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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 22, 2018 13:51:57 GMT -5
I went to see "Hamilton" last night. So I missed the USA beating Canada in Hockey and Curling. I'm wondering if I accidentally crossed over into a different universe? Maybe these events will bring the universe back into alignment after that Cubs World Series win threw everything off kilter? I don't even understand how that USA men's curling team is now playing for the gold medal. That is shocking and strange. It would be a way bigger story here if Americans remotely understood or cared about curling. I mean sure, they'll likely get crushed by Sweden, but a silver medal in curling would probably the biggest WTF? medal at the Olympics for the USA Olympic team. The Women's Cross Country ski gold medal is an historic gold medal, but that at least wasn't too shocking. I may try to watch that USA v Canada gold medal game at work today. Sorry I missed it last night. Also, in addition to drunkenly yelling at Refs at a hockey game, apparently Scott Moir also handed out beers to the surrounding fans. Sports Illustrated calls this "Achieving Peak Canada": www.si.com/olympics/2018/02/22/scott-moir-womens-hockey-gold-medal-game-refs-videoThe Men's skiing halfpipe was great fun. I loved seeing the reaction of the 16 year old from New Zealand who won the bronze medal. He looked absolutely shocked when his score got posted. I thought he was going to cry at the end of the competition. |
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Post by Baron von Costume on Feb 22, 2018 14:41:47 GMT -5
The Men's skiing halfpipe was great fun. I loved seeing the reaction of the 16 year old from New Zealand who won the bronze medal. He looked absolutely shocked when his score got posted. I thought he was going to cry at the end of the competition. It was at least... but I admit I was hoping for the other kiwi or one of the americans to knock him off the podium after he didn't do a last run. You've got at least try man. |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 22, 2018 14:48:57 GMT -5
The Men's skiing halfpipe was great fun. I loved seeing the reaction of the 16 year old from New Zealand who won the bronze medal. He looked absolutely shocked when his score got posted. I thought he was going to cry at the end of the competition. It was at least... but I admit I was hoping for the other kiwi or one of the americans to knock him off the podium after he didn't do a last run. You've got at least try man. I mean, why bother? He said in an interview that his 2nd run was the best he's ever done that. There's no way to improve on what he did. That was the exact run he'd trained for. |
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Post by Baron von Costume on Feb 22, 2018 14:52:16 GMT -5
It was at least... but I admit I was hoping for the other kiwi or one of the americans to knock him off the podium after he didn't do a last run. You've got at least try man. I mean, why bother? He said in an interview that his 2nd run was the best he's ever done that. There's no way to improve on what he did. That was the exact run he'd trained for. There are always a few more technical or execution points available in events like that. It's worth a shot at least and at least imo the spirit of the games is always trying to do better. |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 22, 2018 15:36:05 GMT -5
I mean, why bother? He said in an interview that his 2nd run was the best he's ever done that. There's no way to improve on what he did. That was the exact run he'd trained for. There are always a few more technical or execution points available in events like that. It's worth a shot at least and at least imo the spirit of the games is always trying to do better. I mean, maybe. But the kid is literally saying he has never performed that better. That is exactly what he was aiming for. If he hasn't trained anything else, then trying to do something else may risk injury. |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 22, 2018 15:45:52 GMT -5
Just watched a video recap of the hockey game in which the USA recapper called the 2nd period the "Second Half". We might not deserve that gold medal.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Feb 22, 2018 18:04:31 GMT -5
Just watched a video recap of the hockey game in which the USA recapper called the 2nd period the "Second Half". We might not deserve that gold medal. Yeah, but the American goalie had that amazing stick save during the penalty kill at the end of the fourth half, so all is well. |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 23, 2018 0:03:24 GMT -5
Just watched a video recap of the hockey game in which the USA recapper called the 2nd period the "Second Half". We might not deserve that gold medal. Yeah, but the American goalie had that amazing stick save during the penalty kill at the end of the fourth half, so all is well. I was able to watch about an hour of the game at work today. So, I started about halfway through the 2nd period and went through to the end. Fantastic game! Wow! Aack! Gold medal OT! I really hate the shootout as a way to decide who wins the game. But, no doubt this was tense and thrilling. OMG, that deke by Lamoureux-Davidson was incredible. Poor Canada, losing on that shot. Ugh, that would feel so awful if it were my team that gave up that goal. Great work by the USA goalie. Great game! USA! Wooo! I watched a short recap of the previous day and saw the final shot of the USA/Canada curling match. WTF happened there? How did the USA end up with a winning shot that was so easy? Canada, what the hell? I'm debating if I want to pull up the replay of the entire match. I'd love to know what kind of bonkers error Canada must have made to wind up in that position at the end. The only print recap I read was describing it in curling language. I don't know any of the terminology of curling. But, I understand how it works, visually. So, I might need to see this to understand. I did see a video press conference with one of the Canadian team guys. This was hilarious as reporters kept asking him the dumbest question: How do you feel? This poor guy dumped so many sports cliches in the span of about 10 minutes I was afraid he'd run out. Eventually he gave up and said "Look, it comes down to millimeters. The game is fucking hard at this level, right?" And now I want any athlete who loses a game or match to answer that dumb "how do you feel?" question that way. "Hey, it's fucking hard at this level, right?" |
