot of years and to have it finally be coming together for everybody at the right time is awesome. meanwhile, at the rink on sunday night, love actually was a fitting theme for the american pair. amanda uvora and mark ladwig who dazzled the crowd during the pair s short program. 24.7657. receiving personal best scores. amanda s mom cried in the stands after her daughter s performance. but it was the chinese pair that finished with the lead, going into tonight s competition. the first american gold of the vancouver games belongs to hannah kearney. on saturday, kearney had a flawless run to finish the women s freestyle moguls. her teammate, shannon bahrke took bronze in the same competition. earlier on saturday, apolo ohno won silver in a dramatic finish to tie bonnie blair as the most decorated american winter olympian. receiving the bronze was american newcomer jr celski. from highs to heartbreak. the tragic luging accident still haunts the whistler sliding center, following the death of a georgian athlete. over the weekend, competition resumed after modifications to the course. but there was more fallout over a controversial statement blaming the 21-year-old for his own death. on friday, griff was visible in bc place for a night of remembrance. and also, artistry. which was the most -watched opening ceremony of a nonu.s. winter olympics. but not without a technical glitch. it appears that one of the doors is malfunctioning at this moment. with only three of the four legs raised, thefirst-ever indoor olympic cauldron was lit. afterwards, wayne gretzky carried the flame on its final leg to the outdoor location. what a sight. and of course, the events to watch today, you guys, the big events are bode miller competing in the men s downhill, the paris figure skating final and the men s snowboard cross. meantime, the weather is still having a major impact. it s causing them to change the schedule for skiers, which is great news for lindsey vonn, who is still trying to nurse the bruise on her shin. and also can you get this 8,000 tickets, snowboard cross tickets for today and tomorrow have to be basically refunded because rain has created this space where they were supposed to stand, it s basically become unstable because of rain. we re going to head to new york for the rest of the morning s top stories. amy, i didn t get a chance to tell you earlier, you were an absolutely beautiful bride, congratulations to you. thank you, everybody. i appreciate that. thanks so much. and good morning to everyone out there. investigators are looking for the cause of a deadly train accident this morning in belgium. two commuter trains hit head-on killing at least 11 people. many others were injured and it happened in a suburb of brussels in snowy weather. and snow is being blamed for a series of multivehicle pileups sunday in kansas. one of them involving about 40 cars and trucks, several people were hurt. and in pennsylvania, part of an ice rink collapsed during a youth hockey tournament. no one was injured there. u.s. and afghan forces are pushing deeper into a taliban stronghold in southern afghanistan, in a major offensive. the u.s. is apologizing for an incident sunday, when two u.s. rockets killed 12 civilians. secretary of state hillary clinton is in the middle east, she s trying to build support for sanctions against iran, which she says is intent on developing nuclear weapons. and there are new details about the suspect accused of killing three people and wounding three others friday at the university of alabama at huntsville. according to published reports, amy bishop was a suspect in a 1993 attempted mail bomb attack near boston. the target? a harvard medical school professor. police also say in 1986, she shot and killed her brother. but investigators called that shooting an accident. and valentine s day took the top spot at the box office over the weekend. taking in more than $52 million. percy jackson and the olympians: the lightning thief was second. and the wolfman was third. let s head back to matt, meredith and natalie and al. 6. thanks a lot. mr. roker, you have a check of the weather for us if. yes, we do. as we take a look, we ve got a little more winter to deal with. even though we don t have it here in the pacific northwest, we ve got winter storm warnings, watches and advisories stretching from illinois, wisconsin, minnesota, into new england and down as far as south as tennessee. what s happening? we ve got a clipper coming across. bringing snow to the north, rain to the south. and an icy mix in between. snowfall amounts? we re talking about anywhere from six to eight inches of snow. from cincinnati, columbus, pittsburgh, down to elkins, west virginia. as we move east, new england, you could seed see lite snow amounts for us as we take a look at the radar now, it is snowing lightly and a few snow flurries in west virginia that will be coming into the metro area later on this afternoon. up to 28 in washington, upper teens to near 20 in the suburbs. by mid afternoon we ll have some light snow with some light rain mixing in and overnight hours, just some passing areas of light snow al, thank you very much. can i call kd lang in here for a second? finally. we re joined by four-time grammy award winner, kd lang, who wowed the audience at friday night s opening ceremony, with a stirring rendition of the song hallelujah. in case you missed it, here s a sample. hallelujah hallelujah it was really one of the highlights of the opening ceremony. we should also mention that kd has a brand-new album out today, it s called recollection a retrospective of her 25-year singing career. kd, good morning, thanks for getting up so early. good morning. i have to tell you that after the rehearsal, i came back and i said to all of these guys, whatever you do, do not miss kd lang singing hallelujah. i thought it was absolutely the highlight. what did it feel like to be up there? it was fantastic. it was high, it was quite high. and there was a large empty mote in between me and the audience. but it was, it was actually incomprehensible. it s not something you can formulate into words, i don t think. as it turned out, the perfect song for what happened earlier in the day. i found out before i went up to sick. which dispersed any attachment i had of the performance of the song. it blew it into a more kpansi expansive, profound moment. things might know that your name is katherine dawn and you grew up on the prairie. what are all of your emotions when you see canada being under the spotlight when you see canada in the attention here? i m as every other canadian is very, very proud to be here. and i was actually, i actually sang in the closing ceremonies of the calgary olympics in 1998. i remember that. you were three i think at the time. yes. it was a whole different mood then. the song was much different th. and the outfit was a little different. and congratulations on this retrospective. obviously you started singing when you were two. and now you ve got this, there are two versions of hallelujah on the cd. we obviously knew that we were gng to be in vancouver singing hallelujah. so we put the original recorded version that was on hymns of the 49th parallel and earlier album. and a more live-sounding rendition. i have to say, seriously, hats off. it was absolutely amazing. it was an incredible opportunity and you did it beautifully. kd lang, ladies and gentlemen, nice to have you here. up next, lester holt goes on a search for grizzlies, but first, some stunning images from the first weekend of the vancouver games, courtesy of getty images. my muscles ached all over. i felt this deep lingering pain that was a complete mystery to me. my doctor diagnosed it as fibromyalgia muscle pain and then he recommended lyrica. fibromyalgia is thought to be the result of over-active nerves that cause chronic, widespread pain. lyrica is fda-approved to help relieve the unique pain of fibromyalgia. and with less pain, i can do more during my day. how sweet is that? lyrica is not for everyone. tell you doctor about any serious allergic reaction that causes swelling or affects breathing or skin, or changes eyesight including blurry vision or muscle pain with fever or tired feeling. lyrica may cause suicidal thoughts or actions in a very small number of people. some of the most common side effects of lyrica are dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain and swelling of hands and feet. do not drink alcohol while taking lyrica. you should never drive or operate machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. if you think you might have fibromyalgia, ask your doctor about lyrica. you don t decide when vegetables reach the peak of perfection. the vegetables do. at green giant, we pick vegetables only when they re perfect. then freeze them fast so they re as nutritious as fresh. 