Pan Am Games: Dispatches from the opening ceremony

After taking some time to mourn the death of a beloved raccoon, Toronto finally welcomed the Americas as the opening ceremony of the Pan Am Games took place Friday night at the Pan Am Dome, also known as the Rogers Centre.

Designed by the famed Cirque du Soleil, the show used 625 performers and celebrated everything Canadian, combining art, sport and culture in a massive display.

Join us here as we follow all the action and provide insightful(?) commentary. As the night unfolds we'll be updating our famous "Canadiana Rating." Patent pending. 

8:00 p.m. ET: The opening ceremony has begun! Let's soak up the pageantry as it happens, in real-time.  

8:02: An eagle has already shown up. This is a good sign. 

8:04: Now pyrotechnics have made their first appearance, just four minutes in. Cirque knows its audience.

8:07: Well, the CN Tower is on fire again. Just seven minutes in. Pyrotechnics. 

8:09: Actually, this is pretty cool. The gold-medal winning 4x100-metre relay team from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics is carrying the torch across Toronto. 

8:10: Replete with Donovan Bailey, descending from the heavens, bringing the torch into the Dome. After his stunt double base jumped from the CN Tower (no longer on fire). 

Current Canadiana Rating: 9.84 World Records

8:15: The eagle has made another appearance. On stage this time. He looks like a human. Slightly skeptical. 

8:20: Anyone who took the odds and bet that Mounties wouldn't make an appearance here just lost money. Slightly tragic. 

Current Canadiana Rating: 4 seasons of Due South (starring Paul Gross!)

8:24: Just checked on the CN Tower. It continues to not be on fire. Journalism done. 

8:25: Athletes have begun to march out. Predictably, Argentina is out first. Because starting in alphabetical order with Jamaica would be ludicrous.

8:26: Selfie quotient just exploded. 

8:26 (again): FYI, athletes aren't allowed to use their phones inside the stadium. By our completely arbitrary count, half of the athletes are taking pictures or texting on their phones.

Current Canadiana Rating: 0 Blackberries (and many iPhones)

8:28: Volunteers lining the athlete march are dancing with varying levels of intensity. Dances range from "extremely excited" to "why-oh-why-am-I-here?"

8:33: Consensus around the CBC office is that the Brazilian hats are nice but make them look like leprechauns. 

8:35: Everyone may be using their phones, but Chile is currently winning the "selfie stick" competition. 

8:36: Colombians have upped the hat game. Multicoloured. Fancy. 

8:42: Bermuda currently challenging Chile for the selfie stick crown. 

8:43: The Americans have arrived. People seem pleased. 

8:44: Bless those volunteers, they just keep dancing. Sort of. 

8:47: Everyone in the lower deck has been standing since the first athletes walked in. Pretty impressive.

Current Canadiana Rating: 41 red and white welcome mats

8:53: Disappointed about the lack of hats in the last little while. Please use the hashtag #MoreHatsPlease to voice your support for more hats. It likely won't be listened to. 

8:55: Peru enters the stadium, and people briefly cheer for Canada, as the flag looks very similar. The perpetrators cover up their mistake by cooly pretending they were coughing instead (or cheering for Peru). 

8:59: Peru also enters the selfie stick fray, while Puerto Rico breaks the hat drought, bringing merriment to all. 

9:03: Reports surface that the Americans danced with the volunteers. Overwhelmed to finally have dance partners, the volunteers, unsure of what to do, stand completely still. Everyone is pleased. 

9:05: Canada enters, and the audience politely bows its head and lets them walk into the stadium without disturbing their concentration.

9:05 (again): Actually, they were very loud.

Current Canadiana Rating: 714 proud hometown athletes plus a couple dozen dancing volunteers 

9:08: Controversy already. Some people do not like the Canadian uniforms. 

New Current Canadiana Rating: 714 shades of grey 

9:16: Show begins again. Hats are replaced by headbands. People are confused. 

