Archive for the ‘2006 Winter Olympics’ Category:
- Both curling teams. Both of them played their hearts out. One was a little lacking in strategy. The other was a break or two from playing for gold, and still managed to take down the first medal USA has ever won in curling.
- Apollo Ohno – he may look like a hotshot, but the guy comes out and gives it his all. When he finished third in one of the races, he had the class to admit that two guys were better than him that night. What else is there to say?
- The rest of the mens hockey team. Sure, they only won one game. Realistically, though, they were the 5th or 6th best team in the olympics, and they played right up there with the best. They battled hard the whole way and made us proud. Especially the 44-year-old defenseman.
- Sasha Cohen – She fell twice and barely winced. She fought hard and earned a tough silver medal.
- Joey Cheek – He won two speedskating medals and will carry the US Flag in closing ceremonies. Also: “After winning gold in the 500, Cheek announced that he would donate his USOC bonuses to the children’s charity organization Right To Play, of which four-time Olympic gold medalist in speedskating Johann Olav Koss is the president and CEO.”
- Scott Baird – the oldest olympian ever and, as of today, the oldest olympic medal winner, as the US Men’s curling team takes Bronze.
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- A snowboarder has a huge lead within sight of the finish line and does a trick, falls down, and finishes 2nd.
- A male figure skater has a horrible final routine and blames it on missing his bus, and having a bad aura about the arena he was competing in. Yeah…
- Maybe the most-hyped US Olympian, a skiier, is in about every fourth commercial aired during prime-time, and not only does he fail to medal (at least until the date this post is submitted), but he fails to finish most of the events he’s in.
- A female skiier makes a name for herself when she crashes in a practice run. The rest of the week following every race she has, we get to hear how much her bum hurts (obviously following her 13th place finish or whatever double-digit you care to insert in it’s place).
- A speedskater decides not to race for his own country because his personal medal is more important than a chance to win two.
- Said speedskater wins a gold medal, agrees to do an interview, and then acts like a complete jerk causing everyone at home to ask the television, “why bother?”
- Said speedskater and one of his American “teammates” act in a soap opera where both of them are after the same woman (well, in this case a gold medal) and try as hard as they can to not acknowledge each other while acknoledging each other.
- US Women’s hockey team takes semi-final game for granted against a far inferior club and doesn’t even make the gold-medal game. Following the game, several players say they won’t return to the olympics if the coach is retained. Boo hoo.
- Hockey player decides, after playing horribly in the quarterfinal game, that USA hockey is a joke and is the only one to skip the final team meeting. Seems he didn’t get enough perks during his vacation in Turin.
I’ve had the opportunity to represent my country in an athletic competition. I’m fortunate to have had a chance to wear “Team USA” and red, white and blue in international competition. It’s an incredible honor, and there is a certain responsibility to it. USA does not have a responsibility to you when you are playing in these games. You have the responsibility to USA. The aformentioned people were there for themselves, not for us. I hope they don’t make plans for Vancouver.
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Mike Modano was the only member of the US team to skip the final meeting before departing Turin. That was after he belly-ached about having to do his own laundry, so to speak.
When pressed for details of his complaint, Modano cited logistical problems in getting the full team of NHL players and their families over to Europe.
“You’d think USA Hockey would be a well-oiled machine, but it’s not,” he said. “Basically we were on our own for hotels, tickets, flights, stuff like that.”
It appears that Modano thought of this as a vacation, and that certainly reflects the way he played. These are not NHL clubs with unlimited budgets. Besides that, how is USA hockey supposed to figure out, in an NHL player’s tight schedule, how to get him and his family to Turin? Modano had an NHL game Sunday night, about 48 hours before the first USA game.
Do you want some cheese with that whine, Primodano?
As Scott Burnside points out, other players didn’t complain.
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Any time a group of athletes like this have a maple leaf on their sweater and they go into an Olympic tournament and get knocked out in the quarter finals, get shut out on three occassions, and had 37 minutes of power plays during which they failed to score in those three shutout losses, that is an epic disaster.
For once, I agree with Bob McKenzie. Team USA played far superior throughout the Olympics to Canada, though they have nothing more to show for it. Canada was disastrous. I can’t help but be encouraged by how the United States played. Especially with their veterans sitting on the bench (read: Modano and Tkachuk).
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Jacobellis had a 50-yard lead in the first women’s Olympic snowboardcross final Friday in a dandy of a race. She had looked over her shoulder several times in the bottom section of the run to see where her opponents were on the course. Obviously, she could already feel the weight of that gold medal around her neck. She was excited. She was confident of her victory. And she tried to show off a bit, throwing a back-side method over the second-to-last jump. But she held the grab too long, lost her edge and tumbled to the snow.
