# Olympics



## oldognewtrick (Feb 22, 2010)

Who's been watching? We've been watching and enjoying the hockey and the downhill sports. Good hockey games on Sunday, wish they played with that much heart in the NHL. Amazing how a gold medal is more inspiration than a great big paycheck....


----------



## Nestor_Kelebay (Feb 22, 2010)

Yeah, I've been watching here and there.

I can tell you that all of Canada will be watching the hockey finals if Canada has a chance.  But, I have reservations about even having hockey as an Olympic sport.  The Russians would send their "full time" (note that I didn't use the word "professional") amateur army team to play our amateurs.  So, then they changed the rules and our professionals would play their "full time" amateur team.  But the way it's set up now is just as lop sided as before.  Now our professionals are playing the amateurs from other countries.  Imagine the tension in the arena as the Canadian NHL all stars play the amateurs from Portugal and win 493 to 0.  It would be hard to watch and more of an embarrasment to us than it would to them... at least they're TRYING.

I think it would be best to either just send TRUE amateurs to play hockey at the Olympics or replace hockey as an Olympic sport with that new freestyle acrobatic ski jumping sport called "face splatz", where you jump high in the air and land on your face.

I remember Olympic games where you'd see three Russian athletes on the podium getting gold, silver and bronze.  Course, back then, you'd have to look twice to tell if a female Russian athlete was a man or a woman, and even then you weren't sure.  Times change.


----------



## TxBuilder (Feb 22, 2010)

How did Canada do in Hockey Nestor? Did your pro's win? And I'm with you those russians were only technically women.


----------



## oldognewtrick (Feb 22, 2010)

Who follows curling? Isn't it just big shuffle board? I guess I don't understand. Somewhere on the globe someone probably does.


----------



## Nestor_Kelebay (Feb 22, 2010)

The US beat Canada 5 to 3 in one game so far.  The US is undefeated and Canada only has one loss.  So, it's possible that Canada may still play the US for the gold, but only if the US loses to someone else.

I'd have mixed feelings about that because it wouldn't be like our amateur athletes proved themselves to be the best in the world.  It would only prove that our professionals can beat other countries amateurs.  Well, duh!  So what if Canada wins gold or the US wins gold... the professionals were competing with amateurs, and that's hardly "sportsman like conduct".  I think it's time, now that the Russians semi-professionals are no longer a factor in Olympic hockey, that we revert back to AMATEURS playing AMATEURS in Olympic hockey.  That's only fair to all concerned.

Also, sometimes I think the International Olympic Committee has it all backwards.  I mean, really to be fair, athletes that are on drugs should get a head start.

Curling is popular in Canada and Scotland.  I think some people in the northern US curl.  It's extremely popular with both men and women in Canada.  Women particularily like curling because it's a sport that doesn't requires strength or agility.  It's really a sport of skill, so that they can play on men's teams as well as compete on a level playing field with men's teams.


----------



## funetical (Feb 23, 2010)

Nestor_Kelebay said:


> The US beat Canada 5 to 3 in one game so far.  The US is undefeated and Canada only has one loss.  So, it's possible that Canada may still play the US for the gold, but only if the US loses to someone else.
> 
> I'd have mixed feelings about that because it wouldn't be like our amateur athletes proved themselves to be the best in the world.  It would only prove that our professionals can beat other countries amateurs.  Well, duh!  So what if Canada wins gold or the US wins gold... the professionals were competing with amateurs, and that's hardly "sportsman like conduct".  I think it's time, now that the Russians semi-professionals are no longer a factor in Olympic hockey, that we revert back to AMATEURS playing AMATEURS in Olympic hockey.  That's only fair to all concerned.
> 
> Also, sometimes I think the International Olympic Committee has it all backwards.  I mean, really to be fair, athletes that are on drugs should get a head start.



Depends on the drugs but I'm a fan of having Steroids friendly leagues. I would love to see that. Amazingly large angry as hell super men fighting over... who cares it would be awesome.



Nestor_Kelebay said:


> Curling is popular in Canada and Scotland.  I think some people in the northern US curl.  It's extremely popular with both men and women in Canada.  Women particularily like curling because it's a sport that doesn't requires strength or agility.  It's really a sport of skill, so that they can play on men's teams as well as compete on a level playing field with men's teams.



My wife has been watching it and I have to say it look interesting. I think some one in Austin offers a league at an old ice skating rink.


----------



## TxBuilder (Feb 23, 2010)

There should be more coverage of the Olympics. Seems like the winter Olympics gets the short end of the stick.


