This point system is what the NHL needs to adopt. 3 points for a win in regulation.

I went to high school with Evan Lysacek. Graduated a year before him.

So yeah, I'm tuning into Men's figure skating tonight.

Gretchen Bleiler is easily the best I've seen so far, even with the fall (then again, I'm about an hour behind on the DVR).

That said, the girls just aren't that impressive to me so far- they just can't get the same air so they can't do the same tricks, kindof like some of the beginning guys last night.

Tho, with the air and moves Bleiler was going with, she would have scored in the top 3 guys if she could hit it.

SI

Kelly Clark can get the air, too. But she's really wobbly between moves and it cost her on the first run.

SI

Puck hit a skate in front of the net and ended up right on the Swiss player's stick with a wide open net. It happens...Canada got a few of those bounces but Hiller just seemed to be in the right place at the right time.

The Swiss played the exact game they needed to play...trap, trap, trap...shoot...trap, trap, trap...and Canada didn't adjust by dumping it in and knocking the crap out of their d-men. The Richards line should've been out there a little more often to do just that.

Sunday should be fun, though!

Oh suck! Bleiler had the tricks and the air but just wiped out. She had such a great run but then took off a half second too early and wiped out :(

I feel cheated because she had the best moves of anyone out there but couldn't land and didn't get the gold despite looking like the best

SI

Fair scoring on the snowboarding. It's how I would have done it. The Australian was best.

SI

France-Canada in curling. The Canadians were up 4-0 but France just got back in to it with 2 in the 4th end.

SI

And Martin scores 5 in the 5th end.

Game over, Canada! 5 in the 5th.

SI

In Sweden-China, they just had to do a measurement. Think football where they bring out the chains. They had this bar that they stick in the middle of the ice and rotate around to see which of the stones was closer.

SI

I saw them do that in a USA women's match the other day. Pretty cool. I gotta say though, watching the curling online streams makes me appreciate the announcers on the regular broadcasts. I just don't know enough about curling strategy to understand what they are trying to do most of the time.

That's why I tend towards the Canadian ones- they are almost always streams piped in from Canadian tv so they have announcers.

SI

Oh yeah? Where can I find those?

The "Crosby is a whiner" crowd is ridiculous.

The current one:
Video | Men's prelims: France vs Canada | NBC Olympics

In general,
Video - Exclusive Coverage | 2010 Winter Olympics | NBC Olympics
Go to the "Watch the Olympics Live Online" box to find them

SI

Never mind- I think the French just conceded. Again, the Canadians picked up 5 in one end and it was over after that.

SI

Great job Evan!

Our DVR cut out so we missed the Russian at the end and the results.

FYI: China-Sweden going into extra ends

SI

Russia vs Slovakia going into a shootout.

Slovakia takes the shootout over Russia. The ice was a joke for that shootout. No one could deke without losing the puck. Still, great game.

Olympic hockey is amazing!

The Slovakia/Russia game was just as entertaining as it gets.

I'm off next week and have nothing to do on Sunday either.

3pm RUS vs CZE, 7:40pm CAN vs USA, midnight SWE vs FIN.

Good lord.

Anybody see the divas skate last night? Russian guy 'jokingly' steps onto the gold podium before assuming his spot on the silver podium. I was hoping for a cat fight.

No kiddin'. I wish I had the monday monring off. That's about the best three-game lineup in international ice hockey you can get...

why can´t that be on saturday ?? :banghead:

amazing pairings really.

USA curling finally gets a win, the women beat Russia 6-4. Hopefully the men can get their first win later today against France.

I'm sure many guys don't give two shits about ice skating, but the storyline all around for last night was as good as any Hollywood writer could dream up. Great drama, great clutch performance by Lysacek.

I wonder if they will make a lineup change. How can they run a guy out there who has missed 4 game winning shots in the last 3 games.

They have made a change. They have replaced the skip with the alternate.

The time zones and me DVRing the stuff have kept me out of this thread but some thoughts.

