The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver/Whistler
 

Opening ceremony on Friday ! closing ceremony Sunday, 28th.

what events are you looking forward to ?

Me personally the ski jumping events, allways been a big fan of the sport for many years now.
Also love the Biathlon.

Played curling myself, so gotta watch that even though i realize it´s definitely not an entertaining event for the outsider :D

After being at both places for a couple days last spring i kind of feel connected to the games more than usually.

Glad i have a DVR since new years, coming in handy with the time difference and all. Only gotta avoid the internet on days after recorded events ...

I look forward to the winter olympics primarily for curling.

Hockey is played 10 months a year, can see it nightly.

Figure skating makes tv for its big championships.

Winter X games is on every year.

The rest of the sports are pretty boring.

But curling and speed skating, you only get at the Olympics. This will be the first time I have a DVR during the Olympics, so I can pretty much fill my day with curling.

I'm over curling. It's just cool at the Olympics because people who can't get into other events go watch.

Speedskating is too dramatic these days with the whole US team rift and the 1000x articles about how little money they make.

I'll watch, but it's not as interesting as it used to be.

I find it hard to get excited about sports that I have no interest in regularly. Just because it is the Olympics doesn't mean that curling is any closer to being worth watching.

I'm just bordering on amazed they still make this.

I always watch the Olympics as best as possible.

Speed Skating, Biathlon, Ski jump, luge and Bobsledding I love.

I missed out on when they came to Utah and I lived there. Never went to any event, couldn't do it at the time.

So I hope to DVR what I miss.

Just Ice Hockey.

I can't get into a sport where it looks like everyone's doing exactly the same thing, except one of them does it .00001 seconds faster than everyone else.

do they have snow yet?

I was 8 the last time Canada hosted the games. We didn't win a gold and the big heroes were Elizabeth Manley, who won bronze I think, and Brian Orser, who won silver. But i remember them as a huge deal, school projects, watching events in class....

I am pretty excited, I think we'll get 24 hour coverage on 4 channels here. Always something to watch, and alot of projections have Canada doing quite well. We may actually win a gold!!!

I can't wait to watch the hockey...the 21st will be a great day!

Sunday, February 21
3:00 pm RUSSIA vs. CZECH REPUBLIC
7:45 pm CANADA vs. USA
12:00 am SWEDEN vs. FINLAND

I'll disagree with this. Hockey is very cool (to me) at the Olympics since you get very different teams. And we get a ton of curling up here regularly. I've only started to watch curling this year (women's) when I noticed a couple of cute, young girls on one of the province teams.

We don't get any non-Olympic curling here. I am fascinated by it, and cannot wait to see it. I will probably skip the evening broadcast heavy with snowboarding and figure skating and watch DVR'ed curling.

there´s plenty of snow in Whistler. Not so much on Cypress Mountain by Vancouver, but they have it covered with transports and artificial snow i guess.

Despite all the hype up here about trying to win the most medals, I think most Canadians really only care about hockey gold and then curling. Other medals are nice to have but these four are far and away the big barometer of Olympic success.

I will never forget watching the 2002 men's gold medal hockey game in the Ottawa airport. We drank the bar dry of all their beer and any flights boarding during the third period left without several of their passengers who refused to leave sight of the televisions.

It was also so cool that kids in Newfoundland and Labrador got the day off school in 2006 for the mens' gold medal curling match.

I'm all about the curling. I think they showed a bunch of it on MSNBC or CNBC the last Winter Olympics. They showed several matches throughout the day. It was all kinds of awesome.

I couldn't care less about the curling, since we are inundated with it up here and, for the most part, the competition in the various tournaments within Canada is stronger overall than what we'll see in the Oly's.

Ice Hockey, mens and womens, will be my big focus. Although I looked at the schedule and there isn't really a good game until the 20th or 21st. Seems like all the top teams are just playing against scrubs for their first couple games, which is pretty boring.

The aerials in skiing are fun to watch, but I won't go out of my way.

Everything else will only be watched if I happen to be sitting around and I can't think of anything else to watch or do.

I smell Canuck elitism. Our curling stones are bigger than your curling stones.

love the olympics. will probably dvr a ton of stuff. luge/bobsled aren't that exciting, nor is curling, but most everything else will get dvr'd.

not sure if i like summer or winter more. summer has some great sports - water polo anyone???

wtf are the Oly's??? Is that some of your crazy canadian slang???:D

See, I think that stuff, and the snowboarding, is glorified figure skating. Besides being avaliable to watch every winter on ESPN.

I feel like we are inundated with that crap here.

Speaking of curling, the Canadian Men's team (Kevin Martin and friends) have been training at a local rink here in Edmonton...and it so happens my grandfather curls there as well. One morning a few weeks ago both my grandfather and Kevin Martin were doing their thing when my grandfather made a pretty nice double. Kevin and his crew cheered the great shot and acknowledged the old guys playing on the sheet next to them. Well, my grandfather (who's quite the character and never one to shy away from any opportunity to be a joker) hollers over to Martin, one of the best curlers in the world:

"Maybe if you keep at this game you might be able to make a shot like that someday!"

awwwww :D

your grandfather knew who it was he was talking to i assume?

