O Canada

With the end of the winter olympic games for this go round, I was left with a few lasting impressions:

If you saw the gold medal hockey game between Canada and the USA (the one that involved the men...the women's match was more exciting during the post game celebration by the lady Canadians)...you saw one of those rare occurrences where you don't have to be a fan of the sport or participants, you just have to be watching in order to be captivated. It featured a fast paced game where the US pulled its goalie in order to have an extra attacker in the last minute (standard hockey move) only to score a game tying goal with 25 seconds to go. The OT featured 4 on 4 play (apparently an olympic rule only...standard 5 v 5 in OT in the NHL) with Hockey's BEST player (Sidney Crosby) scoring the game winning goal in front of the host country's (Canada if you didn't know) fans. There is no shame in the U.S. losing that game at all. I still will not watch hockey during the regular season (just thought I should point that out)

I think being a play by play hockey announcer has to rank just above being one of those fast auctioneer types but just above being Dikembe Mutombos translator as the hardest jobs that soley rely on your ability to speak.

I watched curling for a full hour and I still dont' know what to make of it. I know the point and the scoring, finally. Its just anticlimatic. I watched a team perform the last throw that clinched a medal in their matchup and the reaction was similar to finding out you won your money back on a $1 scratch off ticket.

And at what point does it become determined whether you are a thrower or a sweeper?

This just in, the USA had the most participants in the olympics and won the most medals as well. Is captain obvious needed to draw the parallels there? We can stop sayin we "dominated" the medal count when I saw at least 20 countries walk out with less people than the Jackson 5.