Vancouver games

WHats your opinion on this years games. Here i where you can talk about it.
I thought Apolo Ohno was amazing, so was team USA, just Canada was better.

I honestly think the best games I've seen in my life time was Nagano.... by far, least amount of BS controversy and ultimately a great games I was 7 it was one of the few things I remember vividly from 1998 (besides living in Germany that summer but.... not the point)

I thought NBC did an absolutely terrible job of presenting the games to americans and yahoo..... there fourth place medal bloggers made me consider committing a small homicide or take up hacking.... thankfully it was only 14 days of there BS... so in the terms of the American coverage of the games... couldn't have been to much worse.


As for the games themselves... I think the US, Russia and Canada so badly overhyped there athletes that we knew someone was going home disappointed, thankfully Vancouver is near all 3 countries so the rides home weren't too long. America badly over hyped Ohno, Vaughn, Miller and Jacobelles, and badly under hyped Shaun White and a very respectable Hockey team. Canada came probably the closest to there Hype winning the most golds but there own the podium was hardly that, own the top they did but they still came no where near what the US grabbed overall. Russia..... has been back sliding toward Soviet ways for about a decade now.... making extravagant claims, failing to achieve them, having the government point the blame all over the place....and having the Soviet National Anthem play when the flag was handed off.... just adds to the serious embarrassment that the Russians got.

So that being said.... the games were not a total failure, the opening ceremonies (except the cauldron) was very interesting and a great success. The Nordic Combined, and the Short Track were very entertaining too.

DLJRFN just so ya know "Own the Podium" wasn't a hype based thing it's a program to develope athelets through better funding Own the Podium defintly was a success if you look at the growth in their medals from past games especially at home.

as to coverage CTV,TSN,Sportsnet did an amazing Job 24-7 Coverage all games I was able to see all the events I wanted wether it was live or replayed(which is good when you work 14 hours a day). I knew NBC would fail in their coverage I've been disappointed by their coverage hence why I chose not to watch them.

and as to the US Hockey team not being hyped that wasn't the Americans underselling them they were picked to finish 6th by all hockey experts and the likes( I had them finishing 5th) Honestly they didn't look that good at their selection but it worked great Miller was the biggest reason they performed so well early on.

look at the pre games rankings for Hockey and see how they finished
most experts picked them this way
Canada-1-Gold Medal
Russia-2-Lost in the QF's
Sweden-3-Lost in the QF's
Czech Rep.-4-Lost in the QF's
Finland-5-Bronze Medal
USA-6-Silver Medal
Slovakia-7-Lost in the Bronze Medal Game
Switzerland-8-Lost in the QF's
Belarus-9-Lost in the Qualifier
Latvia-10-Lost in the Qualifier
Germany-11-Lost in the Qualifier
Norway-12-Lost in the Qualifier

the biggest disappointments were Russia and Sweden in Hockey but Upsets and games like that happen in short tourney's like this a Goaltender can make or break a teams medal run. If Broduer had gotten teh start against Russia and Nabokov hadn't had an off night it woulda been quite different. as well if Broduer coulda played better against USA the first time the Canada v USA in pool play probally woulda been a 3-1 win for Canada(4 goals can be blamed directly on Broduer)

all in all I enjoyed these games more than any others there was some great storylines from the figure skater's mother dying to that Cross country gold medalist who skied with broken ribs and a punctured lung.
WG's in my life span
Lake Placid-I don't remember I was 6 months old lol
Sarajevo was ok
Calgary was good
Albertville was weird(thats what sticks in my mind lol)
Lillehammer was good
Nagano was ok
SLC was good
Turin was ok