My last post on the Olympics can be read here.
Today I'd like to talk about the distinction to be made between what I consider REAL sports, those events that are simply games, and others which can be considered pastimes. I will then ask the relevant questions (beginning with "How the fuck did this become an international competition?", or "Are you gay/crazy/in need of a good beating to consider this worthy of a competition and this sort of expenditure of taxpayer funds?").
I'm not completely certain, but I think I once heard something along similar lines from George Carlin, so I apologize in advance if I only manage to repeat things George said.
Showing posts with label Olympics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Olympics. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 01, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Some Thoughts on the Olympics…
I was forced to watch the opening ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympics last night.
Tess was all excited by the thought of the spectacle, and got into one of those passive-aggressive moods of hers, in which failure to comply with her wishes – in this case, that we “enjoy” something that I find about as interesting as dry toast, and about as exciting as a case of toenail fungus – as “a couple”.
This is, after all, she tells me, what “couples do”.
She gets into these moods, with this sort of strange ideal surrounding it, every so often, and rather than have to deal with the complete bullshit (the expression of which ranges from the emanation of a simple “attitude” all the way up to “full Menstrual Fury”), it’s easier to give in, keep my mouth shut, and make her happy, just to spare myself the additional pain of all the “if you loved me, you’d make an effort…” nonsense.
Women…can’t live with ‘em, and you can’t kill ‘em…
Monday, March 01, 2010
Finally, The Olympics are Over...
Because another day of watching curling (even if they do have hawt babes) would have set me on a murder spree. Another day of the Lindsey Vonn soap opera might have induced a coma. Watching a bunch of homosexuals leap around on ice skates holds absolutely no interest whatsoever. The constant, relentless display of Canadian Political Correctness, right down to the contrived Inuit-themed symbology, is enough to make you want to pluck out your eyeballs.
These Olympics had but one redeeming quality, as, alas, all Winter Olympic Games do:
The hockey.
Hockey, at least, is a real sport. Not like that collection of slacker games with snowboards and pot-smokers. Not like those batshit-crazy stunts that involve little sleds and, unfortunately, dead Georgians. A sport is defined, by me, as a competition in which there's an opponent, that opponent plays defense, the two competitors are likely to make physical contact in which bones may be broken, there are a set of definite skills that doesn't include the ability to wear sequin-covered spandex, and which doesn't depend upon gravity in order to propel the competitors; they're using their own muscle power.
Now, I have to say this: the hockey in these games was absolutely awesome. Even the Women's Hockey, which I thought was a joke (I still think it is. How can you play hockey without body checking? Children play this way.), but I have to give those ladies thier props; they put in a tremendous effort, they work so hard, and they displayed an awful lot of skill and guts. So much so, that it was almost not-so-weird to watch women playing hockey. I wouldn't go out of my way to find a women's game again, but it was rather entertaining.
As for the Men's hockey, well, how much better does it get than watching Alexander Ovechkin flatten an old and fat Jaromir Jagr at center ice?
(Ed. Note: I tried to upload a video of that open-ice check, but the International Olympic Committee has copyrighted the image. So much for the games being about the spirit of competition, and not money, right?)
The Russian team disappointed me. The Czech Republic intrigued me, and was, if I can admit to a guilty pleasure, my favorite team (I'm a big fan of Patrick Elias), and the combination of Zach Parise/Jamie Langenbrunner for the U.S. Team was everything I love about the sport (Hey, did you notice something? The three players I've named all play for the same team...I wonder, could that be MY favorite team, mayhap?). The Swiss Team was great. The Swedes left me shaking my head. Even watching Germany and Latvia get crushed, there was still some great hockey being played on that ice.
Am I happy that the Canadian swept the Gold Medals in hockey? Hell no. The Canadian Women deserved their medals, I think, and so there's no beef there. The Canadian Men, however, got extremely lucky. Today, all over Canada, newspaper articles are being written about the "greatness" of Roberto Luongo, just as they have been for the last decade (why the Press in Canada continues to beat the drum for a goalie who has always choked in big games is beyond me. Team Canada;s best goalies were on the bench) but the sad truth is this: Roberto Luongo is a loser, always has been, always will be, who was bailed out by one of the top three skill players in the world -- Sidney Crosby.
Sid the Kid...well, I hate him with a passion -- because he's the biggest crybaby on the ice -- but you have to admit that he plays a real pretty game of hockey. That guy has got game. And it's appropos that when the gold medal was on the line, that Canada's greatest player since Gretzky should score the winning goal. Congratulations to Team Canada, Monsieurs and Mademoiselles.
