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.
