The Official Winter Olympics Thread

[Paelos]

Kaid makes a solid point.

Both sides of the games (Summer/Winter) have their obscure sports. Weightlifting, fencing, field hockey, PING PONG? Those tend to get shadowed out by soccer, track, gymnastics, and swimming.

As for the huge followings, skiing is enormous in many countries. Skating as well, whether figure or hockey. The fact that they have a few, and I would hazard to say less, obscure games doesn't detract from the similarities between the two.

[Yegolev]

Because white people can't be REAL atheletes, am I rite Bryant?

[Hokers]

Maybe I am weird, or its because the GF is Norwegian, or I lived with an ice dancer for a year, but I like the winter Olympics more.

It kills me that the games have me all psyched up for cross-country skiing and its 40 in Chicago right now.  I may have to take up curling in frustration, there is a club about 20 min from me.

The only thing that is cutting into my enjoyment is that ass short tracker Apollo Ono.  I was pissed when he blamed the other skater for his fall, but then he showed up late for his consolation round.  Real classy that one.

Edit : he did show a lot of class when he came in 3rd in the 1000, I take most of it back.

Strangely, the downhill skier guy doesn't bother me.

[Margalis]

Pole vaulting while neat to watch how many people really head out to the field with a long pole and start hurdling themselves 15 feet up?

Crew racing. Um if you can find a more elitist sport you would have to look hard.

Shot putting. Ya there is a huge following of people who watch burly guys chuck lead weights.

You won't get any argument from me on the first two. Shot putting is pretty universal though. While not many people shot put, most people throw things and have some idea if they would be good at throwing heavy objects or not. It's pretty understandable.

The popular summer olympics sports are track and field (mostly the simpler events like sprinting, long jump, etc - the track really), swimming and gymnastics. I would argue that gymnastics is a bit of a special case in that because of the nature of the sport and the nature of the judging, the age of the competitors, and other factors it's appeal is based more on drama value than sports content. (Watch with your eyes half-covered to see if anyone royally screws up) Ice skating is often the same thing.

The summer sports like whitewater rafting, steeple chase, gymnastic/dancing (whatever they call it), synchronized swimming - not so popular, not so universal. I think the summer olympics have archery and shooting - again not universal, especially archery.

My opinion is that there are an infinite number of somewhat athletic things people can compete in, and the olympics should try to capture iconic ones.

[Wolf]

We got Silver, bitches! Short Track – Women's 500 m. Yeah. I can taste the almost Victory. All other Nations tremble in our presence!

[Yegolev]

My opinion is that there are an infinite number of somewhat athletic things people can compete in, and the olympics should try to capture iconic ones.

My question is: would UT2K4 be a winter or summer sport?

[Paelos]

My opinion is that there are an infinite number of somewhat athletic things people can compete in, and the olympics should try to capture iconic ones.

My question is: would UT2K4 be a winter or summer sport?

Blood sport. So, the X-games.

[kaid]

Okay I just watched mens snowboard cross last night. Okay this is obviously something people pulled out of their asses for a sport but by god it is amusing for me to watch. Crazy buggers. All they need now is russian chicks and LL cool Jay and it would be roller blade the movie on snow!

kaid

[HaemishM]

Having finished watching the Latvia vs. USA game (haven't watched the second USA game so don't spoil it for me), I can safely say the NHL needs to do whatever it can to make the game more like Olympic Hockey. Holy shit, that was some fast-paced fun. Lots of breaks, rushes, shooting, some good hits but with plenty of ice room for skating. The NHL needs no-touch icing. It looked like the rink was bigger... is it? There was also much more room behind the goal than in the NHL.

For a 3-3 tie, that was a great game.

[Nebu]

Having finished watching the Latvia vs. USA game (haven't watched the second USA game so don't spoil it for me), I can safely say the NHL needs to do whatever it can to make the game more like Olympic Hockey. Holy shit, that was some fast-paced fun. Lots of breaks, rushes, shooting, some good hits but with plenty of ice room for skating. The NHL needs no-touch icing. It looked like the rink was bigger... is it? There was also much more room behind the goal than in the NHL.

For a 3-3 tie, that was a great game.