There is the possibility that we won't see professional (at least not NHL-professional) hockey players in the Olympics again. Personally, I can seee why they're here in the first place; I guess with no more Cold War there has to be some sort of draw to make the games interesting and to justify the expense. The current Great World Conflict -- between Civilization and Islam -- can't fill the shoes of the Old U.S.-Soviet ideological conflict, if only because Saudi Arabia doesn't field a hockey team, and you can't do a triple-Lutz in a burhka, hence professional players in what's supposed to be the amateur arena.
I think the league should reconsider that proposition. It's talent, spread across every team in the competition, could get no better showcase. And yes, even if you do have to stop your season for three weeks to accommodate the Olympics, it's worth it because you have no real national television contract in the United States, but people will watch Olympic Hockey, and they'll become fans.
Just like I did in 1980. I grew up in a city that had both the New York Rangers and New York Islanders in their heyday, and as a child played roller hockey in the street, but never watched a hockey game on TV religiously until Al Micheals screamed "Do you believe in miracles?" I've been hooked ever since. Most people who have never watched hockey or followed hockey become fans in much the same way; I can't tell you how many hockey fans I know who weren't until they actually went to a game and saw it close up and personal for the first time.
Anyways, perhaps we could just drop all the bobsledding, cross-country skiing, and 10-year-old, anorexic girls on skates, and 42-pound stones and brooms, and just make the Winter Olympics a three-week-long hockey tournament? Because that was awesome!
These Olympics had but one redeeming quality, as, alas, all Winter Olympic Games do:
The hockey.
Hockey, at least, is a real sport. Not like that collection of slacker games with snowboards and pot-smokers. Not like those batshit-crazy stunts that involve little sleds and, unfortunately, dead Georgians. A sport is defined, by me, as a competition in which there's an opponent, that opponent plays defense, the two competitors are likely to make physical contact in which bones may be broken, there are a set of definite skills that doesn't include the ability to wear sequin-covered spandex, and which doesn't depend upon gravity in order to propel the competitors; they're using their own muscle power.
Now, I have to say this: the hockey in these games was absolutely awesome. Even the Women's Hockey, which I thought was a joke (I still think it is. How can you play hockey without body checking? Children play this way.), but I have to give those ladies thier props; they put in a tremendous effort, they work so hard, and they displayed an awful lot of skill and guts. So much so, that it was almost not-so-weird to watch women playing hockey. I wouldn't go out of my way to find a women's game again, but it was rather entertaining.
As for the Men's hockey, well, how much better does it get than watching Alexander Ovechkin flatten an old and fat Jaromir Jagr at center ice?
(Ed. Note: I tried to upload a video of that open-ice check, but the International Olympic Committee has copyrighted the image. So much for the games being about the spirit of competition, and not money, right?)
The Russian team disappointed me. The Czech Republic intrigued me, and was, if I can admit to a guilty pleasure, my favorite team (I'm a big fan of Patrick Elias), and the combination of Zach Parise/Jamie Langenbrunner for the U.S. Team was everything I love about the sport (Hey, did you notice something? The three players I've named all play for the same team...I wonder, could that be MY favorite team, mayhap?). The Swiss Team was great. The Swedes left me shaking my head. Even watching Germany and Latvia get crushed, there was still some great hockey being played on that ice.
Am I happy that the Canadian swept the Gold Medals in hockey? Hell no. The Canadian Women deserved their medals, I think, and so there's no beef there. The Canadian Men, however, got extremely lucky. Today, all over Canada, newspaper articles are being written about the "greatness" of Roberto Luongo, just as they have been for the last decade (why the Press in Canada continues to beat the drum for a goalie who has always choked in big games is beyond me. Team Canada;s best goalies were on the bench) but the sad truth is this: Roberto Luongo is a loser, always has been, always will be, who was bailed out by one of the top three skill players in the world -- Sidney Crosby.
Sid the Kid...well, I hate him with a passion -- because he's the biggest crybaby on the ice -- but you have to admit that he plays a real pretty game of hockey. That guy has got game. And it's appropos that when the gold medal was on the line, that Canada's greatest player since Gretzky should score the winning goal. Congratulations to Team Canada, Monsieurs and Mademoiselles.
There is the possibility that we won't see professional (at least not NHL-professional) hockey players in the Olympics again. Personally, I can seee why they're here in the first place; I guess with no more Cold War there has to be some sort of draw to make the games interesting and to justify the expense. The current Great World Conflict -- between Civilization and Islam -- can't fill the shoes of the Old U.S.-Soviet ideological conflict, if only because Saudi Arabia doesn't field a hockey team, and you can't do a triple-Lutz in a burhka, hence professional players in what's supposed to be the amateur arena.
I think the league should reconsider that proposition. It's talent, spread across every team in the competition, could get no better showcase. And yes, even if you do have to stop your season for three weeks to accommodate the Olympics, it's worth it because you have no real national television contract in the United States, but people will watch Olympic Hockey, and they'll become fans.
