Winter Olympics

[Rommie]

So I'm super sad because there was supposed to be a big curling event this weekend on Nathan Phillips Square (the main city hall square of Toronto, which of course has an ice rink), and I was psyched to try it. Of course, it turns out because it's been like 50 degrees a few days this week the event was canceled as the skating rink is a giant puddle.

Still want to try curling, but I haven't found a place to do it yet. Most places around here appear to be clubs and I don't actually want to join or anything at the gate, just give it a try.

[Swift]

I do have a new favorite Olympic athlete: Glasses Sister, Kim Eun-Jung, a South Korean curler.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/krishrach/people-are-obsessed-with-this-adorably-serious-olympic?utm_term=.nnBbkO1ee#.mwEKQ8gEE

How often do you see an Olympic athlete that wears glasses!

[Thumper]

[Parrothead]

Curling is a fun sport, I played as a sub/spare for awhile, thanks to friends in a league. Needless to say, the sweeping had me working muscles that hadn't been used in awhile, leading to a bit of soreness the next day. Too bad about the weather, that may have been a good way to give it a try. Other than that, clubs do occasionally have days, where they run programs for people to give curling a try, at a cost (ice time costs money). US vs Sweden for Gold starts at 1:15 am EST.

Been watching the team slalom event, this evening.

[Rommie]

Guess we're at the end...

Btw, don't think I mentioned it, but one fun thing is I realized earlier this week is I actually have two channels of Olympics coverage, as there's the normal CBC one in English but I also get the French channel that I normally never watch bc I don't speak French. (I know there's more, but this is what I get on my antenna.) Turns out the French program is completely different, meaning they're often showing different sports at the same time. So, win!

Also, the German foreign office issued a travel advisory for Canada yesterday that was pretty funny.

[Parrothead]

I think it was on the Craig Ferguson Show, some years ago, he stated (probably not the first or last) "Canadians are such nice people .... until you put a hockey stick in their hands. "

We won the Bronze, so all was not lost.

An Esto was leading the women's mass start speed skating, but she didn't earn enough points to make the podium, she finished 4th, dang.

IOC was toying with allowing Russia to march in with it's flag and anthem at the Closing Ceremonies, I'm guessing the Russian curler failing a doping test and handing back his Bronze, plus another Russian failing a doping test should kill that idea. Though the IOC may yet vote to re-instate the Russian Olympic Committee before the Closing Ceremonies.

Congrats US on winning Gold in men's curling. A different type of miracle on ice?

[Rommie]

My joke about Canada and hockey is it’s like Germans and the autobahn- every society needs a release valve for otherwise polite people. In Germany it’s no speed limit when driving, and in Canada it’s hockey.

[Parrothead]

Gold medal game goes at 11 pm, can Germany go one more? Defeat OAR after beating Sweden and then Canada.

[Parrothead]

The IOC executive board has decided uphold the ban of the Russians for the entire 2018 Winter Games, due to the two doping infractions and "other considerations". There were four doping failures, in total, through these Olympics. This will go to a vote of the full IOC before the Closing Ceremonies.

[Parrothead]

Heck of a hockey game last night/early this am! It was fun to watch and tension filled too.

It was followed by the final event, the women's mass start cross-country skiing.

Next Winter Games are in Beijing, not so sure NHL will be going there, but these Games showed the pros are not really needed. Without them it goes back to what the Games were meant to be. It's exciting enough with the teams having a mix of jr and former pro players.

The four man bobsleigh featured a tie, this time for the Silver medal.

These Games were Canada's best showing at a Winter Olympics, bettering our result in Vancouver 2010.

[Thumper]

I felt like I was getting "Olympics Out" but watched both taped and live events yesterday. Then the closing ceremonies (what I could stay awake for.) Pretty exciting composite of the high (and Lo) lights shown at the end. It had a US bias but showed alot of other competitors as well. I still love the Czech women's snowboarder who "accidentally" won a skiing event. First person to win gold medals in two different sports in the same Olympics. Germany just couldn't hold off the pros on the Russian hockey team. Though they gave it a great shot. US men's curling was awesome to watch and had a great backstory. Mass start speed skating reminded me of team pursuit bicycling. Very interesting.

I'll miss it not being on tonight. But I think I still have about 5 hours recorded on the DVR!

[SciFiFisher]

Norway pretty much sweeped the Olympics.

