What a fantastic Olympic games. What started out as what could possibly the worst winter Olympics ever, turned out to be pretty damn good after all.
The Canadians athletes made the country so proud that it sparked a lot of interest into the winter sports. People all over the place are now interested in some crazy sport a lot of us didn't know it even existed. Like Ski-Cross. That event was awesome and even inspired me to say to the wife that I want to try that. I don't care if I am 33 years old, I can do that. Couldn't I?
Probably the best part about watching the 2010 Olympic games was that I was able to introduce them to my two year old daughter. Every day I would come home after work and was greeted with a "GO GO CANADA!!!" from her. Not only did she grasp the concept of cheering for Canada (and not just the Oilers), she embraced it and watched a lot of the events with me. It made me proud as her father that she even gave a crap about the games with little understanding of what she was watching. Watch out 2026 Olympic games, little Miss Ava will be there winning a gold medal with her old man yelling from the stands.
Here are my favorite parts of the Olympics;
The Medal winners:
1) The opening ceremonies were awesome yet, embarrassing. I touched on it at the beginning of the Olympics and
you can read it here.
2) I don't care if Jenn Heil
won silver and not gold, she did great. She was so upset by not winning, but she won the first medal for Canada at these games. It was a start of something great for this country.
3) Alex Bilodeau was the first Canadian to (Men's Moguls)
win Gold in Canada. He was great and skied really well. His story was fantastic and it was great to see him succeed. A great and touching moment for me.
4) The Speed Skating - Long and Short Track - were very fun to watch. There was some great moment and Canada won a variety of medals in the speed skating events.
In Short Track Speed Skating, (
my favorite) Canada won silver in the
Ladies 3000m relay, Marianne St Gelais won silver in the
Ladies 500m, the Canadian Men won
Gold in the 5000m relay and Charles Hamelin won Gold and François-Louis Tremblay won the bronze in the
Men's 500m race.
In Long Track Speed Skating the Canadians also did well. Christine Nesbitt won gold in the
Ladies 1000m race, Clara Hughes won
bronze in Ladies 5000m, Kristina Groves won silver in the
Ladies 1500m race and won
bronze in the 3000m race and the only medals the Men won were in the
Men's Pursuit race. They won gold in that event.
5) The Skeleton is always fun to watch. I paid a little more attention to the sliding sports after the tragic accident at the start of the games. Even after they altered the track, it was still dangerous and scary and I wouldn't be caught going down that track. Bobsledders, Lugers and Skeleton riders crashed hard and often. It made all the races very intense to watch.
I loved watching the Skeleton race. How did Canada do you ask?
Jon Montgomery won gold. He seems like a real good guy and I was happy for him to win the gold.
Bobsledding turned out not how I had envisioned it to play out. Canada won bronze in the
Men's Four-Man Bobsled. No it wasn't the Lueders sled either. Surprised? I was. The Ladies also did well and I'll tell you that was crazy to witness. Canada finished gold and silver in the
Two-(Wo)Man Bobsled. What a night that was. Both teams did well and made Canada proud.
6) The Curling was really exciting for me. For one, I don't watch Curling outside of the Olympics and the finals of the Hearts and Brier tournaments. The Cheryl Bernard rink played a hell of a tournament and made it to the gold medal game. But she blew her last shot in both of the last ends to
earn a silver medal. Not bad, but she blew it. Kevin Martin's rink on the other hand, made it count when he needed it to. They played great and won the
gold for Canada.
7) What the hell is Ski Cross? That's what I was asking. I know what it is now and I want to try it. Ashleigh McIvor won
gold in the Ladies race. Thank you to the IOC for allowing this sport in the games. I LOVE IT!
8) Snowboard Cross is equally cool. Mike Robertson kicked some ass and took a silver home in the
Men's Snowboard Cross race. Maëlle Ricker dominated in the
Ladies Snowboard Cross and took home the gold medal. I look forward to the next Olympics to watch some more of this.
9) Jasey-Jay Anderson lived a life long dream by winning gold in the
Men's Snowboard Parallel Giant Slalom. He was very humble about the win and this may have been his last race.
10) Now while I hate to admit it (no homo), I did watch some Figure Skating. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won gold in
the Ice Dancing competition. They did well and the crowd there went nuts.
11) The saddest story for Canadians at these games was the story of Canadian Figure Skater Joannie Rochette. Joannie lost her mother to a sudden heart attack just two days before her competition. She could have pulled out but she didn't. She choose to skate. Joannie went out and skated her skate for her mom and
she won the bronze medal. I think the whole country cried a little for her that night. She was a brave and courageous woman.
12) Now on to the great game of Hockey. My favorite sports of all sports. Now I won't lie to you and tell you I watched all of the Women's games. I didn't. In fact, I think I watched more than enough of it. It's kind of boring. The gold medal game was great and they beat the USA team 2-0 to win a gold.
The girls won gold for Canada and even caused some controversy along the way. First they were criticized for running up scores. Then they were in the eyes again with their post game beer drinking, cigar smoking celebration. I don't care what happened after that game was over, I'm just glad the girls won gold.
13) Now to the Men's tournament. If you asked me who the top 4 teams were going to be, I would have said Canada, Russia, Sweden and the Czech Republic. Boy was I wrong. Finland face the Slovakian team for the bronze medal and the Canadians face the Americans in the gold medal game. I will update this once the games are over.
**UPDATE** The Fins had a quick 3 goal outburst and that propelled them past the Slovaks to win 5-3 for the bronze medal. It was a good game to watch. I can't wait for the gold medal game.
14) I was impressed with the CTVOlympics.ca website. Very easy to look around and it was sweet to have all the channels right there on my PC. Thanks for that CTV.
I also was quite impressed with the way that CTV, TSN and Sportsnet all worked together. What a strange but nice surprise.
Things that made me say WHAT?!?:
1) The goalies that were the #1 goalie on their respected team that DIDN'T have a painted mask. Miikka Kiprusoff was one of those people. What, couldn't afford it?
2) Why did the Team Canada games always feature Pierre MacGuire? I hate that guy with a passion and when the team was stinking, listening to him pissed me off even more.
3) I was really disappointed with the handling of Brian McKeever. I don't know all the facts on why he was banned from racing in a Cross Country Skiing event, but if it's only for being legally blind than that's bullshit. No matter the placing out come, Brian McKeever should have been given a chance to compete.
4) It turns out former Canadian and current Australian Dale Begg-Smith is the guy responsible for Malware and spam emails. I'm glad you lot the gold and I'm glad you don't live in Canada anymore. You are a piece of trash Dale Begg-Smith. I hope you choke on the money you have made. *middle finger raised*
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IS IT 2014 YET?
Sochi Olympics in Russia are next. Can't wait!
