I’m beginning to understand why my mom used to take time off during the Olympics. It’s nearly impossible to watch what you want if you work 8 hour days (or in my case 11-12 hour days if you count travel and unpaid OT – I’m salaried). Then, when you are able to watch, they put hockey on the backburner. I can’t believe they started the Canada/Norway game late on CNBC due to a preliminary Curling match running late (mind you, I do find Curling amusing). They aired the women’s game on MSNBC which I don’t get in HD. I noticed they aired the men’s games without commercials as obviously they have no TV timeouts in International play, but in the women’s games they insist on trying to squeeze commercials during breaks in play. They missed the first minute of the China/Finland game last nite and consistently come back from play well after the faceoff. Which just goes to show you how highly NBC thinks of the sport (to which I say a hearty FUCK YOU). And don’t get me started on the time delay – hello, Vancouver is in the Pacific Time Zone – this isn’t Beijing! In any case, I should be thankful I own a DVR and can even watch the damn games because NBC is being all Gestapo on online feeds and all they’re showing on the main network is clips of events that happened six hours previous, Figure Skating and Bob Costas’s bad dye job.
I ended up watching the US/Switzerland game in under 90 minutes. I had to completely sequester myself from internet and radio (and my brother who tried to give me updates) so I wouldn’t find out the result beforehand. I fast forwarded through 3 hours of curling – it’s fun watching it at high speed. While I was glad the US won, they didn’t really impress me much. Switzerland is ranked 7th and the US 5th in the IIHF World Rankings so I guess it wasn’t expected to be a cakewalk. Still with only two names I recognized on the Swiss squads (Hiller & Streit), I guess I wanted a little more. I’ll chalk it up to the quick turnaround from the NHL games over the weekend and the fact these guys really haven’t played together. Despite his 4 SOG Patrick Kane was nearly invisible, to the point I thought he was off the bench during the second period. Overall, the team will have to look better if they expect to medal.
By the time I was done watching the US game, there was only about a minute left in the Canada/Norway game. I was quite surprised they went into the second scoreless, and was wondering if Canadians everywhere were putting the suicide hotline on speed dial. No worries for the Canucks as they woke up in the second to score three on their way to an 8-0 victory. Toews got an assist on Getzlaf's goal, and both Keith and Seabrook's play was noticeable on the ice. For a time Keith was paired with Weber (IIRC) which was weird since he's only played with Seabrook for several years. Honestly I would have no problem if Canada won the gold here (aside from dealing with insufferable Canadians), especially with three Hawks on the squad. Now if Canada wins the women's gold - oh no, Mel Will Be Pissed.
Other games I saw bits and pieces of was the first period of the China/Finland women's game last night. China led 1-0 after one which was really surprising, but they ended up losing 2-1. There was no way in hell I was going to stay up for the Russia/Latvia game as I already need two alarms to get me up every morning at 5:30. I saw parts of the Germany/Sweden game tonight - after the damn curling was over (by the way - the US men's curling team: chokers). I was really rooting for Germany as I am German on my dad's side and really fell in love with the country after our vacation there last summer. Plus, I think Sweden is now the team I want least to win as they are infested with Red Wings (including Kronwall) and the creepy ass Sedin twins. Alas, it was not to be as the Swedes won 2-0. We'll always have Berlin.
Other random Olympic watching I have done is about 5 seconds of the men's figure skating last night and the women's downhill tonight. Of course I found out Vonn won about six hours previous, but I wanted to see it. Very treacherous course as skiers were crashing left and right. I'll give Vonn props for winning with a bum leg, but she's a tad annoying. Did we really need to see her and her husband canoodling afterward for like two minutes? It made me want to vomit.
Speaking of which, I ate way too many Thin Mint Cookies after dinner and now I feel slightly nauseous. Damn you Girl Scouts of America!
EDIT: the formatting of this post is all wonky - maybe because I wrote part of it at work on Word (shhhhh!) and pasted it. Oh well.
I ended up watching the US/Switzerland game in under 90 minutes. I had to completely sequester myself from internet and radio (and my brother who tried to give me updates) so I wouldn’t find out the result beforehand. I fast forwarded through 3 hours of curling – it’s fun watching it at high speed. While I was glad the US won, they didn’t really impress me much. Switzerland is ranked 7th and the US 5th in the IIHF World Rankings so I guess it wasn’t expected to be a cakewalk. Still with only two names I recognized on the Swiss squads (Hiller & Streit), I guess I wanted a little more. I’ll chalk it up to the quick turnaround from the NHL games over the weekend and the fact these guys really haven’t played together. Despite his 4 SOG Patrick Kane was nearly invisible, to the point I thought he was off the bench during the second period. Overall, the team will have to look better if they expect to medal.
By the time I was done watching the US game, there was only about a minute left in the Canada/Norway game. I was quite surprised they went into the second scoreless, and was wondering if Canadians everywhere were putting the suicide hotline on speed dial. No worries for the Canucks as they woke up in the second to score three on their way to an 8-0 victory. Toews got an assist on Getzlaf's goal, and both Keith and Seabrook's play was noticeable on the ice. For a time Keith was paired with Weber (IIRC) which was weird since he's only played with Seabrook for several years. Honestly I would have no problem if Canada won the gold here (aside from dealing with insufferable Canadians), especially with three Hawks on the squad. Now if Canada wins the women's gold - oh no, Mel Will Be Pissed.
Other games I saw bits and pieces of was the first period of the China/Finland women's game last night. China led 1-0 after one which was really surprising, but they ended up losing 2-1. There was no way in hell I was going to stay up for the Russia/Latvia game as I already need two alarms to get me up every morning at 5:30. I saw parts of the Germany/Sweden game tonight - after the damn curling was over (by the way - the US men's curling team: chokers). I was really rooting for Germany as I am German on my dad's side and really fell in love with the country after our vacation there last summer. Plus, I think Sweden is now the team I want least to win as they are infested with Red Wings (including Kronwall) and the creepy ass Sedin twins. Alas, it was not to be as the Swedes won 2-0. We'll always have Berlin.
Other random Olympic watching I have done is about 5 seconds of the men's figure skating last night and the women's downhill tonight. Of course I found out Vonn won about six hours previous, but I wanted to see it. Very treacherous course as skiers were crashing left and right. I'll give Vonn props for winning with a bum leg, but she's a tad annoying. Did we really need to see her and her husband canoodling afterward for like two minutes? It made me want to vomit.
Speaking of which, I ate way too many Thin Mint Cookies after dinner and now I feel slightly nauseous. Damn you Girl Scouts of America!
EDIT: the formatting of this post is all wonky - maybe because I wrote part of it at work on Word (shhhhh!) and pasted it. Oh well.
Ordinarily I enjoy curling, but it has seemed really tedious this year. I wish they would show some of the good teams instead of just the US.
ReplyDelete(And damn your Girl Scout cookies! I'm still waiting for mine and now they sound really, really good.)