The Swamp

At least you get to not care all over again for the world cup.

Ryan wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 9:44 am This is like 2 weeks away, huh? I miss caring.

I had a call with the people I am working with in Seoul and they had no interest in the Winter Olympics. The Kiwi who's working on the show said that there was not all that much promotion of the games. It's surprisingly low-key here as well.

I like the Winter Olympics better than the Summer, but mostly because you get to see a bunch of crazy shit you never get to see like biathalon and speed skating and ski jumping and that stuff. I really don't care much about Olympic hockey so I'm not too bummed the NHL players aren't over there.

I'm just bummed the Winter Olympics are overseas again.

Not that I'm biased or anything, but they really should be in Salt Lake City every other time. It's the perfect location for them.

Reno/Tahoe is supposed to be bidding for 2026 (along with Salt Lake). It's ridiculous the winter games went to Asia for two consecutive Olympics, but the IOC is the IOC and bribes are bribes I guess.

But somewhere in Europe is more likely since LA got the 2028 Summer Olympics.

brian wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 1:16 pm Reno/Tahoe is supposed to be bidding for 2026 (along with Salt Lake). It's ridiculous the winter games went to Asia for two consecutive Olympics, but the IOC is the IOC and bribes are bribes I guess.

But somewhere in Europe is more likely since LA got the 2028 Summer Olympics.

For some reason nobody applied in 2022 other than Beijing and Almaty. Oslo was there but a new government pulled the bid.

Calgary is in the running for 2026 as well. The IOC was here last week.

degenerasian wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 1:24 pm

brian wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 1:16 pm Reno/Tahoe is supposed to be bidding for 2026 (along with Salt Lake). It's ridiculous the winter games went to Asia for two consecutive Olympics, but the IOC is the IOC and bribes are bribes I guess.

But somewhere in Europe is more likely since LA got the 2028 Summer Olympics.

For some reason nobody applied in 2022 other than Beijing and Almaty. Oslo was there but a new government pulled the bid.

Calgary is in the running for 2026 as well. The IOC was here last week.

We had assumed for a long time that Utah would bid for 2022. But the USOC decided there would be no bids from the US in order to make the LA bid for 2024 more likely to succeed.

brian wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 12:21 pm I like the Winter Olympics better than the Summer, but mostly because you get to see a bunch of crazy shit you never get to see like biathalon and speed skating and ski jumping and that stuff. I really don't care much about Olympic hockey so I'm not too bummed the NHL players aren't over there.

I agree - bobsled/luge/skeleton all insane and ski jumping is fantastic to watch.

Steve of phpBB wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 1:13 pm I'm just bummed the Winter Olympics are overseas again.

Not that I'm biased or anything, but they really should be in Salt Lake City every other time. It's the perfect location for them.

I love that you view the Olympics as a local community event.

The Sybian wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 3:46 pm

Steve of phpBB wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 1:13 pm I'm just bummed the Winter Olympics are overseas again.

Not that I'm biased or anything, but they really should be in Salt Lake City every other time. It's the perfect location for them.

I love that you view the Olympics as a local community event.

Eh, you're invited too, Syb.

Steve of phpBB wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 4:08 pm

The Sybian wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 3:46 pm

Steve of phpBB wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 1:13 pm I'm just bummed the Winter Olympics are overseas again.

Not that I'm biased or anything, but they really should be in Salt Lake City every other time. It's the perfect location for them.

I love that you view the Olympics as a local community event.

Eh, you're invited too, Syb.

Lake Placid needs another economic jump start!

Greg Wyshinski of ESPN wrote:I won't go as far as to say that the NHL and the IOC conspired to keep players out of the 2018 Games to save Canada the embarrassment of getting dominated by the United States of America. But I won't outright dismiss the theory.

How's that for a teaser?

In the above, Wyshinski is referencing a statement by Dave Lozo of Vice Sports in his own piece.

Both articles discuss the fact that there is a ton of elite young American blood now in the NHL, and while they don't have the quantity of players that Canada brings, their best can certainly compete with anybody else's best.

Wyshinski's article

Lozo's article

This is nothing new, it's been the case since the US won the 96 World Cup. Why would this US team compared to Canada be any different than 98, 02, 06, 10 and 14?

I could write the exact same article and put in Sweden. They have an insane amount of young players (especially defensemen) who will miss the Olympics. Or Finland who won junior gold in 14 and 16

Random thing in my head as I was thinking about winter Olympics last night. Why is the sprint in cross country skiing nearly a mile. In Track and Field we have distances from 100M -> Marathon for running. In speed skating we have a sprint of 500M to 10,000M. Swimming we have sprints to longer events. So why is there not a really short cross country straight line flat sprint. It is sort of like saying the only type of non-downhill skiing is cross country (which i get is in the name of the broad event). Interestingly enough there is no cross country running in the olympics...but we do get Steeplechase.

