From the Games:

 Editor’s note: Michael Villani is a Newport Beach resident who is a venue announcer at the Winter Olympics. He will provide stories from his perspective on an occasional basis.

I’m in Vancouver for my third Olympiad and my third Olympics opening ceremonies and what a spectacular show we saw here at Wednesday night’s dress rehearsal at BC Place.

By the time you read this most everyone will have either seen the actual ceremony on television (unless they live in a cave), or — for those lucky enough to score a ticket, or flush enough to pay the price of admission (with the average cost about a thousand dollars per, face value, for a decent seat) — personally witnessed the epic gala’s outstanding entertainment and eye-popping effects.

My favorite part of the ceremony — next to the live opening snowboard jump through the Olympic rings, and the giant bear and the fiddling tap dancers — were the spouting whales “swimming” the length of the arena floor. The only flaw during the actual opening ceremony on Friday was a mechanical error that prevented the fourth massive torch, for the caldron-lighting ceremony, from rising out of the floor. Despite this, Artistic Director David Atkins’ $25 million budget (compared with Beijing’s $100 million) was brilliantly allocated and went a long way in an effort “To Inspire the World,” the main theme.

There was also sadness that hung over the arena and, indeed, the city of Vancouver, like the fog that shrouds the local peaks, due to the tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, who died during a Friday-morning practice run on Whistler Mountain.

Our sports presentation team along with 60,000 other paid staff and volunteers received comp tickets to the second of three nights of dress and technical rehearsals for this monumental event, which was seven years in the making.

My announcing colleague, PJ, turned to me about halfway through and said, “How do you suppose they come up with these outrageous ideas?”

I offered the theory, “They lock an already extremely creative guy in a small room, with a bunch of legal pads, a box of No. 2 pencils, and copious amounts of hallucinogenic substances for about two weeks and voila, the storyboard for an opening gala.”

Our group watched it from their assigned seats high up at one end of the arena. PJ and I, on the other hand, were in Suite 5, three suites down from NBC’s, where among others, Matt Lauer and Bob Costas were doing live feeds and then settled in to view the show. I waved, but they didn’t wave back. Oh well.

How did we come by this prime location? Well, my friend, Rob Cray, who I was a starter for when he ran the AT&T; Champions Classic Golf Tournament, in Valencia, is now the operations manager for BC Place. We had the full VIP treatment. Sweet!

My good pal Wing Lam of Wahoo’s Fish Taco calls it “having the juice.” Another of my buddies, Andrew Thompson, a teaching pro at Costa Mesa Country Club, calls it getting “hooked up.” I simply refer to it as “Relationship Cultivation, 101.”

One other quick thing: I got to view the Torch Run on Friday morning with the thousands lining both sides of Georgia Street, just outside my apartment in downtown Vancouver. What a magical thing to see.

The excitement is mounting to a fevered pitch and I’m right in the thick of it as I report from the Games.