ancouver may not be a city with the cachet that London or New York has, but it’s still aiming to achieve some ambitious goals when it hosts the 2010 Olympic Games.

At a recent lunch to commence the two-year countdown to the opening of the games, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell stated that the games don’t just belong to B.C., but to each and every Canadian across the country. He went on to say that up to three billion viewers will be watching as the Olympic torch makes its way across Canada in the longest torch relay in the history of the Olympics.

The two-year countdown marks the accomplishments that the Vancouver Olympic Games Organizing Committee (Vanoc) has managed to achieve since winning the bid to host the games over four years ago. Since then, there have been massive efforts put into planning, budgeting, constructing, marketing, negotiating, oh, and did I mention fund raising?

Nonetheless, there’s still plenty left to do. In fact, as Vanoc chairman Jack Poole so eloquently broke it down, $1.5-billion worth of work needs to be finished within approximately 730 days. Consequently, things are shifting into full throttle to ensure that come 2010 (doesn’t that year sound so futuristic?) everything will be perfectly primped and ready to go. An abundance of management teams are working hard to ensure that everything from fiscal concerns to logistics go as smoothly as possible.

Of course, an event of this magnitude can’t go on without the help of a large number of volunteers – 25,000 to be exact. Vanoc opened its website to volunteer applications today and received a deluge of candidates looking to offer their time towards making these Olympics as successful as – or better than – the 1988 Olympic Games in Calgary. Within several hours, the committee received over 1,500 applications from citizens in a dozen countries worldwide, as well as every province and territory in Canada. By early afternoon, nearly 5,000 people from 24 countries had applied to assist with preparations (if only I had had that many interested folks looking to help me out during my one of many moves...sigh). Fortunately, the site withstood the traffic influx and organizers say they expect to receive 100,000 applications within the next six weeks, meaning they’ll have a good pool to select qualified candidates form. Nothing like a surfeit of goodwill to start the day!

Those interested in applying should check out vancouver2010.com to submit their application. Everyone else can set their countdown timers to 2010 and get ready for an Olympic celebration that will truly put Vancouver - and Canada - on the map.