Over the past year, and particularly in the last month, there have been a ton of rumours and innuendo flying around about the pipe events at Cypress. Will they be a repeat of last year's World Cup? Will they have the snow? Will I-Pod unleash and dethrone Shaun White's gold status?

It's anybody's guess at this point but I got a first-hand look at the venue yesterday... in the absolute pouring rain! I'm not talking a little Wet Coast dampness here, I'm talking a torential downpour. Vancouver has been much praised about the promise of a "green" Games, but this is taking it to the extreme. Cypress has already been scrambling to horde what little snow they've got this season so the mild weather and rain is just compounding an already desparate situation. Organizers are using hay bales and wood to protect the snow, tractors and dump trucks to import more, and industrial-sized, post-apocalyptic-looking choppers to heli in emergency back-up. It's like a warzone and the efforts seem like a Band-Aid solution to a severed limb of a problem. But the Games must go on!

For those riders coming off contests dropping into rock solid pipes in Calgary at the Burton Canadian Open or Aspen for X Games, things might be a bit dissapointing unless the weather does an about turn in the next few days. But we really all knew this when the venue location was announced way back — Vancouver shredding is always a roll of the dice. You never quite know what way the gamble's going to go. Let's hope for the best and some colder temps in the coming days. —Dean Seguin

Look at these steps! It's like the Stair Master trying to get up into the pipe grandstand.

Now that's some scaffolding. Can you imagine showing up to work on a Monday morning to your boss telling you to put this together?

Looking up the grandstand.

One soggy pipe.

It will be remembered as 'misty.'

Straight salvagin'

Everyone loves a big dump but this looks a little wet.