I don't see SI's hate for Mancuso, she seems fine to me. Maybe it is because I grew up in NJ and know what a real bitchy woman is like.

US mens curling has been brutal, like watching the Mets on ice.

I thought I would hate the snowboarding but actually liked it. I also told my wife the women should go first. No offense to the women, but they look like a bunch of children out there in comparison.

Olympic hockey is the nuts, it is awesome.

I thought this video was very cool about what the medals are and how they are made - really turned me around on the subject.

Vancouver 2010 Medals : Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics

The new guy REALLY sucks.

how fucked up a sport is skeleton ? Going head first down an ice track with very little space on the side in terms of protection.
I had to turn of the TV, can´t watch it. All i´m thinking is "don´t crash now, where´s the rider, why is this so fast, don´t crash please, don´t die, WTF are you doing ?"

nice insight on the medals :)

Great Britain wins a gold at the WINTER olympics!

(yeah I know we won Curling in 02, but this one is particularly impressive as we don't even have a skeleton track anywhere in the country)

And the girl in question had never won a world cup event before, but sets two track records and just performs out of her mind all week. Pretty nice story.

I love these three observations, particularly "Mets on ice" :D

Also, I had forgotten ice dancing. Figure skating, well, I've written volumes on how I don't like it, the judging, or the coverage. But this is completely useless as a "sport" as well.

SI

Wow- great run by Svindal. The differences between the medals were a couple of hundreds of a second and he just smoked them all by 0.30

Oh, and I think you could have an Super G drinking game involving the term "weasel"

SI

The ice dancers are warming up.

Who knew the Olympics could also provide comedy.

While I agree with your general point, Belbin is a stunner.

ayup

Not related to the competition, but did anyone else find it strange that for the AT&T snowboarder-in-space commercial they used the Lou Reed song that played in Trainspotting when Ewan McGregor OD'd?

Sounds like the Russian guy is an ass. Just saw an article about him complaining that the winner isn't a real champion because he didn't try a quad something.

he actually has a point. It´s kind of like another snowboarder beating Shaun White with inferior tricks because he rides more smoothly on the halfpipe between jumps.

Not saying he is definitely right, but it is definitely true that the jumps and the difficulty of them have gotten an afterthought and taken a backseat to technical elements.

And it´s also true that now there are less difficult jumps being done than 5 years ago.

but who cares, it´s figure skating :D

Svindal is a monster, figuratively speaking. Once stood right in front of the guy and he really stands out. I have been following his career since years and years ago when i "called" his breakout season by selecting him in a game where everyone drew an athlete from every major winter sport in a fantasy-game.

She's also super cool. She's a local girl and I've heard a few radio interviews with her. She seems very down to earth and funny.

Interesting Winter Olympics trivia I learned through Wikipedia - Curling was included in the first Winter Olympics in 1924, then a few times as a demonstration sport, then back to full status in 1998. The sport of skeleton, which seems to have evolved from a similar sledding sport called Cresta Sledding (from a Cresta track set up for the head-first sport in St. Moritz) and was included in the 1928 and 1948 Olympics in St. Moritz but then not again until 2002 (as Skeleton.)

And now skeleton runners are known as "Of all the death defying sports in the Olympics, these guys are the craziest. They take the luge and think 'It's not crazy enough to do a sport someone died in this week. Why not try this head first?' "


SI

How many of us have gone sledding as a kid and went down a hill head first on the sled? Granted not as fast but I venture to say it is about as dangerous as we sure didn't have helmets or anything even close to protective gear. They don't have to worry about hitting rocks or trees at least. :)

Being from Houston, 0 times ;)

And once I moved to Kansas, I was mostly smart enough to go legs first (tho, yeah, I did go head first- just not down the really big hills)

SI

Do people really not realize that skeleton is mucho safer than luge?

No clue, personally. It sounds like a crazier idea. As for whether it's safer or not, I have no idea.

SI