While she was scrambling to get up, Tanja Frieden of Switzerland came around the final turn and blew by Jacobellis to steal what would have been Team USA’s fourth gold medal in snowboarding at these Olympics. But then again, Frieden didn’t really steal anything; Jacobellis gave it to her.
Glory, glory, hallelujah. I’m all for the United States, but WHAT AN IDIOT! There’s not much more satisfying than a showboater getting a little kick in the butt.
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…and we’re all just living in it.
Johnny was scheduled to skate third in the last group, at about 10:30 p.m. He said he planned to catch a bus from the Athletes Village a little after 8:30, hoping to arrive about 8:50. Unfortunately, there was no bus, so he panicked, rushing around and shouting and looking for a ride and generally expending a lot of useless energy.
“Buses had been coming every 10 minutes all week, but they changed the schedule to every half hour today, I guess,” Johnny said. “I didn’t want to wait until nine o’clock because then I wouldn’t get there until 9:15 or 9:20. Which is what happened anyway. I was yelling at people in English and they only spoke Italian.
“I was swearing. I was calling people and swearing. I was very unprofessional.”
Later:
Johnny’s lackluster performance in the men’s final wasn’t completely due to missing the bus. He said his biorhythms were off, too.
“I never felt comfortable in this building,” Johnny said after dropping from second to fifth. “I didn’t feel my inner peace. I didn’t feel my aura. I was black inside.”
One of the reasons why it is so hard for me to get interested in figure skating is I just can’t identify with these people. Say what you want about snowboarding and ski flips, but generally these guys and gals are pretty normal (albeit excessively daring) people who sound normal when they talk to them after the race.
Meanwhile, Johnny’s fellow American (it’s hardly accurate to refer to figure skaters as teammates), Evan Lysacek, spent the day in the village infirmary with IV needles plunged into his body, and yet he somehow turned the performance of his life to move from 10th to fourth. Had bronze medalist Jeffrey Buttle of Canada fallen, Lysacek would have finished the day on the podium.
I hope Johnny’s taking notes.
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Someone is:
Speaking of watching too much figure skating and crappy mini documentaries, did you see the one about that one American figure skater? He’s the bad boy of figure skating. He’s a total rebel, and people are scared of what he might do or say next. If you saw that and didn’t bust out laughing then you must have some serious comedy recognition problems. This kid reminded me of Zoolander. He thought he was such a badass and all I could think was “dude, you’re a figure skater. No one cares. No one besides the ten people who watch this crap outside of the Olympics are going to know who you are in a week. I’d take any non figure skating athlete off the US women’s team in a street fight over you any day.” And then, after what seemed like an eternity, documenting his non conforming rebelliousness, he went on the ice dressed as a swan. A rebellious trouble making badass swan. Although maybe he accomplished his goal after all because now I’m talking about him. Doh.
I’m enjoying the Olympics. The best part, mens hockey, just got started. And, it’s almost impossible for me to not watch curling when I know it’s on (and I’m able to watch it). But I couldn’t agree more on the figure skating. Is there a normal figure skater out there? Plus, and I haven’t watched much so maybe this doesn’t say anything, has there been a skater who didn’t fall down (or at least bobble badly) at least once during his/her routine?
I pretty much enjoy anything without a judge. If the snowboarding-trick-thing isn’t the most subjective sport around, I’m not sure what is. And I’ll take the downhill skiing over the ski jumping any day (I can’t believe gravity keeps those downhillers on the hill). But, I’ve made the exact point about prime-time olympics. If that’s all you get to watch (read: if you aren’t watching the cable channels) then you are missing the best the olympics has to offer.
Go USA!
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“They have had more meetings than the United Nations — and they’ve been more productive.” -Commentator for the United States vs. Finland Mens curling match today, in which the United States lost 4-3.
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Jose Theodore has been barred from the Olympics for using a “masking agent.” Masking agents are chemicals that have the ability to hide performance-enhancing drugs that one might take. Well, Theodore’s agent says that the masking agent is nothing more than Propecia, a drug to combat baldness in men. The peculiar part:
His ESPN profile.
I’m not sure when that picture was taken, but they are generally updated every few years. I’m not saying, I’m just saying: kinda strange, isn’t it?
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While I can’t say the same for the Monday Night Football crew, I love the new Sunday Night crew. Al Michaels will be re-united with John Madden at NBC. In a blockbuster deal, ESPN/ABC traded Michaels for the rights to the Ryder Cup (boo! That was great to have on regular t.v.), Olympic highlights, and some cartoon character named Oswald the Rabbit.
You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.
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