21 February 2006

Random Olympic thoughts:

* I'd hate to be the person who has to run against the Congressperson who sponsored the bill expiditing Tanith Belbin's US citizenship. Incumbency is enough of an advantage, never mind having a silver medal to go with it.

* For all the talk about the lack of goaltending chops on the US men's hockey team, it's the offense that's clearly the problem. In four games they've scored 9 goals. Seven were put up against Latvia and Kazahkstan. They're going to need more than one goal to put away the Russians, never mind upsetting the Finns in the quarters.

* At what point does our quadrennial love affair with curling develop into something more regular? Can we get Worlds to interrupt some of the wall to wall poker showing on the ESPN family of networks?

* The wife and I came to the conclusion that women's curling may have the cutest set of competitors across the field. Granted, we didn't see all the teams, and spending a couple of hours yesterday contemplating Rona Martin's mug would lead anyone to question this conclusion, but it still seems likely.

Not sure if this is female-only or Olympics-wide. Nominations are welcome, of course.

* With the coming of four man bobsled, I hope NBC doesn't cut things too fine and deprive us of some of the less traditional teams. I'd hate to miss Jamaica or Brazil so they could squeeze in five more minutes of analysis on figure skating. Because, you know, there's not enough time on that show they created specifically to discuss figure skating.

* It's much easier waking up to biathlon than other sports. The skiing is peaceful, and the shooting adheres to one simple rule: don't miss.

* Is Shani Davis the athletic equivalent of Kanye West? Both are African-American men from Chicago whose most public outspoken moment was carried nationally by NBC. If someone tells me that Davis survived a car accident to become a skater, I'm heading to the bunker.

8 comments:

Greg said...

Martin, Norberg and Nordby do drag the field down a bit, but with the obvious exception of the sequin pseudosports -- where prettiness -- or at least an odd combination of unapporoachability and sluttiness -- is the point -- I'd have to agree.

James said...

Actually there is no Jamaican bobsled team this year. The squad failed to qualify for Turin/Torino, and their best competitor in Salt Lake City, went to Canada, became a citizen, and won a silver in 2-man bobsled.

Anonymous said...

As for the curling worlds, Allyson and I are thinking about heading up to Lowell to take them in. I can't afford to join the local club but we could probably front the 22.50 (damn Ticketmaster) for a single draw ticket.

Hyph

Mark said...

At the price for the single draw, you might as well get one of the $60 packages and sell off other days for face value. Gets around the thieves at Ticketmaster.

Sorry to see that Jamaica isn't sliding this year. Though it does explain the newly-minted Canadian that NBC mentioned a few times but never explained.

Anonymous said...

The U.S. finally scored some goals today against Russia, so I guess there's some hope against Finland.

As for curling, I've occasionally seen some stuff on ESPN, although I think it was a skins game competition that's a little easier to condense in an hour. It seems like with all the strategy in curling, it's tough to confine into a short period of time.

I suppose we will have to wait for the Ocho to spring up to get full coverage of the Worlds state-side. Let's just hope there's no Fred Roggin and the bread.

Allyson said...

Why so down on the curling bread, JQ? I love the curling bread! I hope they find a local bakery to make it to sell in Lowell at the worlds.

While my ESPN challenge team name gives praise to skiers, I am currently swooning over Chad Hedrick (totally hot but overall attractiveness dampened by coming across as a jerk and, apparently, being Republican) and Joey Cheek (not as hot, but really cute and a far better person which makes up for a lot in my book).

Paul Crowley said...

Having hosted the curling world's here in Victoria last year, I agree wholeheartedly that the US just doesn't get it. It's a great sport and last year's women's tournament (held in Halifax) ended with a four point triple rebound for center circle on the last shot of the match. An absolutely amazing shot. I know some cable networks down there carry CBC. Not sure whether CBC or TSN (Canadian version of ESPN), but whatever station carries it will have end to end coverage of the whole tournament.

As for cuteness, not sure if they carried the women's hockey medal ceremony down there in the states, but team USA (hands down) gets my vote for tiddly factor. For across the board cuteness though I vote for the aerialists.

Anonymous said...

That would be my congressman. Nobody really "runs" against him, since he has been in Congress since the Eisenhower administration.

For want of anything better to post, here's a breakdown of if I've been to the most populous 100 cities in the US, and if so for how...