Olympic Good, Bad and Ugly
O Canada! Congratulations to the entire team for a record 24 Olympic medals. If someone would've said we'd beat Russia 10 years ago, I'd have laughed. Now it's come true.
As promised, here is the good, bad and ugly from Turin
The Good
1. Long-track speed skating (what a great job, especially by the women)
2. Short-track speed skating
3. Women's cross-country skiing
4. Skeleton
5. Bobsledding
6. Curling
7. Women's hockey
8. Alpine skiing
9. Women's snowboard cross
10. Moguls
11. Men's figure skating (women's on the horizon?)
The bad
1. Biathlon
2. Men's cross country
3. Men's snowboard cross
4. Ski Jumping
5. Aerials
6. Luge
7. Pairs and dance figure skating
8. Men's hockey team
The Ugly
1. The men's hockey tournament format
There were 30 round-robin games (5 games played by 12 teams) that were meaningless if you were 4th or better in your pool of 6, something relatively easy for a powerhouse team to accomplish (the Czech Republic did it with a 1-3-1 record). The Swedish coach even mentioned it would be best for his team to lose the final round robin game to get a "weaker" playoff opponent. Then 4 important quarterfinal games. Then 2 important games. Then a bronze medal game that may be important to you depending on what country you're from. Then the gold medal game. 38 games, of which 7 are important, 30 unimportant and 1 50/50. Is it just me, or does this stink, especially when the schedule is compressed so a team could play 8 games in 11-12 days. This whole thing (including NHL participation) needs to be reviewed.
2. Jeremy Wotherspoon
3. Emanuel Sandhu
4. Tanith Belbin, a Canadian winning for USA
5. Dale Begg-Smith, a Canadian winning for Australia
Overall, things are good for Canada. If I'm in charge of a Summer Olympics discipline, or one of the "bad" Winter Olympics disciplines, I'm scrambling to see how I can keep up to the others. The bar has been raised, hopefully for good.
As someone who works for an American company, I can proudly say this does wonders for eliminating the Canadian "inferiority complex". Thanks Team Canada for the wonderful memories!
Regards,
Steve
As promised, here is the good, bad and ugly from Turin
The Good
1. Long-track speed skating (what a great job, especially by the women)
2. Short-track speed skating
3. Women's cross-country skiing
4. Skeleton
5. Bobsledding
6. Curling
7. Women's hockey
8. Alpine skiing
9. Women's snowboard cross
10. Moguls
11. Men's figure skating (women's on the horizon?)
The bad
1. Biathlon
2. Men's cross country
3. Men's snowboard cross
4. Ski Jumping
5. Aerials
6. Luge
7. Pairs and dance figure skating
8. Men's hockey team
The Ugly
1. The men's hockey tournament format
There were 30 round-robin games (5 games played by 12 teams) that were meaningless if you were 4th or better in your pool of 6, something relatively easy for a powerhouse team to accomplish (the Czech Republic did it with a 1-3-1 record). The Swedish coach even mentioned it would be best for his team to lose the final round robin game to get a "weaker" playoff opponent. Then 4 important quarterfinal games. Then 2 important games. Then a bronze medal game that may be important to you depending on what country you're from. Then the gold medal game. 38 games, of which 7 are important, 30 unimportant and 1 50/50. Is it just me, or does this stink, especially when the schedule is compressed so a team could play 8 games in 11-12 days. This whole thing (including NHL participation) needs to be reviewed.
2. Jeremy Wotherspoon
3. Emanuel Sandhu
4. Tanith Belbin, a Canadian winning for USA
5. Dale Begg-Smith, a Canadian winning for Australia
Overall, things are good for Canada. If I'm in charge of a Summer Olympics discipline, or one of the "bad" Winter Olympics disciplines, I'm scrambling to see how I can keep up to the others. The bar has been raised, hopefully for good.
As someone who works for an American company, I can proudly say this does wonders for eliminating the Canadian "inferiority complex". Thanks Team Canada for the wonderful memories!
Regards,
Steve
posted by Irrelevant at 7:51 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home