Among people I know, it seems everybody settled in with their favorite event (figure skating, ice dancing or snowboarding, generally, and in my case, ice hockey) and made the coverage on NBC or MSNBC part of their evening routine the past couple weeks. Then again, I realize there is a dissenting viewpoint out there that couldn’t care less (e.g., my father-in-law called my wife after the first weekend to say, “Tired of the Olympics yet?”).
Ryan Miller was a deserving MVP in men’s hockey. And dream, Blackhawk fans, of how easily he could have been OUR #1 goalie right now. In the 1999 NHL draft, he was available until the 5th round, when he was taken by Buffalo. With Miller still on the board, the Hawks chose the eminently forgettable Steve McCarthy, Dmitri Levinski, Stepan Mokhov, and Michael Jacobsen instead of Miller for four rounds. True, the Hawks weren’t the only ones who whiffed on Miller, but wouldn’t your feelings going into the playoffs be a lot different with him between the pipes?
Televising the action during the three periods commercial-free—thanks to a deal with DirecTV—was fantastic. Unless you actually attend a game, you never get to see what the players do during extended TV timeouts. Luongo, for instance, never hesitated to skate over to his bench, lift up his mask and grab some refreshment. You could see the strain on his face the whole game during the extended breaks.
I’ve become captivated by curling. It’s an odd activity and questionable as a real “sport” in the same way archery, golf and bowling are—to me, they seem much more a skill than a sport. No matter, I surprised myself by not being bored watching either the men’s or women’s competition in curling.
I don’t like the idea of the televising network’s exclusivity on the rights to action footage from the games. Still photos are fine for ESPN The Magazine, but in the television world of technical bells and whistles, they fall very flat. And that’s all the other networks can use.
I have trouble with the idea that, in keeping the medals count for the individual nations, gold, silver and bronze medals are considered equal in scoring. For instance, this was the final count we saw in the paper this morning:
USA – 37 (9 Gold, 15 Silver, 13 Bronze)
Germany – 30 (10 Gold, 13 Silver, 7 Bronze)
Canada – 26 (14 Gold, 7 Silver, 5 Bronze)
Gold medals should be worth more than silver, which should be worth more than bronze in the medal standings–something like gold medals 3 points, silver medals 2 and bronze medals 1. That would give us this revised scoreboard:
USA – 70 points
Germany – 63 points
Canada – 61 points
The rankings haven’t changed, but the extra Golds push Canada closer to second place. And, if you think all medals should be considered equal in merit, ask Duncan Keith if he wouldn’t mind trading his for Patrick Kane’s.
The gold medal game had all the drama you’d want in a finale–it was outstanding. The fact that it got a 23.4 rating in Chicago–which put it in Bears territory–didn’t surprise me in the least.