Americans don't pay to watch "hockey".  They pay to watch thugs_on_ice.  It's a tragedy.  I've commented on this in a few hockey threads here over the years and think it's a market-driven phenomenon.  When the NHL goes back to real hockey, I'll be one of their greatest supporters.  Until then, if I want to watch boxing, I'll watch two professionals do it.

[WayAbvPar]

Having finished watching the Latvia vs. USA game (haven't watched the second USA game so don't spoil it for me), I can safely say the NHL needs to do whatever it can to make the game more like Olympic Hockey. Holy shit, that was some fast-paced fun. Lots of breaks, rushes, shooting, some good hits but with plenty of ice room for skating. The NHL needs no-touch icing. It looked like the rink was bigger... is it? There was also much more room behind the goal than in the NHL.

For a 3-3 tie, that was a great game.

Olympic rink is 15 feet wider. Or longer. Or something like that. Maybe taller.

[Mr_PeaCH]

A point some astute sportstalk guy made a while ago that I am 100% in agreement with:

The sport which has outgrown itself the worst is Ice Hockey.  Simply put, when the dimensions which the NHL plays by were put into place the average size and speed of the top pro hockey players was one thing and today they're much bigger and much faster.  The rink has become prohibitive to the game.

Next in line is probably football and basketball; basketball already tried to adapt by creating the 3pt line and widening the key.  Problem is that things like "100 yard gridiron" and "10 foot hoop" are pretty much ingrained in the national sports psyche.  I could definately see them widening the football field though.  (I think Canadian's are larger?)

Baseball is baseball; it will never change and probably doesn't need to.  60'6" from mound to plate and 90' basepaths aren't going anywhere and they already have some latitude on where to place the outfield fences.  Both the pitchers and batters strengths tend to offset each other at the plate.

Aside: Soccer got it right from the start.  The pitch seems always large enough to not need tampering unless you're in favor of enlarging the goals to increase scoring which I'm not.

[HaemishM]

Baseball is baseball; it will never change and probably doesn't need to.  60'6" from mound to plate and 90' basepaths aren't going anywhere and they already have some latitude on where to place the outfield fences.  Both the pitchers and batters strengths tend to offset each other at the plate.

Not quite. The late 60's they lowered the mound because they thought it would keep guys like Bob Gibson from striking out everyone. They also added the DH in the 70's. Plus the addition of the wild card has been big. :)

[Bunk]

Incase anyone didn't notice, the NHL changed dozens of rules this year. They are doing everything they can to eliminate the hooking, holding, interference, etc. Its resulted in higher scoring, faster paced games.

As for the fighting, fighting will always have a place in hockey. I'm not a fan of the designated thug - nothing is worse than two guys fighting because "its their job". Fighting in hockey is about protecting your stars, standing up for yourself, and most importantly - settling things without resorting to hitting the guy in the head with a stick. If two guys throw down in a spur of the moment, that's exciting and its part of the game.

Olympic ice is bigger, its 10 - 15 feet wider. This can be good or bad. If the ice gets too big, teams are forced to take a more deffensive style. It seems ok at the olympics, because of the skill level of the players, but if you watch say a Swedish Elite league game, which uses big ice, its nothing but deffensive traps and counter-attacks. Big ice is too hard to deffend so the players have to stay back. Leads to rather boring hockey actually. Smaller ice on the other hand leads to more hitting. As long as the NHL continues keeping the hooking and interferance out of the game, the smaller ice will be fine.

[Bunk]

Next in line is probably football and basketball; basketball already tried to adapt by creating the 3pt line and widening the key.  Problem is that things like "100 yard gridiron" and "10 foot hoop" are pretty much ingrained in the national sports psyche.  I could definately see them widening the football field though.  (I think Canadian's are larger?)

10 yards longer field, wider field, longer end zones, one more player, one less down, no fair catches, single points on missed field goals, no Michael Irvins, etc. etc.

[Margalis]

The sport which has outgrown itself the worst is Ice Hockey. 

You spelled basketball really really wrong.

Basketball is by far the worst as far as this goes. The court is so crowded now that most basketball consists of isolation plays, which are just plays designed specifically to artificially increase open area on the court by shoving most of the players off to the side.