Okay back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Oh and while I am ranting on the Olympics. Why are the Opening Ceremonies after the events start? Shouldn't the Opening happen first. F' Tv ratings. This is the Olympics basically saying Luge, Ski Jumping, & Biathalon...aren't you cute..the real stuff starts on Friday. Even ice hockey which has to fit a whole tournament in is not going until Saturday.

wlu_lax6 wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2018 12:20 pm Oh and while I am ranting on the Olympics. Why are the Opening Ceremonies after the events start? Shouldn't the Opening happen first. F' Tv ratings. This is the Olympics basically saying Luge, Ski Jumping, & Biathalon...aren't you cute..the real stuff starts on Friday. Even ice hockey which has to fit a whole tournament in is not going until Saturday.

Eh, as they keep adding events, it's hard to fit everything in. Isn't the ice hockey final one of the last events? So they can wait until Saturday to start.

Just think of the pre-ceremony events as the Prologue.

Yeah. They do this all of the time, but this year at least they're not pretending like everything starts Friday and instead are actually broadcasting events on Thursday.

the made up events like mixed curing and team figure skating go first.

in the summer games i think they play soccer an entire week before to fit it in.

When do the human interest stories start?

P.D.X. wrote: ↑Mon Feb 05, 2018 1:51 pm When do the human interest stories start?

I thought it was the Tongan Flag-Bearer.

Short track speed skating is at the top of my list. It's like Nascar on ice. After that it's anything other than figure skating.

I used to like the group start downhill event for the same reason but it might have been XGames only.

HaulCitgo wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2018 1:10 pm I used to like the group start downhill event for the same reason but it might have been XGames only.

They have the group racing for snowboarding in the Olympics and it's awesome as hell.

They have ski-cross too

Want to see something really crazy and fun....google Red Bull Ice Cross

Must not be thread-worthy.

wlu_lax6 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 06, 2018 2:17 pm Want to see something really crazy and fun....google Red Bull Ice Cross

Highly recommended!

Also...

Welcoming The World... and Norovirus

Not surprising that the Korean news site has a headline that reads "41 Olympics security staff ill with norovirus" while CNN's says "
Military deployed as norovirus outbreak hits Winter Olympic security guards"

they need ice canoeing and snow kayaking

The North Koreans have arrived

I'd give them a taste of freedom, amirite?

First results are in, mixed curling!

Canada 6 Norway 9
Finland 4 South Korea 9
China 5 Switzerland 7
USA 9 OAR 3

Fucking Shani Davis, doods.

Also, this picture, is...odd.

A_B wrote: ↑Thu Feb 08, 2018 9:53 am Fucking Shani Davis, doods.

dammit. Now his mom is going to show up again and blast us.

testuser2 wrote: ↑Thu Feb 08, 2018 11:05 am

A_B wrote: ↑Thu Feb 08, 2018 9:53 am Fucking Shani Davis, doods.

dammit. Now his mom is going to show up again and blast us.

That's okay maybe he can blame the Under Armour uniforms again if the skaters don't perform like 4 years ago. Sure a coin toss stinks but nobody remembers the person who carries the flag (unless they are oiled up Tongans or start the tradition of not tipping the Flag...USA USA USA)....they remember the person who brings home multiple golds (or fails tragically).

I think it would still be memorable to, you know, the person doing it

US mixed doubles curlers gave up first every 6-ender. First time a perfect score had ever been thrown at the Olympics. Then in the afternoon the Koreans got a mercy rule win over the US. US 1-3 after 2 days with 2 to play. Currenty 6th place. Need some work over the next two days to get a shot at the semi finals. US team is a brother-sister duo. Brother has a solid cookie duster mustache.

wlu_lax6 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 09, 2018 8:45 am US mixed doubles curlers gave up first every 6-ender. First time a perfect score had ever been thrown at the Olympics. Then in the afternoon the Koreans got a mercy rule win over the US. US 1-3 after 2 days with 2 to play. Currenty 6th place. Need some work over the next two days to get a shot at the semi finals. US team is a brother-sister duo. Brother has a solid cookie duster mustache.

That wasn't as bad as the score would indicate. US was up then tied and needed to dot one and missed one rock badly to give them that 6 and lopsided final score. It was a pretty close match otherwise (though they US actually let them back in the door by only chalking one in the 6th? can't remember which.

Ryan wrote: ↑Thu Feb 08, 2018 11:22 am I think it would still be memorable to, you know, the person doing it

also what kind of panel to vote on things has an even number of members. adding a ninth person to it would have solved everything

Whatever the set up, it's very Shani to bitch about it.

Dude is a fucking asshole.

Brontoburglar wrote: ↑Fri Feb 09, 2018 10:18 am

Ryan wrote: ↑Thu Feb 08, 2018 11:22 am I think it would still be memorable to, you know, the person doing it

also what kind of panel to vote on things has an even number of members. adding a ninth person to it would have solved everything

Each federation gets one nomination and one vote. So 8 is based on the number of federations represented in the winter programs. Seems like a reasonable model.