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the home of the grizzly bear. we drew straws and lester holt got the short one, so we sent him in search of the bear. lester, who we now call lefty. be very, very quiet, the bears are sleeping, it s hibernation time, in the hills behind us. before they went into hibernation, i took a walk on the wild side. take a look. welcome to grizzly country. an area that has been cled the last true wilderness. thousands of bears call british columbia home. in october, i traveled 150 miles north of vancouver to glendale cove, for a stay at the knight inlnt lodge. dean wyatt is the owner and operator. he welcomes visitors from around the world. i think people like the fact that they think they re going to be with this wild animal that s unpredictable. pleased to meet you. welcome to the knight inlet lodge. with my guide, i set out to see a grizzly in the wild. a short boat ride from the lodge, bob told me to always be on the lookout. how long before we might encounter a bear. we can encounter them anywhere. after boarding an old school bus, we then walked a trail where we saw our first sign of a grizzly. bite marks here, lots of scratch marks on it. all of these scars. bob said the bears rub trees to spread their scent and mark their territory. in this area traditionally we have the males will be in the spring, 600 pounds, 700 maybe at the most. there has been one known to be about 1100 pounds. so that s a big animal. familiar with the bears, some by name, bob says they are also familiar with him. and he does not feel the need to carry a gun. i have a bear banger in my pocket. just a thing you snap and it makes a big loud bang. and that often frightens the bears away. if that doesn t work? if that doesn t work, i ve got my pepper spray. we drove further down a logging road. and then oh, my goodness. there s a white one, look. a mother with three cubs, including a white grizzly. the white bear is one of the very rarest bears you ll ever see. rare, this bear is considered by some to have spiritual significance. while we watched it fish, the bear was focused on one thing food. before laying down for hibernation, the bears feast on salmon. bob said some of the bears will eat 30,000 to 40,000 calories per day. that s the equivalent of almost 80 big macs in 24 hours. they call that bear patches, because he has a patchy coat. he s well aware that i m here, i m keeping my distance, obviously. the bears are used to the pattern of tourists coming through here. that said, most of the viewing is done from the safety of these platforms elevated above the forest. while big, the bears are also agile. in olympic terms, the bears can run three times as fast as the fastest human. faster than a race horse? faster than a race horse. bob says he has never felt threatened. he said he looks at a bear, especially a rare sight like the white grizzly and sees nature s miracle at work. i love it, i think it s one of the greatest miracles on earth. it s important to point out there are critics who say this kind of tourism harms the bears environment. these folks say, however, they do everything to minimize the human footprint and they work to protect the bears in their natural environment. i take it back about the short straw, that s a very cool assignment. to get that close to a bear. fortunate that time of year, all they want to do is eat salmon, not people. would the ever find grizzlies here on grouse mountain? somebody told me yesterday that even in the vancouver area, they ll pop out from time to time. i don t want to say anything, but there s one right behind you. there is? there he is ah, that one, there he is. i thought you were you were going to run for the hills and leave me. no, you look down. just like that. lester, thank you very much. up next, who is your olympic crush? team usa members spill the beans right after this. 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( sneezing ) i didn t take zicam cold remedy. but i did. can you do it by 3:00 ? yes, i can how about 2:00 ? hmm. get over your cold faster. so warm and fluffy. make the most out of the most important meal of the day. make the most out of the most important meal of the day. mmmmmm. mmmmmm. mmmmmm. mmmmmm. wow! you have got to be kidding me. 80 calories? 80 calories! light & fit is so creamy and irresistibly delicious, it s hard to believe it has 80 calories versus 100 in the other leading brand. do you always eat like that? i love light & fit. light & fit. irresistible taste. fewer calories. now save money with our new super saver four packs. four cups at a great low price. welcome back to grouse mountain here in vancouver, british columbia. you know, sunday was valentine s day, so with love in the air, we decided to ask some olympic athletes a very personal question. who is your olympic crush? i would have to say my 2010 vancouver olympic crush is shaun white. i got to meet him in the last olympics. and i just think he s so cool. you ve got a catalog of athletes or something that i can go through? i can t pick out one in particular. but those ice skating girls are very pretty. gretchen bleiler, she s pretty smoking. i already dated the hottest, so who is second to her? i had a lot of fun working the other day with ted ligety, i think i have a little bit of a crush on him. not trying to get juicy on me. my teammate emily cook is basically the hottest chick around. i think brian s full of it. i like the wookie, that s my vancouver olympic crush. natalie is just my professional girlfriend. we go dancing. we go skiing, that kind of stuff. i was a little worried on the trampoline. i didn t want her to break a cheapbone or anything like that because she s got to look hot for tv, right? at the end of the day, we both punch the time clock and go our separate ways, she goes to her husband, and i ve got to go do my thing. oh my gosh. hey, now! i can tell a little spark was there. on his side, i mean you re happily married, obviously. but that s so sweet. we had a good time this week. jerry, who is your olympic crush? i don t know. okay. ann curry. i m not an olympian. we ll be back after yr local news. and other things that stop you from losing weight. join for free today and you can learn strategies like choosing filling foods so you can resist temptation, lose weight and keep it off. show hungry who s boss. hurry, join for free today, the offer won t last forever. weight watchers. stop dieting. start living. a cold start to this monday. good morning, in the news this morning. the district has once again declared a snow emergency, this is in anticipation of the snow we re expected