As I was driving home from the Vancouver Folk Music Festival on Sunday, I heard on the radio that the man who streaked naked at the BC Lions Game was banned for life from the Empire Field Stadium located at PNE. The incident occurred at Friday, June 16th's game against the Montreal Alouettes, and it instantly became a hot topic amongst Vancouver Twitterers who had attended the game.

You saw them at Car Free Day on Commercial Drive. You saw them at Kits Beach. You saw them in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery. They were fighting, singing, and flying, all at the same time. "They" are the capoeiristas of Axé Capoeira and they are hot.

At 11:30 Sunday morning on Commercial Drive, the bars and cafes were packed. Any place prudent enough to have a couple TV screens was literally spilling out with people wearing soccer jerseys. The first wave had arrived at 7am for the England-Germany game and now a new wave of Latin Americans were flooding the streets in anticipation of the Argentina-Mexico game.

The only other sound more ubiquitous than K'naan's World Cup 2010 anthem has to be that drone-like buzzing that has been heard at every televised football match this past week. The instrument responsible for the buzz, the vuvuzela, is a small plastic horn that can blast at an ear-piercing 127 decibels, louder than a referee's whistle and reportedly loud enough to drive away wild baboons.

On Sunday, shortly after the Brazil-Côte d'Ivoire match, the controversial horn was sounding off at Leiria Cafe on Commercial Drive. The sound of a single vuvuzela, heard up close, was surprisingly different from the grating buzz I'd been hearing on television. It was loud and jovial, more reminiscent of a conch shell than the angry bee-swarm noise that has supposedly thrown Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi off their game.

Lost amongst the just ended Stanley Cup (do they really play hockey in June?), the hustle and bustle of news about the FIFA World Cup in South Africa and a summer that can at best be described as limping into our lives might be the fact that Vancouver's very own boys of summer are back. Tonight is the Vancouver Canadians season home opener at Nat Bailey Stadium.

With the Canucks as Vancouver's only top-tier professional sports franchise, Vancouver is definitely a hockey town. It's too bad too, because a summer night at Nat Bailey stadium watching nine innings of baseball unfold is a pretty perfect way to spend a night. The beer is cold, the popcorn salty and the view from every seat is picture perfect.

The annual Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival happens this weekend, taking over the waters at the east end of False Creek and Creekside Park. Close to 180 teams from around the world will be paddling our local waters, and the festival has a full range of activities for the entire family.