9:17: Dancer now being affectionally labelled "Eagle Man" (unofficial) lights "a fire of dreams." Or something.

9:18: Dancers are on lifts, which is distracting. 

9:19: There appear to be people with lamps walking on stage. 

9:26: Dancers are fighting a fire with the power of lacrosse, while on trampolines. 

9:27: The current reality ceases to exist. It has been broken. 

9:28: We are in a post-apocalyptic lacrosse land now. Hope you brought your selfie stick.

Current Canadiana Rating: 1 official national sport that has become very useful post-societal meltdown

9:33: The post-apocalyptic lacrosse land has given way to a tribute to radio waves...?

9:37: The guardian of the long jump is now going to assist with the greatest jump of our adolescent life: love. Check off another sentence we never expected to write tonight, along with "post-apocalyptic lacrosse land."

9:42: Cirque performers currently doing what they do best: remarkable athletic and acrobatic feats that make audience members cringe in mock pain.

Current Canadiana Rating: Countless imaginary pulled groins

9:47: The dancers are clearing away doubt by using a variety of misshapen ladders and falling clothes. Also known as the standard method for dealing with this issue. 

9:56: Few of the performers are wearing hats. They were likely scared off by the Colombians. 

9:58: But they've brought BMX bikes, so it balances out. 

10:00: This sequence is just begging for Donovan Bailey to descend from the heavens again, hopefully to land on the shoulders of a BMX biker in an incredible show of agility. Both would be terrified. 

10:04: Pan Am and Olympic flags enter the Dome. Famed Canadians such as Pinball Clemons, Bobby Orr, Mark Messier, Chris Hadfield, Fergie Jenkins, Chantel Petitclerc, Marnie McBean and others carry them both in. 

Current Canadiana Rating: 4 acoustic ballads from a beloved astronaut musician

10:08: Fun Fact: it's been seven years since Pinball last stopped smiling. 

10:15: Pan Am Games chief Saad Rafi currently speaking. Our colleagues in the CBC Sports office who has been yelling "speech, speech, speech" for two hours straight can finally stop. Thankfully. 

10:23: Our colleagues have begun to rabidly yell "speech, speech, speech" again, in celebration of the prolonged  podium speakers. We're slightly worried, and are holding our lacrosse sticks tight. 

10:29: "Speech"-yelling colleagues have attempted an office takeover. We're luckily managing to fend them off with our lacrosse sticks. For now. 

10:30: These speeches are long.

10:34: Takeover averted once speeches end. Apologies exchanged. Casualties mourned. 

10:37: Final Cirque sequence begins. Denotes arrival of Games in Toronto. Writer muses on whether it used the HOV lane.

10:40: The writer who posted the HOV joke seen above has been escorted from the building.

10:43: Torch making its final journey. Dana Wright, Charmaine Crooks, Jillian Richardson-Briscoe are first torch bearers inside the stadium. 

10:44: Crooks is forced to do a challenging maze and is unable to find Richardson-Briscoe for a few moments. Crooks, in her steely resolve, doesn't panic (though she does possibly swear).

10:45: Really cool move here: the ceremony's torch relay was bookended with relay teams: the Atlanta champs bring the torch in. The Canadian women's 4x400 silver medallists from Los Angeles in 1984 carry it through the stadium

10:46: Now, an added, special touch. One of the medal-winners in that relay was Marita Payne-Wiggins. She has handed the torch to her son: current NBA rookie-of-the-year Andrew Wiggins. 

10:50: Wiggins passes the torch to another basketball player, and finally we get to the athlete lighting the cauldron: two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash. 

Current Canadiana Rating: 10,336 home-grown assists, including one that did literally set something on fire

10:51: Ceremony ends. The CN Tower is on fire again. Confirmed by looking through window. Journalism abounds. 

Final Canadiana Rating: 1 surprisingly large tribute to an expired raccoon