to get later today. crews are trying to get the snow cleared by a snow emergency. you must have removed your cars from all the snow emergency routes. a texas man is in custody in tennessee awaiting extradition to maryland on chargeses he kidnapped an 11-year-old girl from prince george s county. police arrested him saturday night at a truck stop in tennessee. they said he abducted the girl from her pleasant home on saturday night. good morning, sunny and cold now, temperatures in the teens and 20s. climbing to the lower 30s. light rain mixing with light snow and overnight tonight periods of light snow leaving one to two inches commonly around the region. and now, jerry, how s the traffic? a quick check around town, 395 northbound to the 14th street bridge, all in all looking pretty good. no lane issues to report there. montgomery county, university boulevard coming off the belt way right at this location. police are headed over to check the reports of an zpept. earlier we had a broken down pick-up truck. tomorrow morning on news4 today, conquering your cable bill could be as easy as changing the chan a preview of the medal contenders who will be battling on the ice and snow today. you can watch them of course today on nbc and we ll have the results and have the winners tomorrow on today. meanwhile still ahead from here in vancouver, the men who dressed the opening ceremony. they had billions of people watching. it was a lot of pressure on them. the canadian twins who are known as d-squared, you re looking at nelly furtado and bryan adams. there they are walking on television, we ll be talking with them in a few moments. and we re going to be sample some local vancouver delicacies here at grouse mountain. and a lot of the olympic threats and just plain old folks a lot of times on the go. what s the best thing to grab in the morning? is it an energy drink or an energy bar or something else? we ll get the information from mr. eat this, not that, david zinczenko. first a check of the weather? absolutely. we ll show you our week ahead. for the early part of the week we re looking at above-normal temperatures in the west. not good news for vancouver. much below-temperatures in the south and the gulf coast. into the mid-atlantic states with rain and snow in the northeast. mid-week period, we re looking for more snow in the northeast and the great lakes. below-normal temperatures in the southeast. and the west stays warm. and heading to the latter part of the week, we re looking at more normal conditions out westt during the afternoon we might get a little light rain and wet snow mixing in from time to time for a few hours. and then periods of light snow after, that should be ending after mid night tonight. and by dawn tomorrow, we may have a fresh coating of one to two inches generally around much of the region. a little more farther west and north and not much at all farther so come coming, some evident most memorable looks at the opening ceremony were created by this duo, the duo we saw a second ago, but first, these messages. just a few of the highlights of friday s opening ceremony in the vancouver games that scored huge ratings in the united states. and here in canada, two of every three canadians watched at least part of the event. and the clothing line, dsquared2 was responsible for most of the celebrity performers outfits, we ve got them here in morning, they re dean and dan caten, they re here with us this morning, good morning to both of you. you designed the looks that we saw on nelly furtado and bryan adams and sarah mclaughlin and many others. what was the inspiration for nelly furtado s dress? the inspiration for the females we were trying to take colors from the olympic rings. so the first ring was red, for nicky who sang the anthem and nelly got the blue. and yellow and gold. i think the idea was not to take too much away from the performer and the performance around them. we just want to make everybody look beautiful and chic and glorious. and nelly s dress was shot wi black threads. it looked very haute couture. did they give you free rein? or did you get to work with them? we got to work with the board of the corrective directors on the on the show. we passed drawings on with them and worked with the artistic director. the artists liked sketches from the start and the aprovement of the canadian board. and now you need to work object the closing ceremonies. thank goodness you ve done that already. and you also have a big, i guess you re going directly to europe. uh-huh. because you have a big opening there. we have the women s fashion week. it s been very intense. the thing about you that s really interesting i would think that for most clothing designers, people who do your kind of work, it would be kind of easy not to always make a point of where you re from. but you two make a point about it. you put little maple leafs on the bottom of shoes. i mean you, why is that? we re proud canadians. i think we, being canadian is making us who we are. and so we re kind of proud about that and we re kind, makes us different from our peers in our industry. so people can remember us. better by saying, yeah, the two canadian guys. and we re very proud to be canadians. so you re happy with how it all went. yes. well congratulations, it was really beautiful and it s great to speak to the two guys, i love your little flowers, your little carnations on your jacket. well, congratulations. nice to meet you dan and dean, pleasure. coming up next, the lowdown on those protein and nutrition bars, whether you re skiing or just hitting the mall. what you should be eating in the morning. e just once a month. it s simponi™, and taken with methotrexate, it helps relieve the pain, stfness, and swelling of ra with one dose a month. visit 4simponi.com to see if you qualify for a full year of cost support. simponi™ can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious and sometimes fatal events can occur, such as infections, cancer in children and adults, heart failure, nervous system disorders, liver or blood problems, and allergic reactions. before starting simponi™, your doctor should test you for tb and assess your risk of infections, including fungal infections and hepatitis b. ask your doctor if you ve been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. tell your doctor if you re prone to infections, or develop symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough, or sores. you should not start simponi™ if you have an infection. [ female announcer ] ask your rheumatologist about simponi™. just one dose, once a month. a little encouragement changes everything. molly es muy muy intelligente. and right now, hallmark s got a whole new way to do it. new gifts and cards to cheer on kids of all ages. come in and pick up a free card today. nine to choose from. only at your hallmark gold crown store. nine to choose from. we call the bunches in honey bunches of oats the prize in the box. well, now there s a prize inside the prize. pecans! pecans! baked into crunchy oat bunches. taste the delicious surprise in every spoonful. honey bunches of oats with pecan bunches. beautiful. let s go to last night s highlights. there s mom and dad cleaning up. and there s the meatloaf. yuck. look what sometimes happens with the ordinary bag. it slips, oh, bingo, it falls in. mom was mad. mom should have used glad forceflex with the new stretchable drawstring that grips the can and stays in place. plus, it has the stretchable strength of forceflex. that s all today for glad tv. both: don t get mad get glad! pancakes! from dawn til sunset, i ll never walk away blueberry pancakes are so good [ male announcer ] bisquick. pancake lovers unite. [ female announcer ] you can t pass