[Rommie]

They always do! The crazy thing is I read once that part of Norway they're all from is just a hundred km wide or so, centered around the southern mountains. Highest concentration of Olympians in the world by some measures.

[Thumper]

I can't find the story. Somewhere in America, someone was complaining that their neighbor was displaying the Stars and Bars (aka, the Confederate Battle flag). They were offended because that just wasn't appropriate. Someone had to investigate and it turns out it was the Norwegian flag. The owner was an Olympic fan presumably of Norwegian descent who was excited about the athletic performances.

[Thumper]

Clearing out the DVR of Olympic coverage, I stumbled across the broadcast of the Hungarian win in the short track speedskating relay win. That was pretty exciting. I thought I had seen most of the men's gold medal hockey match. Though the Germans played hard at times, they were sloppy and made costly mistakes. I hadn't realized they dorked around, turned the puck over in their own end (actually, several times) and gave up the first goal of the game with a HALF second left in the period. Hindsight is 20/20 but stupid mistakes add up and pretty much decide the outcome of close games.

[Swift]

I can't find the story. Somewhere in America, someone was complaining that their neighbor was displaying the Stars and Bars (aka, the Confederate Battle flag). They were offended because that just wasn't appropriate. Someone had to investigate and it turns out it was the Norwegian flag. The owner was an Olympic fan presumably of Norwegian descent who was excited about the athletic performances.

https://boingboing.net/2018/02/26/seattle-person-confuses-norweg.html

[Thumper]

Thanks Swift!

[SciFiFisher]

Clearing out the DVR of Olympic coverage, I stumbled across the broadcast of the Hungarian win in the short track speedskating relay win. That was pretty exciting. I thought I had seen most of the men's gold medal hockey match. Though the Germans played hard at times, they were sloppy and made costly mistakes. I hadn't realized they dorked around, turned the puck over in their own end (actually, several times) and gave up the first goal of the game with a HALF second left in the period. Hindsight is 20/20 but stupid mistakes add up and pretty much decide the outcome of close games.

When you have people who are very skilled at something going up against equally skilled opponents the winner is often the team/person who made the least mistakes.

[Thumper]

Absolutely.
Two of the Russian goals were just huge mistakes by the Germans. Hard to recover from that. Amazing how close they came.

[Rommie]

Pity they didn't, as we could have used a good sequel to Miracle!

[SciFiFisher]

Pity they didn't, as we could have used a good sequel to Miracle!

Yes, that would have been nice.

[SciFiFisher]

My chief complaint about the Olympics. Now that they are over and you all have enjoyed them. Is the fact that the IOC banned Russia because of the huge doping issue that Russia has been proven to engage in time and time again. They banned Russia. And then allowed almost all of the Russian athletes to compete. And the (few) medals they won all went home to Russia. Russian fans sat in the stage and waved Russian flags and sang the Russian national anthem. Russian media covered the Olympics and how the Russian athletes did. Outside of not being able to wave a big flag at the Olympics how was Russia punished exactly?

I realize that individual athletes train for YEARS to get, in some cases, one shot at winning a medal. But, even this time around they had Russian athletes who tested positive for banned substances. When you ban a country from competing in the Olympics, and you don't ban the individual athletes who represent that country, how on earth is that a ban?

Maybe it was symbolic and somehow the IOC was stupid enough to think that Russia got the message? IMO the only message Russia got was to make sure the performance drugs they use are not traceable.

[geonuc]

The ban definitely was symbolic. I don't know how I feel about banning an entire country's athletes from something as important to the individual as the Olympics are. It's reminiscent of the Moscow and LA games where the two feuding Cold War adversaries boycotted the other's games. That hurt the dreams of a lot of athletes and cheapened the results of both games.

Maybe a better path is to beef up testing programs as well as penalize the country by imposing bans on hosting the games and maybe banning Olympic committee members from attending. Russia (USSR) hasn't hosted since 1980 and aren't slated to do so in the near future. I imagine Putin and friends would love to get back on the schedule.

[Rommie]

Russia hasn't hosted since 1980? What about Sochi, which prompted a lot of the stuff in the crazy doping scandal in the first place?

[geonuc]

Russia hasn't hosted since 1980? What about Sochi, which prompted a lot of the stuff in the crazy doping scandal in the first place?

Oops. Totally overlooked Sochi. Good point.