Water Polo is evil, most brutal sport i´ve ever played. My cousin´s cousins both allways played (1 of them actually played for the national team on a few ocasions and was one of the last cuts before the bejing olympics) and one birthday they got me to give in and i came with them to a practice of their clubs b-team. Most intense experience in my live, absolutely terrifying and unbelievably exhausting.
And i´m a pretty good swimmer, so it wasn´t like i was drowning by myself allready.

I am most looking forward to the Olympics being over so there will be new episodes of Chuck on again.

+1.

I don't know how I didn't already figure it would be like that but I was disappointed when at the end of the last episode it said it won't be back until the monday following the winter olympics.

Every curler (and probably any Canadian who reads the sports section of their local newspaper) knows who Kevin Martin is...so, yes, he most certainly did.

Regarding the Olympics, I'm actually looking forward to seeing the Opening Ceremonies...hockey...curling...and speed skating. It will also be a very much needed break from the Oilers...I think that's what I'm looking forward to the most.

I think I'll be DVRing some curling this time around as well. Last time, I didn't see much curling coverage in the evenings. Too damn much figure skating.

I think my wife is a bit curious as to why I have three curling apps for my iPod Touch.

You guys still have newspapers? That is so 20th century.

Racist.

They should really move basketball to the winter olympics.

Half a dozen jokes here. Half a dozen easily.

Are any of them knock-knock jokes? It's been a while since I've heard a good knock-knock joke.

We have to do something with all the trees we removed to twin the highways in BC for the Olympics!!!

Hehe...no.

I like just about all of it except for cross country skiing and downhill slalom. I can't wait for some curling and bobsledding/skeleton/luge. If anyone else has it, the Universal Sports station has been showing the World Cup events from the down-the-ice sports like bobsledding for the last few weeks.

I'm also geeked for ski jumping. There's just something about flying down a hill with nothing but skis and a prayer that is just cool.

When it returns I strongly suggest you nag everyone you know to return to watching it quickly.

It's basically considered a bubble show, on the renewal side at this point but if the return is slow and they drop down to something like 2.2 or less instead of their standard 2.4-2.5 then it could find itself on the wrong side of the bubble.

+1

Chalk me up as another one who loves the curling, my wife doesn't get why. I'm not sure I do either.

How's Age of Curling anyway? It actually looks like it could be interesting.

Knock Knock.

Who's There?

Basketball.

Basketball who?

Basketball in the Winter Olympics.

actually also looking forward to the hockey tournament as i normally don´t follow the sport but really enjoy it every other year at the worl championchips or Olympics.

I can't wait for the hockey to start. I already have the schedule printed out and highlighted for each of the games. I'm a little torn about the whole thing, however.

On one hand, I'd like to see America win the gold, because, well, I'm American. On the other hand, I would like to see Canada win because Steve Yzerman is the GM and Mike Babcock is the head coach. Then you have the half dozen Red Wings on the Swedish team, though they won it last time so I am not overly concerned, and the Russian team should be a ton of fun to watch. I don't think Russia is quite as deep as Canada, but I don't think any team can really beat their top forwards: Ovechkin, Malkin, Kovalchuck, and Datsyuk.

You forgot to add that your man crush Sidney Crosby is on that team too.

On a serious note, I'm also really excited for the hockey...but I am pulling for the USA 100%. It'll be the first time that all my friends and I can root for the same team...pretty much ever.

Woot! I love the Winter Olympics. I enjoy it far more than the Summer ones. Mostly for sports like curling, speed skating, luge, and the skiing, as well as interesting stuff like speed biking (or whatever its called).

The Summer Olympics are far more interesting, this would help close the gap.

Taking hockey out of the equation, I find the Summer and Winter games to be pretty much equal. But once you take olympic hockey into account, it's a no brainer.

The Winter Olympics is really just an awesome hockey tournament with a bunch of other stuff going on around the periphery.

Olympic basketball does nothing for me.

Jagr to carry the flag for Czech Republic
Ziggy Palffy to carry the flag for Slovakia
Peter Forsberg to carry the flag for Sweden
Alexei Morozov to carry the flag for Russia

Will the Flying Tomato be carrying the U.S. flag? :)

I'm sure you were joking, but if i had to guess (and i haven't looked...i'm sure the info is out there), I'd guess it'd be Apollo Ohno carrying the U.S. flag.

well now i looked and i was wrong

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Back in 1984, Mark Grimmette was startled to find bulldozers ripping into the side of his favorite sledding hill.
Turns out, a luge track was being built. Grimmette went out and helped the crew finish the job.

That was the first step along a path that would bring him to five Olympics as a doubles luge competitor, plus the honor of being the U.S. flagbearer for Friday night's opening ceremony of the Vancouver Games.

I love Shani Davis. A black speed-skater...who'd have thunk it!