inspection with pieces left behind. luckily, charmin ultra strong is soft and more durable, so you re left with a more dependable clean. fewer pieces left behind. charmin ultra strong. this morning an olympic-style edition of eat this not that. whether you re hitting the slopes or just heading to work. you need to eat something in the morning it make it through the day. many reach nor energy bars, but david zinczenko, the editor of men s health magazine is here with more. you re getting ready to run out the door. what are some of your alternatives? you ve got cereal. you ve got something like this smart start. this is a smart start for your dentist, okay? he s thrilled, his kids college is paid for. it s got more sugar than a bowl, than a cup of fruit loops. you re looking at 14 grams of sugar. if you go with something like this shredded wheat, fewer calories, zero sugar, a great way to start your day. you re going to shred the slopes and shed on the scale. the serving size? the problem is it says 170, 190, add the milk and you eat it like a normal person and you re at 500, 600 calories. and the bread here? the problem with the cinnamon-raisin bagel, it s empty camries, it s a nutritional zero. what you want to do is get something like a whole wheat english muffin, fiber, healthy fats. people think fat makes you fat, it doesn t. what s good about this is it shuttles the cholesterol out of your body like a bobsled. it s feweralories before you even spread anything on the bagel. power bars, energy bars? the deal with them, this one has more than 40 ingredients, that has more than 50 ingredients. if you are what you eat, you re going to become a very complicated person. the other thing is with these ingredients you have things like fractionized palm kernel oil. what s that? i don t know, but if i m skiing, i don t want anything fractionized. i want the whole thing. you go with something like a lara bar, it s only got something like a three ingredients and 170 calories, dates, cherries, almonds, three things you can pick off an actual tree. real food means real whaet loss. energy drinks? the thing about energy drinks is again you get a lot of calories, you get a lot of sugar, they re called functional beverages, but the function is to make you fat. you get 140 calories here, 34 grams of sugar. you go to starbucks and you get something like the cafe americano venti-sized, it s 25 calories. so if you re coming off the slopes and you want to replenish muscles and you go with something like hot chocolate or skim chocolate milk you ll get a perfect ratio of protein and carbs. what about fruit? the problem with the mike and ikes and the skittles and the gummy bears, it s got a lot of sugar, you eat the mike and ikes and snash on them, and then you crash and you re looking for wendy s or mickey-d. if you go for something like the real food, the dates and almonds, you ll get the sugar fix, but you re going to have fewer calories, protein and fiber. what about a sweet and savory. it s a slippery slope. it s a black diamond trail, once you commit, you can t turn back. here you re going to get a lot of fat and calories. if you go with something like the wasabi beans, you you get a lot of fat and protein. you like to call them something. you know you called them something. colon blower? i don t remember saying that. that was you. i don t remember that. and we get down to, the apres-ski, you want a good drink. the problem with the big-foot ale, it should be renamed the big-gut ale. people think this is an indulgence, it s only 125 calorie, the guinness. you follow that with the wasabi peas and you re getting a little help down the slope. ladies and gentlemen, al roker. david zinczenko. this morning in today s olympic kitchen, the food right here on grouse mountain. we ve commanded the restaurant here in grouse mountain and turned it into our private kitchen and we re here inside this area, with the executive chef of grouse mountain resort. i was hanging with a bunch of canadians this weekend, they were saying when i told them that i was hanging out here at grouse mountain this week. th said, have you had the food? the food there is fantastic. you ve got quite a reputation. yeah, it s great. we have a great time up here and it s great to have you guys up here also, it s a fash louse time. it must be fun 24 hours a day, right? i m trying to figure that out. how are you doing with that? we ve got staff here 24 hours a day. you oer the easy kind of casual food and then the upscale food. this morning we re going upscale. i m here, right, so we re going upscale. specifically for you, perfect. we also have black cod. how do you make it here? for this dish we re going to pan-sear it and roast it in the pan and giada has the braised lentils up and running. she started off with a little duck fat and sauteed off carrots, onions and celery and leek. and then veal in red wine. these hold their shape nice and they re small and you can use it as a salad or a garnish. and you re using duck fat, that s unusual? i love the flavor of it. you can smell, get the smell of the aroma. it s a warm flavor. let s do this with the cod then. the cod was done earlier. i m going to get the other component going here. the black cod is also known here as sable fish and they re the same. when you go to restaurants and see black cod, it s sable fish. why don t they call it sable fish. we call it sable fish. but it s not technically a cod. don t get him started. now you just put some i put a little more duck fat in there and i ve got the king oyster mushrooms here. you ve making kind of a sunchoke puree. over here you can see them in their raw state. they re also known as jerusalem artichokes. why are they called that? let s not start. i believe the jerusalem part came from their part of the sunflower family. and the italian word for sunflower is gerud soleil. you re very knowledgeable. and what do you do to puree them? equal parts of salt and pepper and peel them and chop them small. it starting to smell really good. how lucky am i to be in the kitchen with a couple of master chefs. you re putting all of those together. and now you re going to, are you going to plate the mushrooms, right? yes, we re going going to plate them. is the fish going to sit on the mushrooms? yes. we ve put the sunchoke puree on top and the mustard seeds. black olive dust and now the lentils. beautiful. see all the work that go into making these dishes look and taste terrific? and now my king oyster mushrooms. and when you, when you it looks so beautiful. when you re making just the basic black cod. you make it just very simply, right? it s such a delicate fish in that sense you don t want to overpower it. in this pan it only tooked for that size, it only cooked for like five minutes. there you go. i ll place my black cod gently. that looks great. well done and thanks so much for hosting us this weekend. thanks. thanks, giada. good job on the lentils. now back outside to meredith, matt and natalie. ann, thank you very much. so we re just about done for this monday morning. start of our first full week here at grouse mountain. and the winter olympics. anybody have any good viewing plans today? i m interested in the pairs. snowboard cross. snowboard cross and the men s downhill with bode. and seth westcott going to repeat his gol medal in snowboard crosfrom torino, which should be great. what about you, mr. roker? i m going to see what kind of tickets i can get. you re going to go to a scalper? need tickets! i understand nbc is carrying the olympics and they re doing an excellent job. so our network? our network. the networks are. it will be fun. we ll be back here tomorrow. we ll be back here for the next nine days or something like that. and