At the risk of this being filled with self pitying ramblings, let me just say I've had better weeks.
The Olympics are finally over, and I already miss them. For two weeks I was captivated by sports that I most likely won't care about for another four years. Curling is obviously the big winner, for whatever reason NBC and it's broadcasting partners showed tons of it, and everyone in America is now convinced John Shuster is a terrible skip. Which is somewhat amazing, you have countless people who three weeks ago didn't know anything about the game of curling, but now they're convinced that Shuster is awful.
Beyond the constant coverage of curling it's interesting to see where the rest of the world compares to each other in various sports. The Latvian hockey team got smoked, but they won silver in both the skeleton, and the men's doubles luge. Seems like a meager haul but it's twice as many medals as the Brits won. Which is absurd, you'd think a world power like Britain would be able to compete in something. Granted America probably takes sports much more seriously than they do, and our population is larger but you'd think they'd be good at something. Speed skating, curling, cross country skiing, something besides just women's skeleton.
Marit Bjorgen of Norway won five medals by himself, three golds a silver and a bronze. That's as many medals as Great Britain, Latvia, Kazakhstan, and Estonia combined. And he has the edge in golds 3-1. That's mind bottling to me.
Fun fact that I just learned, or possibly relearned, Slovenia and Slovakia are two entirely different countries.
So Olympic hockey is so much better than the NHL game it's absurd. It makes sense, what with having the absolute best of the best playing, but the games were great from start to finish.
And it's nice to see how much these players cared about the Olympics, whether it was playing hurt(Marian Gaborik) or playing less than 15 minutes a game, most of which was spent blocking shots(Chris Drury) the players gave everything they had.
On top of just the overall skill of the Olympics it was a nice opportunity for me to see some players I rarely see play several games in a two week span. I know the big thing with NHLers in the Olympics is the hope that they're star power combined with the exposure will draw in new fans but I don't think it works that way. Hockey is a great sport, regardless of whether professionals are playing or if you have highly talented amateurs playing the end result is going to be the same, a hard hitting fast paced game that should sell itself. The skill level is obviously different and Ovie and Crosby are superstars but beyond them how many players carry that notoriety?
Zach Parise was nearly an American hero when he scored that game tying goal against the Canadians, but how many people will remember that name by the time I get around to posting this? Most people who watched won't remember the name, just the moment if hockey is lucky.
While the Olympics may not have grown the NHL fanbase as a result of the NHLers there, it certainly provided casual fans with the opportunity to see just how talented some of these players are.
A few weeks ago I wouldn't have been interested in seeing the Rangers play a team like the Blues or the Kings but the Olympics showed me some of the great players that aren't featured on sportscenter and will get me to some of those midweek out of conference games.
Quick who's older the lead singer of Saves the Day or the lead singer of Brand New?
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