[Signe]

Sucks to be Lindsey Jacobellis.      

[Trippy]

Sucks to be Lindsey Jacobellis.      

And the US Women's Hockey team...

[Hokers]

I do like the way Lindsey handled it, with her "I gotta be me" attitude.  Normally showboating gets me angry, but she is a snowboarder.  It is part of of it all.

She still has one more olympic medal than I do.

[Bunk]

Having been watching that from a hotel room in San Fran, I must say that that was officialy the second most stunned I have ever been watching something on tv. The time I was first most stunned, something really bad happened, so I'll just not go there.

[Signe]

The woman's hockey team were just not up to snuff.  At least they didn't try and do some pirouettes before they smacked the puck around.

Lindsey Jacobellis is a dumbass.

[Rodent]

So it's over for this time, and it really feels like Sweden won it all after having won the mens hockey gold ( the only gold I care about atleast ). And against our arch-enemy the evil Finns no less. Haven't been this pumped about sports since 94!

[WayAbvPar]

I am so glad the Olympics are over- I am jonesing for some NHL in a bad way.

[Miguel]

Standard NHL rink is 85'x200'.

Standard Olympic ice rink is 100'x200' (15 feet wider).

Having played on both surfaces I can tell you that the wider ice makes defensive coverage a real PITA.  It really emphasizes fast open skating and agility rather than brute force.  Two or three 6'5" guys weighing 250 pounds can lock up an NHL blue line, but on Olympic ice they would be dog meat to the faster skaters (trust me I know this from experience).

I've heard 1000 conspiracy theories as to why Olympic ice is larger (or why the NHL is smaller), but consensus is that it more closely mimics the outside open ice sheets that people play on when they are growing up (especially in Europe).  The other popular theory was that in the US the ice surface was shortened to reduce the size of the stadiums and make it much cheaper to maintain the ice surfaces (shrinking the side by 15 feet is a 15% reduction is surface that has to be maintained).

Obviously the kind of hockey that is played is greatly influenced by just that 15 feet of ice surface.  Dump-and-chase plays are fairly useless on Olympic rinks, where there is much more room to just skate in the zone.  Neutral zone traps are damn near impossible as well (this is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on which teams you like to follow).  On the flip side, people who are used to the bigger surface can end up handicapped and stripped of the puck repeatedly on the smaller ice surface.  I think there is a lot more strategy and positioning on the NHL ice surface where Olympic ice surfaces tend to showcase the star players more.

Just some food for thought.

[Strazos]

Also, I think the close quarters of the NHL rinks emphasize more physical play. Seeing good checks are still some of the most satisfying moments in watching hockey. With more room on an Olympic rink, there are just a lot fewer physical confrontations.

[El Gallo]

The Olympics seems to feature a lot more set plays, more skating with the puck around a defenseman into the offensive zone instead of dumping, and more spectacular cross ice passes than the NHL, where it's easy for five 6'4" guys to completely clog the ice.  It also seems to be a lot more demanding on defensemen.  In the big upset game, while Russia was skating and passing, the Canadiens were headhunting on the boards waiting to smash someone.  That's why I think they lost.   Well, that and the fact that the average age on their roster was something like 87. 

[WayAbvPar]

Don't forget the fact that they scored 1 goal in like 4 games. It was pathetic.

[Bunk]

Grats to Sweden and grats to the old US for edging us by one medal.

I want to defend my boys, but I can't.  *sniff*

So:

Go Brad Gushue! We still rock at Curling!

Oh, and we absolutely shit kick at Women's long distance Speed Skating: Cindy Klassen - 5 medals.

[Signe]

We still rock at Curling!

Only because you don't have to bring your own stones.

[Toast]

I'm just glad that The Office and My Name is Earl are back.

[schild]

I'm just glad that The Office and My Name is Earl are back.

And Love Monkey isn't. It's a cruel world.

[Paelos]

I'm just glad that The Office and My Name is Earl are back.

And Love Monkey isn't. It's a cruel world.

It was a case where the title actually sunk the show. Nobody knew wtf that meant.