thanks to all great people that come out every morning. it s kind of a hike to get here, but they make the effort. to all the folks at grouse mountain. have a great afternoon, enjoy the olympics, we ll see you tomorrow morning from grouse mountain, bye, guys. captions by vitac www.vitac.com i was in a left raunt whres this happened, the place went berserk. this is what i m here for, this is what i ve been training for, enjoy it. a we ll get the forecast coming . in the news4 today, the district has once again declared a snow emergency. this is in anticipation of the snow we re expected to get later today. crews have been out all night long clearing the snow in preparation for today s limited commute. a snow emergency has been declared which means that all vehicles need to be removed from the snow emergency route as of now. clouds have been on the increase for the last couple hours, radar showing the leading edge of snow into west virginia and southwestern virginia. should be arriving by later on this afternoon. it s cold now, now 30 degrees in washington and by the time this period of light snow ends, by dawn tomorrow, we ll have, oh, one to two inches throughout much of the region and a little bit more farer west and north. two to four inches there and a mix of rain farther south and east. take a live look around connecticut avenue, crews continue to clean up, all the ice and snow just below the circle. one more stop, i-95 in virginia both northbound and southbound between the belt way and the ought oughter loop looking pretty good. the simple steps you can take to host: could switching to geico really save you 15% or more on car insurance? host: does charlie daniels play a mean fiddle? fiddle music charlie: vo: geico. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. captions paid for by nbc-universal television captions paid for by nbc-universal television hey, everybody. happy monday, known as fun day around here. yes, it is. it s february 15th. hoda and i are in beautiful downtown new york. a look at our crowd. and we ve g a very excited crowd out there. we should point this out. there is a crowd in vancouver, we ve seen it, but i don t think it measures up to our hardy crowd we have at 30 rock. we re glad to be in a studio. it is like a morgue down here, i have to tell you. down in the boughs of the earth where they keep me, i m the only one down there, and the security guard. you two? yeah. having a really good time down there. i can t believe of the crowd that show ed up. it s president s day. vacation. public schools are off this week and they knew i was coming back from my little weekend. we want to encourage people to come down here because we re lonely. we would love them to, yes. our place down in ocean reef in the northern tip of keylargo, saturday night i had to sing with this head cold, right? how was that? nobody there knew. i sang the part i could sing. when i knew i couldn t hit the high notes i went, that s why we re here, to give, because when somebody cares that s called a pro, baby. we raised $2 million that night. oh, what s that for? it s for all the different charities outside of our very blessed area, you know. the keys have been hit really, really hard by the economic depression, recession and down there it s pretty much a depression in many areas. sure. people that are blessed are supposed to do, hoda woman. help out. help. we sang a song we sung on everyone has a story. it was fun. thank you to everyone. coming to our house for dinner that frank gifford has to cook and sleeping in our new guest room, i hope these people aren t perverts. who? they seemed like very nice people and coming to the today show the very next day, you and i are taking them out to lunch, thank you very much. what are you talking about? $85,000, somebody paid for that. they re going to stay in your house and we re going to lunch with them? yes. i m going to pick up lunch. i like that. for the charity. isn t that mazing? that is mazing. that s what happens when you give people tons of alcohol before the auction starts. honestly, the thing that is were going for the kinds of prices, it was amazing. sounds like fun. what did you do that could possibly compare? anyway, i went to dinner with a nice guy on saturday night. because it was valentine s day. it was valentine s day. almost. got some beautiful flowers. you don t want to talk about him, though. no. on sunday i went and saw valentine s day the movie. not with him? no. i went with some friends. so, dinner didn t go so good. stop it. just kidding. the movie got panned by everybody. you loved it! stop panning good movies. maybe not fantastic in their cinema tchtography. it s a fun movie. shirley mcclaine is in it. she decided to confess she had an affair. like how long ago? 20 years ago. she said i felt like i had to tell you the truth. before i die. and his line was, your telling the truth makes our life a lie. it gets touching. ashton kucher is adorable. you re in love with him. admit it. don t you happen to have his autograph on that football right there? yes, i do. we are auctioning off we said we would. we had to figure out the legalities of it. i have some others on mine. hoda was at the super bowl. you got kim kardashian. kim, bob schieffer. heck of a player. archie manning, emmitt smith, ashton kucher, demi moore. chris rock, chris jenner, r.j. me, frank gifford and regis philbvenlt philbin on mine. our big guests on the show, i m going to have them add to. i like it. because we have to make this right now with no advertisement. right, they don t even know these are out there. this is going for $155, which is peanuts. and this is goi for $400. $405. go to klgandhoda com.com. mine is going to habitat for humanity in new orleans. and mine is going to the salvation army. we want to thank people helping us with this auction. there s a special way to do it. it s an auction management firm. did you know i didn t even know they had those things. thank you very much for your help. thank you. opening ceremony, if you watched the opening ceremony. i saw some. there was a moment where wayne gretsky was trying to light the thing. which is a huge, huge honor. and it s a big moment and gazillion, billion people are watching. something went wrong. technical glitch. he s waiting and waiting. here it is. he wants to light it. a lot of people are flashing. he s waiting. how long did he actually wait? he waited. is he waiting for a cue from someone? there s actually a sound bite, this angst that you re witnessing here it looked like part of the pageantry. look at his face. look at his face. like oh, no. matt actually talk ed to him about this special moment. let s listen to that interview. what was going through your mind? there was that awkward minute or two. yeah. it was we were nervous for everybody. and we were sitting there, we had ear pieces. so, they were talking to us, telling us relax, stay calm. partway through it, we heard the producer, david atkins say, wow, can we hand crank it and get it up? that s when we knew there was an issue. i was standing there. i knew i was running out of the building to light the one outside. i was kind of saying, if somebody tells me to switch with katri katrina, she could light this one and all four of us could light something. i didn t know if this was a surprise. unless you ve been there and gone through those kinds of things, it s unbelievable what s going through your head when you re supposed to be looking like i m fine. i m fine. a lot of people i was looking at my twitter page. they said they never would have known anything was going on. yeah. it s like my high notes. fake it, baby. yeah, exactly. for all of us now it turned into a big thing. he will never forget