Five Canadian athletes took part in the cauldron lighting, complete with technical difficulties
In the end, the Olympic cauldron was [meant to be] lit by five of Canada’s most acclaimed athletes. Rick Hansen brought it into the building, passed it to Catriona LeMay Doan, who passed it to Steve Nash, who passed it to Nancy Greene Raine who ran it to Wayne Gretzky. The culmination of the torch’s 106-day pan-Canadian journey was not without its hitches, as one of the cauldron pieces in BC Place didn’t rise up from the floor, leaving LeMay Doane with nothing to light. After the indoor ceremony, Gretzky ran the torch outside and was driven in the back of a pickup truck to the outdoor cauldron on the waterfront. In the pouring rain, Gretzky smiled at the screaming pedestrians running alongside his ride through the Vancouver streets.