Musing's musings

Eviva i Giochi Olimpici!

I was a little disappointed in the opening ceremonies last night. I had expected something a little more flashy and in keeping with the Italian spirit, but they seemed flat. Except for the lighting of the Olympic flame near the end of the ceremony: that was wicked cool.

As expected, NBC's coverage was sub-par. I was glad to hear that they'd swapped out Katie Couric for Brian Williams to assist Bob Costas with the opening night coverage, but all they let Williams do was interject useless bits of pseudo-trivia when Costas wasn't bloviating. I wish I could get the satellite feed directly, and just blow off all the blathering. My TiVo helps with some of that, anyway: I can always fast-forward through all the fluff-and-sob stories about how Athlete X rose above a crappy childhood in a trailer park, yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah. Next!

Nevertheless, I am a tremendous partisan of the Olympic Games. They are a testimony to all that is best in the human spirit. I don't know what bug Paul Farhi had up his butt last Sunday when he opined in the Washington Post that the Winter Olympics "could be more accurately branded 'The European and North American Expensive Sports Festival.'" While Farhi chose to belittle the Ethiopians' first-ever delegation to the Winter Games (a single Alpine skier), I find in that fact a vindication of what the Olympic movement is all about: bringing together the world community through friendly competition.

Sure, the Norwegians have won a boatload more medals than anybody else in the Winter Olympics. The Canadians, the Germans, the Americans, the Swedes, the Finns, and the Dutch are probably going to win most of the hardware this time. And sure, the overwhelming majority of the 2,633 accredited athletes are likely to go home without even one of the 243 medals that will be awarded across all of the 15 sports. What of it?

How many American kids play football, for example? And how many of them will go on to make it into the NFL? Of those fortunate few, how many will go on to win a Super Bowl ring? I don't hear Farhi (or anybody else) complaining that all those kids are just wasting their time, or berating them for spending so much effort and passion pursuing such a remote goal, so why should the Winter Olympics be treated any differently?

Consider one of the events from last night's opening ceremonies. The North and South Korean teams marched into the stadium together. According to the commentary, their two countries are considering competing as one team at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. Now, when was the last time you heard North and South Korea agree about anything, except perhaps how evil the other country was?

Or consider the Kenyan cross-country skier Philip Boit, who got into the sport a decade ago because Nike was looking for some people to cross over into winter sports in a country renowned for its distance runners (including Philip's older brother Mike, who won a bronze medal in the 800 meters at the 1972 Munich Games). At the Nagano Games in 1998, Boit finished dead last in the 10km classic, with a time of 47.25.5--20 minutes after the winner crossed the line. But the winner of that race, the Michael Jordan of Norwegian cross-country skiing, Bjorn Dæhlie, was waiting at the finish line to applaud and embrace Boit for his efforts. Boit will be competing in Turin in his third Olympics, after cutting more than 10 minutes from his Nagano time in the 10km race.

That is what the Olympics are all about. Bringing together people from all around the world because of a shared love for sport. Overcoming national and territorial rivalries in the quest to grow, in the words of the Olympic motto, citius, altius, fortius: "Faster, higher, stronger." It's not about the doping scandals, or the judging controversies, or even about who wins the most medals. It's about bringing together young people (and a few who are not so young, like the U.S. Virgin Islands' "Grandma Luge", Anne Abernathy--at 58 the oldest woman ever to compete in the Winter Games) who would otherwise never encounter one another, and give them a chance to learn about each other's countries, their cultures, and their sports. It's about the opportunity for the nations of the world to come together in peace (and once upon a time the Olympic truce actually meant something--wouldn't it be lovely if we got back to that idea?), and about having a giant party at the closing ceremonies, when all the athletes mingle together, leaving behind national rivalries and international tensions, to enjoy the moment in each others' company.

As long as that's a part of the Olympic Games, I'll quite happily make room for them in my heart and on my TiVo schedule.

Oh, Canada--are you flippin' crazy?

I had a couple of nits to pick with the roster for the 2006 U.S. men's Olympic hockey team, but by and large they did the best they could with the limited pool of talent they had available to them. But Canada's roster I totally do not understand. I know Wayne Gretzky is mourning the recent death of his mother, but I can't imagine him being as out-of-the-loop as this roster suggests.

I mean, really: passing over Sidney Crosby altogether, and putting both Jason Spezza and Eric Staal down as alternates, in favor of the likes of Todd Bertuzzi and Kris Draper? I love Draper's gritty style of play, but he's just not producing this year (1 goal and 6 assists, which doesn't even make the top 100 on the points list). Bertuzzi may have legal difficulties staying on the team, and his production hasn't been all that good of late (12 goals and 19 assists to date, for a total of 31 points). I suppose he might be able to intimidate a few players on opposing teams, but that's hardly sufficient reason to put him on the roster--especially when Crosby, Spezza, and Staal all three have higher point totals (and younger legs) than Bertuzzi.

Crosby has had a bit of a scoring slump in recent weeks (14 goals, 19 assists, 33 points), but he's still tied for 29th on the year-to-date points list with five other players--one of whom (Mike Modano) was named to the U.S. squad. But it's Spezza and Staal whose exclusion has me scratching my head. The two of them have been hot, hot, hot all year, and are currently tied with Dany Heatley (who did make the regular Canadian roster) in fourth place on the points list with 47: Spezza has 13 goals and 34 assists, and Staal has 24 (currently the league leader) and 23, respectively. I grant you, Staal and his mates on the Carolina Hurricanes are playing in what is genuinely regarded as the easiest and least competitive of the NHL divisions, but those are damn respectable numbers--and Spezza plays for the Ottawa Senators, who aren't playing any slouches.

There are plenty of shooters (and a few with hot hands) on Canada's roster. If Spezza manages to work his way onto the competition roster, he and Heater should make two-thirds of an excellent scoring line--they certainly have done so for Ottawa so far this year. And if Brad Richards, Vincent Lecavalier, and Martin St.-Louis play together for Canada the way they did in last season's Stanley Cup finals, they should put up more than adequate numbers as well.

Still, I have to think that with three of the best and brightest of the up-and-comers left out in the cold, it's going to be a little harder for Canada to dominate next year's Olympic tourney the way they have in past years. I don't know that the U.S. is going to be able to skate its way to another Miracle on Ice a quarter-century after the last one, but I don't think it's a lock we'll be hearing "O Canada" played at the medals ceremony, either.