First and foremost, I'm a huge ice hockey fan. So watching international ice hockey is always a lotta fun. This year, the Sharks have 8 players representing their home country in the Olympics. 4 for Canada, and 1 each for the US, Russia, Sweden, and Germany. So, needless to say, I'm probably even more interested in Olympic hockey this year than in years past.
My favorite random sport is probably Ski Jumping. It just looks like so much fun! Grab some big ass skis, point yourself down, and go! Furthest through the air wins (more or less, there's points for technique too, but that's boring). It's just a lotta fun for me to watch!
Downhill skiing, Snowboard cross, Moguls, Skeleton, Luge, Bobsledding...All awesome sports. They're alwyas flying so fast down the hill or the track! .2 seconds can be the difference between Gold and nothing! Perfection is key...and staying in control at speeds over 75mph.
Speed skating is pretty fun to watch too...mostly because it's so random. Especially short track. I mean, you could be the best in the world, except the dude you are racing with wants to pass you, and clips your skate, and both of you are out of the race and into the padding. Insanity. Hell, two US skaters moved from 4th and 5th to Silver and Bronze earlier this past weekend because of a crash on the final turn. Insanity!
And then there's curling. Curling is an amazing sport. Mostly because when you watch it, everyone has the same two reactions: 1) "This is an olympic sport???" and 2) "I could do that!" It's the one olympic sport that people see and feel like they could win a gold medal in. Now, most people can't. It's a precision sport, and it takes years and years of practice to get up to olympic levels. But that's not the point. When you see something that appears to be a sport you can compete in, you immediately form a bond with it...even just a small one. Anyways, I just think its an amusing sport.
I'd probably say, the only olympic sports in the winter I do not at all care for, and therefore do not watch, would be the Ice Dancing and Figure Skating competitions. I just have no interest in them whatsoever.
Anyways, The Olympics are only a few days old, but the U.S. has taken the early medal lead. With 8. The next closest is Germany with 5. This is bound to change. Germany tends to dominate us in the Winter Olympics. And Canada is getting all "we have to win the most medals on our home turf" on us, so they may surge. But it's been an awesome start for the US.
We actually got a silver in the Nordic Combined. Which is the first time the US has EVER gotten a medal in that event. And we had the 4th and 6th place finishers too...not too shabby! The US got two medals in the short track event because of a crash...so that was lucky. Our golds came from women's moguls (and a bronze there too), and snowboard cross! Bode Miller shook off the demons of 4 years ago to pick up a bronze in the Men's Downhill (only .09 seconds short of gold...insane),and the US also picked up a bronze in Men's moguls. All in all, the US has been representing itself pretty well so far!
Anyways, I'm gonna be all USA! USA! for the next few weeks, so please excuse me if loving your country is not part of your personality. I just wish we had better Olympic coverage here in the US than the drek that NBC puts out. In other countries, they just show the events, as they happen, and give us the results. And yeah, they'll focus on showing home country athletes, but that's fine. But NBC would rather give us a 15 minute piece on polar bears, tape delay and edit everything, spend more time on human interest pieces than showing us the events...and then shove figure skating down our throats. If there could be a channel here that just showed the events as they were happening, I'd be happy. Ah well.
GO USA!!!
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