Just like I did in 1980. I grew up in a city that had both the New York Rangers and New York Islanders in their heyday, and as a child played roller hockey in the street, but never watched a hockey game on TV religiously until Al Micheals screamed "Do you believe in miracles?" I've been hooked ever since. Most people who have never watched hockey or followed hockey become fans in much the same way; I can't tell you how many hockey fans I know who weren't until they actually went to a game and saw it close up and personal for the first time.
Anyways, perhaps we could just drop all the bobsledding, cross-country skiing, and 10-year-old, anorexic girls on skates, and 42-pound stones and brooms, and just make the Winter Olympics a three-week-long hockey tournament? Because that was awesome!
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Why Chicago?
Re: The President going overseas to basically beg the International Olympic Committee to bestow the dubious honor of host city to the Olympics upon Sodom-on-Lake-Michigan.
Why?
I mean, it's not as if the Olympics actually matter anymore. They used to, back in the days when nuclear war between Capitalism and Socialism hung over us all. It had a sense of "Us versus Them" in those days, and it was an event that most Americans could sink their teeth into. Not so much anymore. For me, at least, the thrill is gone. There are no more 'Miracles on Ice', and no more athletes who were as engaging or amazing as Carl Lewis, Jackie-Joyner Kersee, Bob Seagram, Mark Spitz, Mary Lou Retton, Peggy Fleming, Cathy Rigby, Rafer Johnson, Bruce Jenner or Wilma Rudolph. We'll probably never see the likes of Jesse Owens or Jim Thorpe again. Don't get me started on George S. Patton, either (people forget, if they ever knew, that he was a Silver Medalist in 1912). Say what you will about Micheal Phelps, but I'm sorry...your dog can swim, too, if he really had to.
You may not have given a though to many of the individual sports back in those days, but damn, some of them were fun to watch with that whole 'beat the Commies' mentality. Now, it seems, we elect Commies and root against ourselves.
Besides, it's not as if we're seeing 'true' Olympians anymore, and by that I mean true amateur athletes engaged in honest competition on a level playing field (yeah, I know all about those East German swimmers, and Soviet 'professionals in everything but name' stuff). I don't know about you, but I despise the notion of "Dream Teams" made up of highly-paid professionals competing against the rest of the world's amateurs (although this has changed much; there are so many Europeans and Asians playing in North American pro leagues to ensure that even the worst teams of most nations can sport a pro or two), based upon the laughable premise that they're playing 'for their country'. You might as well hold another All-Star game. I can't speak to the patriotism of many NBA players, for example, but I'm certain that if you asked them to speak frankly, that is without any cameras recording them, they would talk all about medals and burnishing their bio's and reputations, and less about country (this is now an important factor in getting into the Hall of Fame, it seems. The new breed of American athlete is all about 'legacy'...and money) than they do about international competition, and quaint notions of nationalism.
And why Chicago? Of all US cities, you could probably pick better ones. New York leaps immediately to mind, as well as Los Angeles. These are cities that could more easily support the influx of athletes and tourists, are pretty good at maintaining security, have the venues already built, and have the experience with large throngs to host a summer Olympics. Oh, but neither of those is Barack Obama's 'hood, are they?
I really do hate to make the following analogy, but I sort of have to. I'm wincing as I do so, but this whole thing smells of the Berlin games in 1936.
Is The One pushing Chicago in the hopes of staging a Potemkin display dedicated to himself and his 'vision', and as yet another moment to bask in his own personal glory? The way the American media worships the guy, it would be almost excusable if his head were actually that large, and the American crowds in Chicago are more than likely to be pro-Obama in a way that borders on rabid ('native' son, and all that). Okay, I can give the guy the benefit of the doubt on this one. No one could be that batshit narcissistic, could they?
Is the push intended to generate some jobs? An Olympiad certainly means those, even if they are almost wholly temporary. Let's face it, after promising to 'create or save 6,000,000 jobs' and miserably failing to either achieve that number, or even to ever explain what that truly means, you can't blame the guy for trying to beef that number up -- especially with a one-time boondoggle like this.
But in that case, why not lobby for a city that could truly use that sort of short-term economic boost? Say, Detroit?
Then again, we already know something about the President's ties to real estate developers (like Tony Rezko), and rumors about about other Obama aides and confidants (like Valerie Jarret) licking their chops in anticipation of the personal fortunes they might amass with a Olympic games on their home turf abound. I can't speak to the veracity of those rumors; they simply are being reported in various quarters on the 'Net, so I could be spreading baseless rumor.
I also wonder if any American city (actually, make that any city on the planet) that has hosted an Olympic games has actually made any money on the deal, given the huge expense of constructing venues, providing security, and so forth? I've done a quick search on the web of that very question, and surprise!, I get no clear answer (perhaps my Google and Bing skills just suck that badly?).