that. valentine s day at the rangers game and somebody always wants to propose to somebody. especially on valentine s day. this happened. the guy got out there and the scoreboard read, melissa, will you be my blueshirt bride? watch her. she shakes her head. she left. she gets up to leave. here it is. yeah, will you be my blueshirt bride? look at that. oh, my gosh. first, she looks like she might say yes. i wouldn t do that unless i was absolutely sure what the answer was going to be. boo ing in the audience. at her or him? i don t know. who would you think? if i didn t want to marry somebody, i wouldn t want to be embarrassed like that. certain things in life should be private. i agree. why do people propose in public? that shoulbe an intimate moment. it shouldn t be for everyone, right? they want it to be a memorable moment, not intimate. that s the big difference. that s the trouble with our culture anyway, everybody needs their 15 seconds of fame. they do. i would love to know if there s been a statistic done on how many people that had public displays like that, how long their marriages lasted. that s actually a very interesting point. i think things through, hoda woman. sara is at the olympics but look who s sitting in. adam. he left us as a producer here to go into the grave shift. graveyard shift. you re just extending your graveyard a little longer. why not? what s an extra hour for you two lovely ladie we missed you. we missed you terribly. you re with us for the next two week, right? you got it. what do you have for us, honey? scoreboard proposal, men should learn that jumbo-tron proposals are a no-no, then jackie says i feel sorry for him but feel more sorry for him if she had said yes but was unaware of her choice. somebody is thinking through. thank you, adam. we re going to talk to sara, who is standing by in cal in vancouver. i want to say calgary. health minutes a little later. now it is time for today s olympic highlights from the xxi games that kicked off friday night. miss sara haines has it all for us. you look beautiful. thank you. did you see my entourage behind me? they all sit about four feet tall. i see your posse. they look good. you were at opening ceremonies. how were they, sara? one of the most exhilarating moments of my lives. there was such an us feeling. it was like we were going to break out into we are the world, such a motivational and positive thing for everyone that marched through that stadium. the video we re looking at, sara, are those whales. i loved, loved, loved that moment. and the downhill skiing was incredible. how much of the fact of the georgian athlete s death did you sense there at the time, sara? it was actually in addition to being excited when you saw the u.s.a. enter or the hometown favorites of canada, you felt something so deep and poignant when we saw the republic of georgia march in. and that there was someone missing. right. we were reading in the papers today how they had to make some changes to that track and there were several accidents. up to maybe 12, we heard. on that track, yeah. what have they done, sara, to combat that? the newest thing out is that he actually told his father he was scared of racing on the track. and the buds before this ever happened, people were scared. it was the fastest track. there was already trepidation with racing on this track. the course has been shortened. men and women start at the same point. that translates to about five miles per hour slower, which is good. it was going pretty fast. the wooden wall was constructed over the bars that he hit as well as other beams being wrapped with padding. you wonder why that was not seen as a potential problem ahead of time. right. because we were reading there werewo other crashes on that same track and one girl was actually also unconscious zblun conscious, yes. in a training run. higher up on the course. let s move on to happier things, if we can. canadians won a gold medal. for the first time on their own soil, which is awesome. canadians did win their first gold and the excitement of alexander i cannot say this. it was crazy. he dedicated that race to his brother, who suffers from cerebral palsy. wasn t it his brother s birthday? so, when he came down, i hear he went right over to him and said happy birthday to him. those are the kind of moments that only the olympics seem to be able to provide. absolutely. it s always about the human moment. how precious is that? sweet. sara, too, the u.s. team, u.s. girls in the mogul thing, that was a moment. we got a gold and we got a bronze. yes, hannah kearney got our gold for us. that was an upset, wasn t it, sara? it was an upset. it was definitely a race she won and not a race lost by jennifer. when she came down that hill, both of them had such a great run. but she definitely took that, due to her performance. it was above and beyond. she knew it when she crossed the finish line. look at that. i can t imagine they re not going to have knee troubles later in life. i walk in new york city and ve knee troubles. the song they played was the party in the u.s.a. song by miley cyrus. how about apolo ohno? that was a weird race to watch, those two guys wiped out. they did lose the race. that s called life, hoda. one person s tragedy is another person s victory. that s one that you just knew the race was over. and to watch one korean racer to hit the other, for both of them to wipe out and for ohno to get the silver it was so surreal and it happened so fast. now he is tied up with bonnie blair with the most medals. what s coming up? bode miller and the pairs skating, five top pairs are within six points of each other. it s going to be a good one. good job. nice job, sara. really good job, sweetheart. adam s not leaving, by the way, sara. adam, get out of my chair! up next, common myth that is could be bad for your health, right after this. is brought to you by kellogg s special k products. feeling tired all the time to constant headaches, but enough about hoda, to when to call the doctor, there are misconceptions and perceptions out there. yes, there are. helping us sort out the ones that are dangerous to our well-being from woman s day. you re a miniature adorable thing. thanks, guys. some of these myths, a lot of us have this thing where we do feel sluggish and tired and we think that s part of life. it s hard to tell when, but if you feel sluggish for more than four weeks. how about 40 years? well or if for two weeks you feel so tired that you can t get up, you can t do your normal function? if there s nothing else stressful, no concrete reason you can point to, you can see your doctor. what could that even be? stress, if you re going through a stressful period of time at work or you re not getting sleep, you have kids. those are things that can make you tired. a lot of us talk to our friends and colleagues, we go online to figure out what s wrong with us as opposed to going to a doctor. we were talking a little earlier i had a horrendous head cold. i know what a cold is. there s no reason to go to a doctor who tells uh-uh have a head cold. as longs it starts to get better. we were talking about the homeopathic way. if i m going to take something that s going to mask all my symptoms where are those symptoms going? isn t that the body s way of detoxing? right. you shouldn t mask the symptoms, that your body is working through the illness. that s another myth. people take more otc medicines when they feel sick, thinking they ll work better but that s really dangerous. and mix them with things they shouldn t mix them with? you don t want to take that and also take a pain reliever. if you feel really sick and take some nyquil and then you take something else, what s the harm? it can tax your