Winter Olympics

The winter Olympics are here, I’d like to take this opportunity to give my take on the Vancouver games. Much like the summer games the winter Olympics are full of sports that I wouldn’t watch if it weren’t the Olympics. Actually if you take out ice hockey, which I only watch occasionally any way, it’s only sports that I watch when it’s the Olympics. It’s also a chance to take a little refresher in geography and be reminded that there are countries out there like Latvia and Liechtenstein. Also makes me wonder what countries like Ghana, Bermuda and others where they have no snow or ice are doing there.


A lot of the sports are how fast you can ride some thing down a hill. Luge, bobsled, snowboarding, skiing and skeleton for example. It’s exciting to watch for the first few runs but then it sort of becomes the same. I think tubing should also should be an event; I’d love to see people ride an old inner tube down a mountain.



Several also involve jumping in the air while going down the hill and maybe even doing tricks in the air like half pipe snow boarding, freestyle skiing and ski jumping It’s pretty amazing what these athletes can do but like the sports mentioned before it’s all kind of the same to me after the first three or four athletes.



If your event involves wearing sequins on your out fit, or if you refer to what you’re wearing as an “out fit” than you probably are a figure skater, or the guy who designs your hokey jerseys needs to be fired. This is a sport that’s tough to watch even during the Olympics because it’s so boring. One way to spice it up is to turn off the sound on your TV and put in one of your CD’s and let the routine go to one of your favorite tunes, in 2002 my friends and I enjoyed watching Sasha Coen do her routine to Jungle Boogie. I still haven’t been able to figure what the difference is between Ice Dancing and Pairs Skating.


Speed skating is like track on ice. Short track is pretty easy to watch, it goes quick, the rounds go fast and they do a bunch of skaters at one time. Long track is a little different, it takes a while and they only run two skaters at a time. Plus long track is missing Apolo Anton Ohno, who is not only known for his speed skating but also winning Dancing With the Stars. Maybe to keep the reality TV bit they could get Shaquille O’Neil to do his show Shaqs Big Challenge with Apolo.


Then there are the Nordic events. This is cross country skiing, ski jumping, biathlon which is a sport that involves cross country skiing and shooting a gun, not at the same time though and nordic combined where you ski jump and how well you do at that is how much of a head start you get in the cross country skiing portion. I’m not sure what the shooting has to do with winter and I’ve never actually been cross country skiing, but watching these athletes I think it looks pretty hard, they always look tired, cold and miserable.


And then there’s curling. I don’t even know if this is really a sport. If you’ve never watched a match then consider your self lucky. It’s an hour of your life you’ll never get back if you do. All though it is the only Olympic sport I have any hope of winning a medal in. If this is an Olympic event then I think the summer games should add biliards and bowling.



My favorite is Ice Hockey. I enjoy team sports, there are no judges involved and I think it’s fun to watch. So what is your favorite event? Take the pole and leave a comment telling us why.And what is up with the Swiss hockey uniforms? It's like they ran out of money for the uniforms.