As the Buffalo Sabres visited the Pittsburgh Penguins last night, Team USA/Buffalo goalie Ryan Miller got a strong ovation (along with chants of U-S-A, U-S-A) while Canadian/Penguin Sidney Crosby drew boos from the crowed when the jumbotron showed footage of his gold-medal winning goal.
Miller’s ovation is at the start of the video, while Crosby is introduced at around the 1:10 mark. Pittsburgh won, 3-2, but Miller didn’t play.
Forget that old bromide about “no sex before a game.”
Vancouver all-news radio station CKWX is reporting today that an “emergency airlift” of 8500 condoms is on the way to the Olympic Villages in Vancouver and Whistler for the libidinous athletes.
The first shipment of 100,000 – that’s not a misprint — rubbers provided by the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research apparently wasn’t enough. CKNW’s report says the original shipment worked out to an average of 14 condoms for each visiting athlete.
It’s well known by now that sex and the Olympics go hand in hand. If a gold medallist in cross-country skiing isn’t getting it on with a bronze luger from another country, then damn it, they’re just not trying.
At least the Olympic Committee understands that its event is the breeding ground for orgies and is trying to keep thing safe. Along with the five-ringed logo, the Olympics should carry the motto: Don’t be a fool, wrap your tool.
The International Olympic Committee will investigate the Canadian women’s hockey team after a number of players celebrated their gold medal victory on Thursday night by tossing back a few cold ones and smoking cigars on the ice in Vancouver.
From Yahoo! Sports:
A number of players, including 18-year-old superstar Marie-Philip Poulin, were drinking alcohol on the ice following the team’s 2-0 defeat of the United States. (The legal drinking age in British Columbia is 19.) Players lingered for more than 70 minutes after the awards ceremony reveling in the arena, which was empty except for media and arena staff.
Gilbert Felli, the IOC’s executive director of the Olympic Games, said that drinking in public was “not what we want to see” from athletes at an Olympic venue. The organization will investigate the actions and will speak with the international hockey federation and Canadian Olympic Committee and ask them to “act accordingly.”
The Olympic Committee is wound a little tight and I find it amusing that an event that essentially introduced steroids to athletic competition is so image conscious now. I don’t condone underage drinking, but if the Committee decides to send these girls home or ban them from the Closing Ceremony after this, then it would be ridiculous and a gross overreaction.
In his article, “Games Saver,” in the Feb. 22 issue of ESPN The Magazine, Luke Cyphers recommends a few ways to rekindle interest in the Winter Olympic Games. I particularly like his first two suggestions:
1. RECOMBINE OLYMPIC YEARS.
Back in 1992, you could rely on certain big events hitting every four years. A leap year. A presidential election. And the Olympics, both Winter and Summer in one 12-month span. That made them a scarce commodity. But, acting on a plan hatched eight years earlier, the IOC monkeyed with the calendar in 1994, putting the Winter Games in “off” even-numbered years. What was intended to make them more visible did just the opposite. The Games need to get back on Olympic Standard Time, one year for all. It would solve one huge and growing problem — competition with the World Cup for ad dollars and attention.
2. PICK ONE OLYMPIC VENUE.
Vancouver’s financial mess is a warning to future bidders: Stay away. Suckering new cities to create a billion-dollar playground is simply unsustainable. More sites means more sprawl, more CO2 and more global warming — counter-productive when you race on snow. As the Greeks did, the Olympic organizers need to pick a single stage they can dust off every four years, preferably a city that already has facilities in place. We vote for Innsbruck, site of Franz Klammer’s downhill, Dorothy Hamill’s haircut and an active spot for all major winter sports. At the very least, the IOC should rotate the Games among single hosts on each of the three continents that have held them before. In addition to Innsbruck, recycle Salt Lake, and Sapporo in Asia too.
Holding the Winter Olympics and Summer Olympics in the same calendar year would increase interest in the former since it would wet the palette of those looking forward to the Summer Games. Also, Cyphers point about the World Cup is a strong one. Soccer is only getting bigger.
I also like his idea about rotating the Games through three venues, one on each continent of Europe, Asia and North America. It’s pretty ridiculous that a city has to build all of these venues just to hold these Games for a few weeks. It’s a waste of resources, especially when there are very nice facilities available in other cities that have already hosted the event. They should do the same thing for the Summer Games — rotating amongst, say, Athens, Sydney and Los Angeles — for the same reasons.
NBC is still exceeding its ratings guarantee to advertising of a 14.0 average prime-time household rating. Through Friday, it was averaging a 14.7 rating and 26.2 million viewers over the first eight nights of the Olympics.
According to Cyphers, Salt Lake had a 19.2 rating and Torino had a 12.2.
American halfpipe bronze medal winner Scotty Lago volunteered to leave the Olympics on Friday after a photo of a woman kneeling below his waist to kiss his medal surfaced on the Internet.
