Olympic Thoughts
I started watching the women’s hockey gold game and also got dragged into other events. You know - the whole “control issue” thing and “why do we always have to watch what you want to watch” whine. So I peeled back the duct tape wrapped around the remote and my hand and she flipped it back and forth:
How did the US get all these medals in skiing? Even cross-country skiing? Even Nordic-Combined? Did the levees break and finally take out all of Scandinavia? We never used to win medals in this stuff. Do the Norwegians focus only on Arctic Cod fishing now?
Glad to see that the Canadian women came out after the ceremony and stoked up and power drinking - going all Slap Shot. The Lamoureux sisters should have skated out with Buddy Holly glasses on a started a fight. At least they keep their sport traditions alive. I say bring back chew in baseball and sacking the quarterback in the NFL.
And what’s with all the crying in sports these days? The entire US women’s hockey team was going Tim Tebow. I believe this trend was started by Cindy Crosby in the 08 Stanley Cup. There’s no crying in hockey!
The Asians are miniaturizing figure skating now too. Weren’t happy with just tiny Kia cars and microchips. Dorothy Hamill looks gantor compared to these girls. You should be able to drive yourself to the arena to be allowed to compete. Where will it end? Is some Russian coach currently Indiana-Jonesing through the jungle looking for pigmy tribes? So the pigmy skater can go all Yoda on everyone’s Dooku? “A six-flip quintuple lutz - and she lands it! With a lightsaber!”
I like the whole Jan Brady impersonation that Julia Mancuso is performing. Lindsey! Lindsey! Lindsey!
Someone needs to make a poor man’s version of curling. I gather each granite rock is around $1000. I think a cinderblock with Pam spray and some O-Cedar brooms might work.
February 26th, 2010 at 9:30 AM ^
bastard:
Do the Norwegians focus only on Arctic Cod fishing now?
I'm aboutta go Viking ALL OVER YOUR ASS!
Norway is in third place in the medal count. Norway is the all-time leader in medals in Winter Olympics. If their ski technicians -- all 22 of them -- could figure out how to wax a damn ski because, like, IT'S THEIR ONLY JOB, Norway would probably be ahead of Germany in second place and have a few more golds.
Suck it.
Oh, and:
February 26th, 2010 at 11:31 AM ^
Red, white, and blue
Pants!
February 26th, 2010 at 12:21 PM ^
to these:
DRA NORGE!!!!
February 26th, 2010 at 9:39 AM ^
US Nordic Combined domination has been building over the past few years. Billy Demong and Johnny Spillane are both past World Champions. Still the medal count in the sport, USA: 4, Austria: 2, France: 1, Germany: 1, Italy: 1 (in the three events) is pretty much stunning.
You did forget about men's aerials. That is one sick sport see "Speedy" Peterson's "Hurricane" from last night. Along with snowboard halfpipe and snocross (board and skis) it gives hope we'll see more Winter X-Games events in future Olympics (snowmobile big air would be cool).
February 26th, 2010 at 9:49 AM ^
If you are an America snowboarder and you celebrate in a non-standard manner, you get kicked out of the village. If you are the Canadian Women's Hockey Team, you celebrate however you want with no consequences, including underage drinking and smoking cigars on the ice.
They should have had the class to celebrate in the locker room if they were going to smoke cigars. I can't help but see it as taunting. I hope this motivates the US team for the next meeting, wherever it may be.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:09 AM ^
Drinking age in Canada is 19 if I remember correctly, I think all of the woemen on the hockey team are old enough to have a drink in Vancouver.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:19 AM ^
that was drinking is 18. Its a Yahoo front page story.
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouver/blog/fourth_place_medal/post…-?urn=oly,224338
February 26th, 2010 at 10:21 AM ^
They have an 18 year old that scored two goals and was drinking.
http://sports.espn.go.com/olympics/winter/2010/icehockey/news/story?id=…
In my mind breaking the law IS worse than getting an inappropriate picture taken of you that is perfectly legal
February 26th, 2010 at 10:24 AM ^
I stand corrected. Ok, I have been doubly corrected and now wonder what if anything the police/olympic committe might do. On a side note, wow that is a really stupid thing to on a international broadcast.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:30 AM ^
in an Olympic gold medal win, I would be lining up jagermeister shots on the blue line.
I guess it's 19 in BC province and 18 where she's from.