liver if you take too much. older women don t need to worry about stds. i knew you were going to laugh. you re like a child. they re on the uprise. it s unbelievable. for women 45 and older, stds have doubled. why is that? i think people don t use people are worried about getting pregnant when you re younger. you re much more aware of protection, but actually when you get older, you re at a little bit of a higher risk for contracting std because there s not as much lubrication down there. and the vaginal walls thinner. sorry, i had to say it. why? it s the truth. it can tear. men have cialis and vitalis. don t use vitalis. it s not going to work. then they re much more sexually active after a certain age than they used to be. and women have to protect themselves. and divorced and dating later. yes, definitely. if you are having a heart attack you re going to feel chest pains. everyone thinks of the hollywood heart attack. for women especially, you often don t have the chest pain. you can have sudden shortness of breath, pain in the back, in the jaw, on your left side. so, it doesn t matter. you don t have to have the chest pain. if you can feel extreme fatigue, don t be afraid to call 911 and say i think i m having a heart attack. american heart association did a survey who showed women didn t want to call 911. they were more likely to call 911 if they thought somebody else was having a heart attack. more women die of heart disease than anything else. yes. woman s day s big mission is to raise awareness of heart disease in women. if my doctor doesn t call with test results i must be perfectly fine. people just assume that s part of their job. no news is not necessarily good news. they could have forgotten, especially if the results have to get faxed from somewhere else. what you should do, getting a test, ask thdoctor in the office how long is it going to take for these test results to come back? and if you don t get a call back, call them. be proactive about it. good stuff, amy. thank you so much. thank you so much. we re going to talk about lindsey vonn in a little bit. all the buzz, coming up in a little bit. talk me through it. how did it go? we re back on this monday. that means it s time for today s buzz, keeping you in the loop on all the best celebrity and entertainment news. that blah, blah song we like. from the winter opening sceremoy to john mayer s shocking comments, we ve got it all coved from bravo, andy. welcome. were you watching the opening ceremony? i was. also a fan of sara s. yes. sara is buzz worthy this morning. yes, she is. i loved the opening ceremies from the olympians, ralph lauren outfits. ralph can dress a person, boy. ralph can dress someone. put it on those great body. i thought they looked great. i love these whales. i loved t whales. i loved the malfunction. i thought it was fascinating to watch. did you? i loved shaun white s kind of farrah fawcett hair. what about k.d.lang? i thought she was fascinating. she told our gang earlier today she only heard five minutes before about the death of the georgian athlete. and the song was simultaneously celebratory and mournful. i thought it was the highlight of the night. wondering where celine dion was. she s a canadian. they re saying maybe closing ceremonies we ll see her. they re saying closing ceremonies, but her husband was saying she s trying to get ivf. have a baby. people are holding out hope that she ll be at the closing ceremonies as well. certainly canadians most famous singer. what about howie mandell? what about ann murray? the we are the world video had everybody in it. here is what, my friend. what? i thought it stunk. i didn t see it. it s for a great cause. t didn t stink. i am not into the we are the world. here is why. you can t auto tune in we are the world. you will had lil wayne using auto tune. what s wrong with that? i think it s bad. by the way, you can t have gladys knight at the we are the world taping and not give her a solo. how do you not give gladys knight a solo celie dion didn t get a solo. she did. she did cyndi lauper s part. i wasn t into it. it didn t stink. that s going too far. i have strong opinions. did they go too far? they added a little haiti rap. hoda loves that stuff. i loved it. i loved watching those singers together. what you don t love is what john mayer said. why is he doing this to himself? he needs to shut it. he s having his kanye moment. the back story is he used n word in a story for playboy, and wasn t into black women. that s a nice way of saying what he said. sexually, he s not attracted. sexually, he s not attracted to black women. it was how he said it that was icky. how he said it was disgusting. he talked about details of his sex life with jessica simpson. the most ungentlemanly thing who is going date him now? talk about not kiss and tell but not mm and tell. ho will date him? all of tiger s ex-girlfriends would be happy to. that s a big pool. he went beyond saying that he was sorry. he cried a little bit at his concert, he tweeted, huge twitter following which maybe goes to why he is in a mode of oversharing. why does he feel like he has to share every detail? let me ask you a question. if he had not overshared, do you ladies find him attractive? no. i don t anymore. right. i can t separate. you can t separate the two? there s always been a cavalier attitude about women that i sensed from him. well, there you go. that i don t like in any man. i like his music a lot zblie think he s talented. and maybe he s just young and needs to learn. he has said i m done oversharing, done saying so much in interviews. because it blew up in his face. yes, exactly. it s better to say too much than never to say what you need to say, that s his song. that s his song. and that s the mistake. what about the valentine s day movie? you loved it. horrible reviews. i know. i love gary marshall, though. he knows how to tell a good tale. have you seen it? i haven t. julia roberts made $3 million for six minutes of screen time but the movie made $6 million. it was worth the investment. her best line comes, if you haven t seen it, after the show in the credits. stay for the credits. stay for the credits. that moment is so we don t have any time to talk about this woman who is claiming she was impregnant nated twice. if there s one thing you and i know, you can t trust a porn star. how many times have we talked about that? i ve had such bad experience with them. we ll talk about lindsey vonn, injured american skier, hear what her prospects are for these olympics, after this. this olympics, all eye s are on u.s. skier lindsey vonn and whether she can battle through the pain of her shin injur to go for gold in five competiti s competitions. after welcod delays from mother nature, vonn hit the slopes for the first time sunday in a practice run. matt caught up with her after that and asked her how it felt to finally get back out there. it was really nice. i mean, it was a lot better than i anticipated. i mean, i ve been up there on the hill before, you know, a couple of days for the inspection and things like that, but i haven t really had a chance to really push my shin and see how it feels. and today, you know, i got out there and i ained slalom which, of all the events i thought it would be the most difficult. not an official training run? no. how hard did you push yourself? i pushed it pretty hard. it was painful but it was definitely very manageable. everything has been canceled so i ve been taking the time off. today i went out there, really trying to test it out and i was really pleasantly surprised. are you worried about the day after a day like today? is this one of these iuries where it s getting better just because of time and can a run like