From Yahoo! Sports.com:
Lago, who was awarded his bronze medal Thursday night, was at a party, wearing a Team USA T-shirt when somebody snapped a photo of a woman kneeling below Lago’s waist to kiss his medal. That picture, and another showing him sticking the medal in the woman’s mouth while teammate Greg Bretz looks on, appeared Friday on the TMZ Web site.
“Scotty Lago is a great athlete, but with that comes a responsibility of proper conduct, and his involvement in this situation is not acceptable,” U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association President and CEO Bill Marolt said in an e-mail. “Scotty realizes his conduct was inappropriate. He has formally apologized and also made a decision to leave Vancouver today.”
Well done, Scotty. You became the first Olympian to ever volunteer to leave the games early after taking a picture with a girl kissing your medal near your junk.
While discussing the competitors’ costumes as part of last night’s Winter Olympics wrap, Molloy said: “They don’t leave anything in the locker room, these blokes, do they?”
McGuire replied: “They don’t leave anything in the closet either, do they?”
The long-time Channel Nine personality then described one competitor’s costume as “a bit of a brokeback”, referencing Ang Lee’s film about gay cowboys.
“A bit of Brokeback Mountain exercises – you can’t wear that,” Molloy responded.
Gay rights activist Gary Burns isn’t too pleased with the duo’s comments:
“They’re harmful to, particularly, gay youth who are living in isolated areas across the nation,” he said.
“These young kids look up to [McGuire] and when they hear these kinds of comments and [they're] having issues with their own coming-out process, or low self-esteem or depression… they feel worthless.
“Channel Nine should sack both of them because they’re not fit to be broadcasters or to be involved in a television network when they use this kind of banter.”
Molloy is apparently an Australian comedian, so I’m not sure why he would be broadcasting a men’s figure skating competition in the first place. Quite frankly, I blame the television network for thinking that putting a comedian in that type of situation was a good idea.
But the kicker here is McGuire, who is a regular show host on Channel Nine, so he should have known better. How many media members need to get into trouble for making stupid comments on air before other members avoid situations like these entirely? It’s not a hard concept, just don’t say anything racial or homophobic on air and you should be fine. I mean, was he trying to impress Molloy with his horrible humor?
At first there were whoops of celebration. But then things got a little R-rated.
Keene: What do you want to do?
White: I don’t know, man. Ride down the middle?
(Chorus of noes.)
Keene: No, have some fun.
White: Drop a double mick?
Keene: Yeah, drop a double mick at the end. Do whatever you want and [expletive] send that thing. Make sure you stomp the [expletive] out of that thing.
It went downhill from there if you can read lips, at which point NBC announcers Pat Parnell and Todd Richards apologized for the language and defended it by saying that a lot of energy was running through White and his coaches. The apology was necessary (even if it did draw more attention to the curses – they were tough to hear without rewinding), but NBC was apologizing for the wrong people. They shouldn’t be apologizing for Bud Keene; they should be apologizing for the network showing it in the first place.
I agree with the Yahoo! Sports article. NBC screwed the pooch by airing the dialogue. It’s not Keene or White’s responsibility to clean up their language when they’re having what should be a private conversation. Unless they’re giving an interview and they drop a couple of F-bombs on everyone, then they shouldn’t be criticized in this situation. They’re adults and some adults talk this way. NBC should have planned ahead better.
Staying on topic: White is freaking awesome. He is snowboarding.
Vonn was hurt Feb. 2 during pre-Olympic practice in Austria and had hardly skied over the past two weeks.
Still, as the two-time defending overall World Cup champion and the winner of five of the six downhills this season, she was an overwhelming favorite.
Vonn increased her lead at the first three checkpoints, although she lost nearly two tenths on the bottom after getting knocked off balance as she went over a small bump just before the finish.
What’s remarkable about Vonn’s performance is not only was she injured, but due to bad whether in Whistler of the past week she and the other competitors also only received one downhill training session, which was before the race. Plus, the course was extremely bumpy so for her to still win a gold medal despite having to overcome several obstacles is impressive.
The women will ski the bottom section later Monday, following the conclusion of the men’s downhill race — the first Alpine competition at the Vancouver Games. Vonn finished in 1 minute, 30.75 seconds, which was 0.39 seconds faster than teammate Julia Mancuso.
Vonn bruised her right shin during practice in Austria on Feb. 2. She stayed off skis for more than a week, but tested the injury — with encouraging results — in an unofficial slalom training run Sunday.
The shin was a little tender Monday morning, but that was to be expected. And it didn’t seem to hurt her skiing.
“After skiing four runs of pretty good intensity slalom on salted snow, with the conditions the way they are here now, I think even if you had healthy shins, you’d probably have a sore shin today,” said Thomas Vonn, who serves as a coach and adviser to his wife. “She’s happy to be where she’s at, as opposed to where she was a couple of days ago.”
This should quell any fears that Vonn won’t compete. The United States is currently atop the leader board with eight total medals (two gold, two silver, four bronze) and Vonn’s presence should add to that count.
The women’s downhill race is scheduled for Wednesday.