Big boys are spraying and drinking bubbly after world series, stanley cup and out-in-public-not-in-locker-room after auto races.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:36 AM ^
I read that link that goes to ESPN, in the article the guy must have forgotten what a zamboni is since he used called it an ice resurfacing machine. Yes I suppose it is, but I have never heard it actually called that before.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:37 AM ^
is way out of his element writing an article that has anything to do with Hockey.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:42 AM ^
what quarter is it in the hockey game?
February 26th, 2010 at 10:47 AM ^
Isn't Zamboni actually a brand name for one type (albeit the most common one) of ice resurfacing machine? So, if it wasn't a Zamboni brand, the writer might actually be correct - even if he didn't know it when the article was written.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:58 AM ^
Zamboni was the name of the guy who invented the machine, yes there are other types/manufactors of ice resurfacing machines, but they are almost always called Zamboni's. Kleenex is a brand name of a specific type of facial tissue, but most of us don't ask for a facial tissue, we ask for a Kleenex.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:48 PM ^
But if you were writing a story for a professional media outlet, you might have to refer to it as a "tissue" to avoid legal complaints. The same might be true in this case.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:36 AM ^
here is that she is doing it in public. And while I agree with you, I think professional sports are different from the Olympics in terms of the way you should behave. Just my opinion though.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:27 PM ^
They've got to issue some kind of punishment for the girl that was drinking underage. You can't have an "Olympic loophole" in the law. The other stuff was a little crass but probably doesn't merit more than a little media criticism.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:50 AM ^
Yeah, but the Canadian women's hockey team is going to be in deep trouble from the IOC - they don't like fun. There was already talk by Rogge and his ilk that they might get rid of women's hockey after 2014 if other countries don't start to get competitive (like they did with Softball in the Summer games, even though the 2008 tournament was the most competitive one).
February 26th, 2010 at 9:53 AM ^
want the USA to advanced to the gold medal game against Canada.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:14 AM ^
My wife was saying the same thing about Julia Mancuso and her crying about not getting enough attention. I did lol at your Marcia/Jan reference. I think the ice skating thing is a lot like the gymnastics with all the twists/turns etc. The Chinese already excel at those in the summer games so not really a surpise that they are making a go in that type of event.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:07 PM ^
Mancuso got jobbed. The organizers stupidly shortened the amount of time between ski runs, and then punished Mancuso for being on the slope at the same time Vonn was. What was she supposed to do? Maybe next time the organizers should follow the radical policy of actually waiting for the previous skier to finish before sending the next person down.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:56 PM ^
Why was it stupid? Given that it was snowing and foggy, they tried to speed things up. Otherwise those that ski last are at even more of a disadvantage.
It was just bad luck that Vonn crashed and Mancuso was next.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:37 PM ^
It takes more than a minute to go down the slopes. By having them go every minute, they were virtually guaranteeing that two people would be on the slopes at the same time. It was ridiculous. As for the foggy conditions, if they deemed them unsafe, they should have simply postponed the remaining runs until the next day.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:35 AM ^
Ok....this might seem awful but I'm just going to ask anyway:
Does anyone else think they just gave that Canadian chick the bronze in figure skating because her mom died? She was pretty bad, especially compared to the two American girls.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:53 AM ^
I didn't watch it, but I know there is a human element to the judging, so I wouldn't rule it out.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:17 PM ^
I thought she did okay. But honestly, I had no idea how to differentiate most of the figure-skating performances. Same for a lot of other sports. I was watching the ski jump, and thought, "OK, it's all about landing with your feet together and not touching the ground with any other part of your body." Then I'd see someone stick a perfect landing and finish 8th.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:31 PM ^
But it certainly played a part. I think we'd have a better argument if the America had a better short program...then she might have been closer. The Canadian was amazing in the short program. Less so in the long.
But again, as I complained with the ice dancing...everyone seemed to be setting personal highs...(even those who had obvious mistakes)...and they all fell in order, just as expected. It all seem so...preordained.
Having said that, even my layman's eye can see the Korean Girl was spectacular. She deserved to win. I just don't know how they all set personal and record highs.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:05 AM ^
Was it as good for you as it was for me?
February 26th, 2010 at 11:09 AM ^
A little from Column A, a little from Column B.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:29 AM ^
of the beer bottle that makes it art.