Lindsay Vonn?

So is he the flying Grimmette?

Sad story, a luger from the country of Georgia was killed in a training run this morning.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...lugecrash.html

why´d that asshole speak about it at all if the family hasn´t been notified yet? Anonimity my ass ...

Propably not exactly the important aspect here, but i felt like pointing it out...

Just this morning there had been a a quote by a german luger in the paper saying that the speed of the tracks has "definitely reached a critical point" ...

he was going at over 140 KPH, just to give an idea what extremes we are talking about...

Yeah, the course seems way too fast based on what everyone is saying and I'm not sure why those poles weren't padded.

At 70+ MPH, I'm not sure that taking a header into a padded pole is going to make much difference. Sad situation.

There had already been comments about the luge track and there are many skiers from what I understand complaining about the speed of their courses. Sounds like some dangerous situations for a lot of people.

The other problem from reading the articles is that the Canadians restricted the use of the tracks prior to the games for everyone but their own team. So people just don't have a lot of experience on it.

I saw this; and the least they could do was put some nets or something there. Those poles are 3 foot off the course and when he hit it; it was like throwing someone against a wall.

Great start to the Olympics.

Okay, that's just "duh".

Reading about the ex-luger, it seems the guy wasn't very good, was a far cry from being competitive, had crashed on this track before, and it could be argued that he had no place competing on a wolrd-class and very dangerous course.

That, and nets would have helped, too.

The gold-medal favorite crashed on the same course today, could have just as easily been him.

YES, HE DESERVED TO DIE, AND I HOPE HE BURNS IN HELL!!

First of all, I didn't say the guy deserved to die, you asshat.

Secondly, I just watched the video and there is really no excuse for not having some kind of protective barrier between 80mph lugers and 0mph steel I-beams. That's a colossal design flaw.

Three feet? Those things look like they're three inches off the course.

And ... there are a lot of those poles ...

They hadn't started yet...

Stay classy FOFC...

Better idea of the short distance.

I can only speak for myself, and say that this is the first time I've ever paid attention to pole-distance-from-luge-course, so far all I know this is the standard set-up, based on some sort of structural necessity.


....but man, that sure does look like an obviously bad idea.

I think the minimum should be higher walls.

OK, after seeing the pictures, I recant my previous statement. Those are a lot closer to the course than the original story I read seemed to indicate.

+1. I know nothing about this but at first glance looks like the kind of thing any health and safety department would take one look at and shut the entire operation down. Could be that it's just the most tragic fluke accident in the history of sport, they did everything right and just didn't think it was possible for somebody to hit it like that, but it just looks really bad right now.

Someone asked that and they said they don't have higher walls because then the spectators can't see.

Kind of what crossed my mind. Seeing those pictures, I wondered about the legal liability and what waivers the athletes are required to sign.

I am a simple man, but Plexiglas is see through.

That bothers me for a variety of reasons.

That or nets. Like someone said earlier, it takes a death a lot of times before people ask whether something could be done a lot better than it is.

Surely death is an occupational hazard with something as crazy as luge?

I don't know what's normally done, but I'd think this is just how Olympics function? Kind of like a home-field advantage?

not sure, but i'd think not. it's not supposed to be about "home field advantage" it's supposed to be about "even playing field"

how many more viewers will luge be getting this year now?

look at the natives getting down to bryan adams and nellie furtado. :cool:

All I have to say is that I hope NBC never does the olympics again. How do I live in the same freaking time zone as the games and yet I'm stuck watching tape delayed coverage. This is 2010!!! People have this cool "new" invention called DVR's. Maybe NBC hasn't heard of them yet. Show the games live and if people want to watch it they can or they can record it.

So it started at 8 Specific Time?

You won't see much difference regardless of the network.


Currently present in roughly 30% of US TV households. And of the top 10 most prevalent (San Diego leads at 37.7%) only three are top ten market size (DAL, LA, SF).


As the Wall Street Journal explains,

This is all leading up to an 80' Wayne Gretzky, right?

SI

Or rather a 99' tall Wayne Gretzky

SI

I have "Wayne Gretzky wearing Celine Dion's skin as a pelt" in the Olympic torch pool

SI

Wow....

Whoops. Oh well. These things happen.

SI

Great one looked none too pleased to be left hanging on the mechanical difficulty.

Dola, ah, that's why, Gretzky had shit to do, has to light two cauldrons in one night.

Nice ceremony until the opera singer and then the lighting of the torch setback.

Yeah, Gretzky looked the most uncomfortable. I imagine he's a bit of a perfectionist.

Steve Nash looked like "Sweet! I get to light the Olympic torch!" with a giant smile on his face.

SI

ah that's too bad they had the problem at the end. Thought it was a so-so Opening Ceremony. Really liked the computer generated floor stuff like the kid running through the prairies, but thought some stuff like the fiddling/tap dancing went on too long.

It still looks good, even if it is missing the fourth piece.

Do they light that thing indoors the whole Olympic period?