Olympic Carnival

The Winter Olympics got me again. This happens every four years, just like the World Cup. I spend four years complaining about the Olympics, about how all the events suck except the hockey and how it interrupts my favorite TV shows. Then, when it actually comes around, I watch at least one hour of it everyday, plus the hockey. Why? Because most of the events, odd as they may be, are still sports, which is better than most of the other crap on TV. Especially when House, NCIS, The Office and 30 Rock all take the two Olympic weeks off. So I've been watching. Here's what I've learned.

I learned the Olympic hockey competition is, quite literally, the perfect sporting event. There's absolutely nothing you could do to make it better. This is especially true when you have the event in Canada. Canadians feel the same way about hockey as Americans feel about bacon. Every game has a great crowd that knows exactly what's going on and when to cheer. Even better, the players totally give a crap. This is why Olympic hockey is soooo much better than Olympic basketball. Of course, I'd put money on the NHL figuring out a way to screw this up by not having NHL players at the 2014 games in Russia. Gary Bettman is like the Michael Scott of sports commissioners. Did he win his job in a contest?

While we're here, quick predictions for the hockey medal round. I like Canada over Slovakia. I think Slovakia is a pretty underrated team and I've liked them every time I've seen them play, but they can't hang with the Canadians. I like the U.S. over Finland. Finland plays solid hockey and Kiprusoff looked really good against the Czechs, but I really like this U.S. team and Ryan Miller's been solid. Close game, maybe overtime, but I like the U.S.

Slovakia vs. Finland makes an interesting bronze medal game. I'll take Finland. I think Slovakia might actually have more talent, but Finland has the goaltending advantage and I think that gets them at least a bronze. Finally, I like Canada for the gold. I know, the U.S. already beat them. First, this will be for a gold medal, the crowd will be nuts right from the opening face-off (I'm looking forward to this game already, please Finland and Slovakia, don't ruin this for me). Second, I think Luongo is just a better goaltender than Brodeur, at least at this point in Marty's career, so I think Canada's a better team than they were last Sunday if they stick with Luongo. Finally, the Canadians just have better talent. You saw this against the Russians. Russia's top players are just ridiculous, but when you get into a 60 minute game, depth is so important, every Canadian line is really good. I can't see the U.S. team beating them again.

I learned curling is awesome. I'm not sure if it's a sport, but I'm sure I can't stop watching it. There's something mesmerizing about it. You flip to CNBC or MSNBC to see if there's a hockey game going on, and you find curling. You think "hmm curling, let's see what else is on". But then, right before you're about to leave, you get a look at where all the stones are and you start wondering where they'll try to put the next one. An hour and a half later you just watched an entire curling match. If some American billionaire doesn't try to start a professional curling league in the U.S. in the next 12 months, we should take all of the money away from all of our billionaires, because they obviously don't know what to do with it.

Quick curling sidenote: The most interesting curling subplot was the constant complaining by the announcers and, apparently, some of the curlers, about the crowd being too rowdy. "Umm, excuse me, I can't slide this rock down this sheet of ice with you people shouting like that". It just seems so goofy, this is obviously some sort of Canadian or Scandinavian drinking game that somehow found its way to being a sport. I can't imagine the first curlers having polite crowds.

I learned I would very much like to be a speed skater. I definitely don't have the ability, but I'd still like to do it. Those people just look so relaxed, especially in the longer distance races. They just sort of glide down the straight parts of the track with their hands behind their backs, they look close to falling asleep. I wouldn't be even a little surprised if one of them stopped for a sandwich. But then if you actually look at how fast they're moving, it's like they're riding in an invisible snowmobile. Add this to the fun of short track skating (every short track race is constantly one wrong step away from a four-skater pile up), and winter Olympic skating destroys summer Olympic track and field. Destroys it.

I have a question though. The skaters wear those skin tight lycra suits for aerodynamics, right? Why don't track and field athletes wear those suits. Or, if it's more aerodynamic for the track and field people to wear spandex shirts and shorts, then why don't the skaters wear that? One of those outfits is more aerodynamic than the other, right? What am I missing? (Probably something obvious, seeing as I know almost nothing about skating, track and field or aerodynamics)

I learned even though I was wrong about the Olympics as a whole, I was right about some things. For example, I was right about skiing. All you have to do to win at skiing is get down the mountain the fastest. I could easily win a downhill skiing event. I'd die seconds later, because I would have no idea how to stop after I finished, but they'd have to bury me with my gold medal. The one skiing event I didn't mind was the new ski-cross. Ski-cross has potential, it's not quite there yet. I'm thinking maybe rockets on the backs of the skis, but it's on the right track.

Quick skiing sidenote: The cross country skiing is strangely riveting. Like a marathon on snow. It's sort of like curling in that I could watch it for an hour without noticing, but I can't quite put my finger on what's so entertaining about it.

I was also right about figure skating. In fact, it's even worse than I remember. One night, I tried to watch, because someone suggested to me that I should stick around for someone named Tanith Belbin. I didn't make it. Everything about it was awful. Every second was goofier than the last. Even worse than that, it's apparently the most popular sport, because NBC won't stop showing it. More than once, I saw figure skating on the big network while hockey was stuck on MSNBC or CNBC. I'm not OK with that, that's not how I roll.

I could go on for a while about this, but I think I'll just pick out my biggest problem. Figure skating has way too much crying. I don't mind some crying in sports. Basketball players cry when they win a championship. Baseball players cry when we find out they used steroids. Hockey players cry..never, they never cry, because they're real men. Figure skaters cry when they skate well, when they don't skate well, when they fall, when they get good scores, or bad scores, or any scores. Figure skaters cry at every possible outcome. It's unwatchable. Now, I fully realize that I am not physically capable of doing anything figure skaters do, including wearing the outfits. But that doesn't change how I feel about watching it.

I was also right about snowboarding, which is definitely not a sport. Also, is it just me, or are those snowboarding guys really unlikable? When you see an interview with Shaun White, don't you kind of want someone to run up and punch him in the face? You do, right? Or when you see them all just sort of hanging around the half pipe like high school stoners while they wait to go, wouldn't you love to see a bunch of ninjas run in and just go nuts on them? I feel like I'd enjoy seeing that.

Most importantly, I learned what it is that always makes the Olympics much better than I remember them being. There's always three or four things going on at once. It's like a sports carnival. So even when some of those things are figure skating and snowboarding, if only one of them is something I like, that's good enough, because I only need to be watching one thing at a time. Also, no joke, I would put up with months of non-stop figure skating if that's what I had to endure to get to this awesome hockey tournament.