Anyways, I fail to see the use in an Olympic Games which is less about actual competition, and increasingly, more about money (I mean, who really wants to see anorexic 12 yr. old girls jump over a pommel horse besides pedophiles, and the thirty people who truly care about gymnastics?). I could be absolutely wrong on all counts, but I'd like to know what everyone else thinks. Feel free to fire away.
Discuss.
Why?
I mean, it's not as if the Olympics actually matter anymore. They used to, back in the days when nuclear war between Capitalism and Socialism hung over us all. It had a sense of "Us versus Them" in those days, and it was an event that most Americans could sink their teeth into. Not so much anymore. For me, at least, the thrill is gone. There are no more 'Miracles on Ice', and no more athletes who were as engaging or amazing as Carl Lewis, Jackie-Joyner Kersee, Bob Seagram, Mark Spitz, Mary Lou Retton, Peggy Fleming, Cathy Rigby, Rafer Johnson, Bruce Jenner or Wilma Rudolph. We'll probably never see the likes of Jesse Owens or Jim Thorpe again. Don't get me started on George S. Patton, either (people forget, if they ever knew, that he was a Silver Medalist in 1912). Say what you will about Micheal Phelps, but I'm sorry...your dog can swim, too, if he really had to.
You may not have given a though to many of the individual sports back in those days, but damn, some of them were fun to watch with that whole 'beat the Commies' mentality. Now, it seems, we elect Commies and root against ourselves.
Besides, it's not as if we're seeing 'true' Olympians anymore, and by that I mean true amateur athletes engaged in honest competition on a level playing field (yeah, I know all about those East German swimmers, and Soviet 'professionals in everything but name' stuff). I don't know about you, but I despise the notion of "Dream Teams" made up of highly-paid professionals competing against the rest of the world's amateurs (although this has changed much; there are so many Europeans and Asians playing in North American pro leagues to ensure that even the worst teams of most nations can sport a pro or two), based upon the laughable premise that they're playing 'for their country'. You might as well hold another All-Star game. I can't speak to the patriotism of many NBA players, for example, but I'm certain that if you asked them to speak frankly, that is without any cameras recording them, they would talk all about medals and burnishing their bio's and reputations, and less about country (this is now an important factor in getting into the Hall of Fame, it seems. The new breed of American athlete is all about 'legacy'...and money) than they do about international competition, and quaint notions of nationalism.
And why Chicago? Of all US cities, you could probably pick better ones. New York leaps immediately to mind, as well as Los Angeles. These are cities that could more easily support the influx of athletes and tourists, are pretty good at maintaining security, have the venues already built, and have the experience with large throngs to host a summer Olympics. Oh, but neither of those is Barack Obama's 'hood, are they?
I really do hate to make the following analogy, but I sort of have to. I'm wincing as I do so, but this whole thing smells of the Berlin games in 1936.
Is The One pushing Chicago in the hopes of staging a Potemkin display dedicated to himself and his 'vision', and as yet another moment to bask in his own personal glory? The way the American media worships the guy, it would be almost excusable if his head were actually that large, and the American crowds in Chicago are more than likely to be pro-Obama in a way that borders on rabid ('native' son, and all that). Okay, I can give the guy the benefit of the doubt on this one. No one could be that batshit narcissistic, could they?
Is the push intended to generate some jobs? An Olympiad certainly means those, even if they are almost wholly temporary. Let's face it, after promising to 'create or save 6,000,000 jobs' and miserably failing to either achieve that number, or even to ever explain what that truly means, you can't blame the guy for trying to beef that number up -- especially with a one-time boondoggle like this.
But in that case, why not lobby for a city that could truly use that sort of short-term economic boost? Say, Detroit?
Then again, we already know something about the President's ties to real estate developers (like Tony Rezko), and rumors about about other Obama aides and confidants (like Valerie Jarret) licking their chops in anticipation of the personal fortunes they might amass with a Olympic games on their home turf abound. I can't speak to the veracity of those rumors; they simply are being reported in various quarters on the 'Net, so I could be spreading baseless rumor.
I also wonder if any American city (actually, make that any city on the planet) that has hosted an Olympic games has actually made any money on the deal, given the huge expense of constructing venues, providing security, and so forth? I've done a quick search on the web of that very question, and surprise!, I get no clear answer (perhaps my Google and Bing skills just suck that badly?).
Anyways, I fail to see the use in an Olympic Games which is less about actual competition, and increasingly, more about money (I mean, who really wants to see anorexic 12 yr. old girls jump over a pommel horse besides pedophiles, and the thirty people who truly care about gymnastics?). I could be absolutely wrong on all counts, but I'd like to know what everyone else thinks. Feel free to fire away.
Discuss.
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