----------



## Nestor_Kelebay (Feb 24, 2010)

TxBuilder said:


> There should be more coverage of the Olympics. Seems like the winter Olympics gets the short end of the stick.



There isn't as much interest in the winter olympics because all of the sports require a big sheet of ice or a big snow covered mountain, and many countries in the world don't have many of either.  I don't know if you could find either south of the equator.  Perhaps in Australia.  South Africa MIGHT have some skiing, but the mountains there aren't high enough to have any snow, I think.  I know there's skiing in New Zealand, tho.  Prolly in Argentina and Chile, but I don't think either of those countries are well represented in Vancouver, tho.


----------



## oldognewtrick (Feb 24, 2010)

USA, 2-0 over the Swis and another excellent hockey match-up. US advances to final 4. Maybe another US-Canadien match. Should be interesting. Sure better than the All-Star game.:banana:


----------



## TxBuilder (Feb 25, 2010)

Nestor_Kelebay said:


> There isn't as much interest in the winter olympics because all of the sports require a big sheet of ice or a big snow covered mountain, and many countries in the world don't have many of either.  I don't know if you could find either south of the equator.  Perhaps in Australia.  South Africa MIGHT have some skiing, but the mountains there aren't high enough to have any snow, I think.  I know there's skiing in New Zealand, tho.  Prolly in Argentina and Chile, but I don't think either of those countries are well represented in Vancouver, tho.



That would explain it but it still leaves me wondering why ping pong is a summer sport? It seems it could be played equally well in the winter to bring more attention to it.


----------



## crackur (Feb 25, 2010)

Don't cry, oh Canada!


----------



## Nestor_Kelebay (Feb 27, 2010)

What happened, Crackur?

Did we Canadians lose a hockey game?

(losing builds character, you know.  it'll just give us the humility to win humbly next time.  we'll be absolutely great, but humble)


----------



## crackur (Feb 27, 2010)

See the problem is, you all are suppose to win. The problem is, will you. The game I watched last night was too close to be confident like you are.


Builds character? I think not because the female team doesn't have any apparently lol haha

It's sad that Canada, a snow country cannot even keep its snow from melting during the olympics, should have seen that one coming, poor skiers haha


It's been a good olympics, some weird things and weird calls, but you expect that from canadians......I mean they have nothing better to do hehe

I might visit one day, well I heard there's alot of asians in Van so haha


----------



## Nestor_Kelebay (Mar 1, 2010)

I didn't like those closing ceremonies.  Whomever planned them wasn't thinking.

I fully understand that it was supposed to be poking fun at Canada by showcasing all these mounties running around in red tunics.  That part I fully understood to be in jest.

What I didn't understand is how the people organizing those games failed to realize that the vast majority of the athletes there came from other countries and can't understand the language well enough to be in on the joke.  What they're seeing is an image of a mountie in front of a log cabin in winter singing "The Maple Leaf Forever".  It would be like if I was at the Olympic Games in Holland, and the whole closing ceremony was all about wooden shoes, windmills and tulips.  Or at the Olympics in Tokyo, and they start bringing out giant sumo wrestler balloons and then induct everyone into the fraternity of kamikazi pilots.  I'd be thinking "Why are you doing this?  I just wanna know how I'm supposed to respond to this."

That piece by Katherine O'Hara was a disaster.  It was supposed to be funny, but nobody was laughing.  I expect most of the athletes couldn't follow her conversation well enough to get the humour, but I think most people just though that kind of humour wasn't entirely appropriate in that situation.

And, what was surprising to me is that apparantly no one realized that when this stuff is broadcast to other countries, then people will be hearing a translator, and the proper meaning can be lost in those translations.  Imagine you were watching those ceremonies in South Korea, or Finland, and the translator says "Having a visitor is like eating a fish.  You like eating the fish at first, but you know that the fish will eventually go bad and start to smell.  Please leave here and don't come back."

Heck, it's hard enough to tell when someone's being serious or joking around  on the internet when you can't see their expression when they say something, and you can't hear the tone of voice they say it in.  Here, people are listening to it in a foreign language, and are hearing a translator say it without any emotion at all.  They're left to make of it what they will, and they can easily get the impression they're being insulted.  Why the he11 didn't that cross anyone in Vancouver's mind

It seems to me that whomever organized that closing ceremony should have realized that at an international venue, when most of the athletes and their relatives have a limited knowledge of English, it would have been better to play it safe and give them a show they're not going to be wondering about.  It was bizarre enough that some people might have been half expecting the lights to suddenly go out and a strange gas to be pumped into the air in the stadium.  Ha Ha.  We thought that was funny!  Didn't you?  (Not a safe way to make a good impression.)


----------