today, when you push yourself, mean it s going to hurt more tomorrow? i m always really careful not to push it too far. you know, if it starts to really, really hurt then i know i need to back off because i don t want to make it worse. but i think just this time that i ve had, you know, these four extra day that is mother nature has given me has just been a godsend. i don t want to make it sound too dramatic, but mother nature is a lindsey vonn fan apparently. i think so. it s extraordinary. you are getting exactly what you needed, and that s time. yeah, exactly. because of the weather and because of some of the shuffling of the schedule, as it stands now and this is without any further scheduling shifts you re going to ski five medal events in ten days. yeah. on an injured shin. it s going to be tough, but at this point it s really manageable. so, bring it on! when you look back at the last two weeks, lindsey, and all that s happened since the time you ve injured this and how you ve handled it, the way you ve dealt with it publicly and privately, is there anything you wish you could have done differently? you know, i ve been really open and honest about my injury, and i wouldn t change that, you know. i don t want to hide anything. i m laying it all out there and i m doing the best i can every day, and that s all i can do. and we last spoke on tuesd night, which was the night you first told anyone that you had this injury. and i could see in your eyes, it was very troubling to you. how would you describe your mood today versus then? well, i m smiling. and it s a natural, unforced smile. i was in a much different place mentally than i am now. now i feel like, okay, i can do something here, you know. it s not just am i going to race? can i do this? it s okay, i want to win. i want to go out there and ski my best. at least now i know i can ski and i ll be racing and that puts a huge smile on my face. first race for you is what now? downhill on wednesday. if you win that race, people are going to say, she made more of this injury than she should have. if you finish tenth in that race they re going to say, these aren t going to be her games. are you going to listen to what they say at the end of that race? i think it s been helping me to not hear what other people are saying, you know. just stay focused on getting my shin better and trying to ski. i m not going to listen to what anyone says. i m just going to go out there and do my best. i don t think it s just mother nature that loves lindsey vonn. i think matt lauer does, too. kind of looks that way. we all do. i never met her before. a lovely young woman. i m going to start following her on twitter. she does tweet how she s feeling. she s giving us bits and pieces. but not too much. good for you, lindsey. one pot. just one. no kind of pot, just a one-pot meal to heat up your winter nights. don t get all excited. right after this. in today s kitchen we re gettin saucy and spicy with indian-inspired one-pot meal. alexandra garnecelli and the host of alex s day off on the food network. how are you, darling? finally not the plain old, plain old chicken breast. and not italian. it s more indian. you re right. we start with an italian cacciatore idea. in olive oil? i browned some chicken thighs and legs, my favorite part of the chicken. we re tired of breasts, chicken breasts. speak for yourself. the unsung hero of chicken. it s more moist. absolutely. cumin and chili flakes. the chicken broth. you get the that aromatherapy. some sliced onion. i like to use white onion. mild. sweet. i love that. garlic cloves cut in half and throw it in there. one-pot meal it s so easy. throw in the garlic clove, nice and big. minimal chopping, minimum grief. that wonderful supple garlic clove at the end and a nice knob of fresh ginger grated. the combination of the spices. that smells great. and the onions, right? wish i could smell. got a shnozz full. you know what i mean? oh, god. this will clear your sinuses in no time. and aromatic cinnamon stick. what? for that little i know, it s getting crazy and fresh bay leaf and then just a can of peeled tomatoes. whole tomatoes? that s right. put some elbow grease into it, hoda. how long does this cook up? you simmer it? yeah, for ten minutes or so, and put the chicken right back in here. again, these were cooked and through and through or did you just brown them? i just browned them. they re still a little pink on the inside but percolate in this liquid. for how long, sweetie? ten minutes. that s awfully easy. the thing i love about this dish, it feels homey. it looks winter to me. it looks like on a winter like we re about to get more snow here. exactly. i ll take the pot home and call it dinner. the other thing is, when you re driving your car and you park it perfectly in a parking spot, parking these pieces of chicken in there. park them right where they fit, baby. it s so satisfying. let this bubble on the stove and you end up with this. oh, that s beautiful. that is gorgeous. it just bubbles on the stove. let s see how good it really is, shall we, alex? please. you re not do you want this one? oh, no, you please, taste. i practiced for this dish so many times. with it, a little cab can you hand me that big knife? i know. here you go. i like that. you see, that s someone who cooks, somebody who grabs a big knife. she doesn t cook. are you kidding me? that s hysterical. do not listen to her, alex. she makes one kind of fish. what do you make? tilapia. i feel like i m sandwiched in the middle of this. i love the cinnamon thing. isn t that cool? really delicious. what kind of red with this? this is an argentinian, fruity, but not too sweet. alex, thank you so much. up next, looks of the olympics. you ll like it. billions of people around the world tuned in on friday to watch the opening ceremony in vancouver. and with all those dramatic performances, you can bet there were world-class makeup artists creating the looks. so sara haines went behind the scenes to see how they pulled it all off. reporter: this ekend kicked off the xxi winter olympic games. 31 million americans watched the opening ceremony, including performances by nellie fratanno and hockey great wayne gretsky. the artist behind the looks of almost 2,000 performers, canadian-born makeup company, mac. i hopped in the chair to try out three of the looks worn at the opening ceremony. what we re starting with is a look that we did for the audience leaders, athlete marshals, anybody in white. white oompa loompas, thank you. very naur, very west coast. they asked me for a typical vancouver look. reporter: the second took inspiration from the red carpet. mom was there watching me. don t want her to look 25 when she s 16. sporty look is what this would look like. with my sporty red lips, i was runway ready. next up, the bright colors and bold tattoos seen on the celtic fiddlers and tap dancers. it s your gng out makeup, your performing makeup. do they give you absolutely, absolutely. i have a 6-year-old. i get to tell him i was there. your mom got to be part of you know? that s emotional for me. that s big. you re done. i m done. do you want to see? yes, i do. oh! you re ready to tap. i am so ready to tap. i m tapping. can you hear the music? i can. the music is in her head. i liked the natural look on sara. me, too. we have nice people who are visiting. heather, crystal and jane wilson, special guests of ours. so glad you could come see us today. they came in from north carolina and atlanta. and atlanta, that s exactly right. thank you for visiting. come on down and see us on the plaza, okay? yes. looat all these great people who are here with us. come back tomorrow. bye, everybody. have an awesome day. have a great fun day. not monday.