venting

[judy]

It be pretty interesting to see Germany make it to the medal rounds. Watched them play and listened to the announcers talk about their stifling defense which if I had paid more attention to would've actually noticed...They did manage to keep most of the play in the Latvia zone, esp in the 3rd.

I'm really curious to see Germany take on the "Big 6" and their tossed together groups of NHL-ers and see how they play...if they guys need some time to get used to playing together, Germany will be kicking some ass initially.

Anyone heard or paid attention to the Belarus games?

[Erica]

According to a Boston Globe article, the Canadiens won most of the technical marks, and the Russians won most of the artistic marks. When you add the two up, the higher overall marks earn a first place ordinal. There were two instances in which the added marks were tied, in which case artistic impression is the tiebreaker, which in both cases was won by the Russians. That is the reason they won 5-4. Each individual judge couldn't possibly have known what the other overalls would be. I agree that it was a  travesty, however, they have rules for a reason, and unfortunately, as we all know, the best does not always win, in our opinion. Also, unfortunately perhaps, the audience is not judging, so it is the artistic impression on the judges that counts, not on the other thousand-something viewers.

[pat]

The better commercial was the radio station spoof with the Quebecker, "My name is Jacques and hI am NOT Canadian!" Too bad AdCritic shut down.

It's also kind of pissy that the NHL is insisting that any Olympic game with 50% NHL players requires NHL officials.

[Greg Berge]

It was also amazingly self-serving and shallow for NBC to run their online poll and then announce that 95% of the respondants thought the Canadians won.

Hmm.  The respondants are overwhelmingly American and Canadian.  And the announcer has been blatting on and on about how the Canadians got rooked.  And most of the audience still associates beating the Russians with apple pie and motherhood because of 1980.  And even the 1% of the audience that regularly follows skating adheres to North American stylistics of skating (dynamism, story-telling, levity) rather than European stylistics (classical ballet, fluidity, stoicism).

Talk about "manufacturing consent..."  Why not have MTV run a poll: "Who's better: Mozart or Madonna?"

[jtwcornell91]

Interesting ECAC note: the referee for the Switzerland-Ukraine match was Scott Hansen.

[jeh25]

Who is the brother of my officemate's boyfriend, which makes us.....absolutely nothing!

[Ben Doyle 03]

Okay. . .now I'm with all of you that think NBC's programming is crap!!! All I want to see is the men's combined, in one segment. . .don't think that's too much to ask. But no, they have to show each of the three runs separately. . .every 45 minutes!!! What gives?!? Just show it all so I can get on with my ::snore::  boring  ::snore:: life here in Ithaca (it's not really that boring but you already knew that).


Let's Go Bode!!!

[Jim Hyla]

Wait a minute Rich, you grew up near the border and couldn't get Hockey Night in Canada? I grew up here in Syracuse and put up an antenna to get Kingston for the broadcasts. Too bad I was a Canadians fan.

[Adara]

Sale and Pelletier of Canada will be awarded gold metals (while the Russians keep theirs) and the French judge has been indefinitely suspended.  They'll receive their gold medals Thursday.