'It never gets old': Olympic broadcasters look forward to the Games

Two broadcasters with P.E.I. connections are covering this very different Olympic Winter Games for CBC. 

The Olympic Winter Games in Beijing takes place from Feb. 4 to Feb. 20. They feature seven sports and 109 medal events.

Former CBC News: Compass host Bruce Rainnie is returning to the broadcast team for his tenth Games. 

"I think CBC does the best job in the world with Olympic Games," Rainnie said. 

"It's a weird one, because as you probably know, CBC isn't sending a tonne of actual commentary personnel to Beijing because of the COVID situation worldwide," he said. "These are games I will be calling out of the broadcast centre in Toronto and that's always a little different." 

Rainnie will also have to get used to a time-zone change when he covers the Games. Curling, for example, will have games at 10 p.m., 2 a.m., and 8 a.m. AT. 

Rainnie will be providing play-by-play commentary for curling — a sport Islanders pay a lot of attention to, particularly with P.E.I.'s Brett Gallant as part of Team Gushue in curling.

"Curling is a great sport to cover at an Olympics," Rainnie said. "There's a really high probability of Canadian success." 

Team Gushue is a team that's been together for eight years, a term that Rainnie calls "an eternity" in the sport of curling. 

"Gushue, who is a guy who settles for nothing but the very best, he likes who he has, and in Brett Gallant he has one of the best players in the world playing second for him," he said.

Rainnie said predicting sport is tough, but if the Gushue team plays well this time, they have a good chance of winding up on the podium. 

On the men's side of competition, there are three or four who could win gold, but on the women's side there are seven or eight top contenders, he said.

Canada's elite women's curler, Jennifer Jones, is up against competition "the deepest it's ever been," according to Rainnie. 

But, on her side? 

"Jennifer Jones might be the best curler of all time, period," Rainnie said.  "She's in a perfect mindset for this."

Rainnie, who is the president of the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame, will also cover mixed-doubles curling.

Curling Canada announced Rachel Homan and John Morris as the mixed-doubles team for Canada competing at the Beijing Olympics. The process became necessary when last month's Olympic trials in Manitoba were cancelled because of the threat of COVID-19.

'I'm chomping at the bit'

P.E.I.'s Peter Ruttgaizer is also headed to Toronto to cover the Games. 

Ruttgaizer has worked for CBC P.E.I., has covered Atlantic University Sport and was the former New York Islanders host/reporter on Madison Square Garden Network. Tokyo was his first Olympic experience with the CBC.

"I'm chomping at the bit to get going here," Ruttgaizer said. 

Ruttgaizer will be part of the CBC Olympic broadcasting team covering ski cross and snowboard events.

He will be pulling from his experience covering snowboard cross and ski cross for CBC Sports and Road to the Olympic Games. 

He said while it's a little different to cover the Olympics remotely, from Toronto, there are still some similarities. 

"The thing a lot of people don't know is that in the event we went to Beijing, we do it remotely from the broadcast centre," he said. "From your hotel to the broadcast centre and back again."

He noted that for some of the bigger name sports, you would cover it from the venue. 

"To find out I was going to do it the first time for Tokyo, it was really exciting," he said, recalling his first Games. "It's one of the more iconic events. To get a chance, regardless of what the sport is … to broadcast an Olympic Games is something you think about. To do a second one, it's amazing."

He said there's a good list of Canadians to watch in the sports he will be covering.

"Ski cross is a sport where you could see two, three medals for Canadians," he said. 

And while medals are obviously the pinnacle for athletes — calling one is a real event for broadcasters.

"The hair literally stands up," said Rainnie. "I have been so lucky to get a lot of Gold medal Canadian calls in my life. It never gets old."