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Feb 23, 2018 0:17:36 GMT -5
Yeah, but the American goalie had that amazing stick save during the penalty kill at the end of the fourth half, so all is well. I was able to watch about an hour of the game at work today. So, I started about halfway through the 2nd period and went through to the end. Fantastic game! Wow! Aack! Gold medal OT! I really hate the shootout as a way to decide who wins the game. But, no doubt this was tense and thrilling. OMG, that deke by Lamoureux-Davidson was incredible. Poor Canada, losing on that shot. Ugh, that would feel so awful if it were my team that gave up that goal. Great work by the USA goalie. Great game! USA! Wooo! I watched a short recap of the previous day and saw the final shot of the USA/Canada curling match. WTF happened there? How did the USA end up with a winning shot that was so easy? Canada, what the hell? I'm debating if I want to pull up the replay of the entire match. I'd love to know what kind of bonkers error Canada must have made to wind up in that position at the end. The only print recap I read was describing it in curling language. I don't know any of the terminology of curling. But, I understand how it works, visually. So, I might need to see this to understand. I did see a video press conference with one of the Canadian team guys. This was hilarious as reporters kept asking him the dumbest question: How do you feel? This poor guy dumped so many sports cliches in the span of about 10 minutes I was afraid he'd run out. Eventually he gave up and said "Look, it comes down to millimeters. The game is fucking hard at this level, right?" And now I want any athlete who loses a game or match to answer that dumb "how do you feel?" question that way. "Hey, it's fucking hard at this level, right?" I always seem to forget that all Olympic hockey matches are decided by shootout, and then I forget that it starts out with five shots instead of three. When it was Kessel's turn to shoot (fourth in the order I think?) for the US and they were down 2-1 in shootout goals, I was thinking "Well, if she doesn't score, this is it." I had the chance to watch the USA/Canada mens' curling semifinals match on TV earlier today and am kinda mad at myself that I didn't (although I saw a decent amount of their first match in round robin play). I say this as someone who isn't very knowledgeable about curling, but it is kind of amazing how a single shot can create such a swing of points allotted after an end. Like the women's match between the US and South Korea was basically a matter of South Korea setting things up really nicely in the fifth end, and making a really nice shot that knocked the US' sole scoring rock out of the button (which I think is the center circle's name?), and the US being unable to sneak the hammer around the rocks already on the ice back into the button or at least into position to stop South Korea from having four scoring rocks, and what was otherwise a really even game ended up being 9-6. |
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Post by sarapen on Feb 23, 2018 8:13:55 GMT -5
I think we can assume that the rest of the world has now reached curling parity with Canada. Although I don't understand why the curling teams keep losing, maybe they need some kind of mental training to handle the pressure? I don't think it's about the skills so much as disintegrating under the Olympic spotlight.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 23, 2018 10:41:44 GMT -5
I think we can assume that the rest of the world has now reached curling parity with Canada. Although I don't understand why the curling teams keep losing, maybe they need some kind of mental training to handle the pressure? I don't think it's about the skills so much as disintegrating under the Olympic spotlight. Could be. I fully recommend sports psychology for anyone competing at that level. I saw the Canadian men's team lost again today in the Bronze medal game. There definitely seems to be some psychological component going on. Although, I don't know how to explain how the Canadian hockey team just lost to Germany. I haven't seen a game that Germany has played in this tournament, but WTF? Who is playing on that team? Why are good teams losing to them? Edit: I know I already said all of this in an earlier post, but the judging and scoring in women's figure skating is completely ridiculous. The exact same thing happened in the Free Skate as happened in the Short Program. The silver medalist skated a brilliant program, with technical difficulty but also with wonderful transition work, line, extension, musicality. She scored less than 2 points above the Component score of the gold medalist, who again backloaded all her jumps and performed very mechanically, sharp, angular, bent arms, terrible body line, and clearly no connection with the music. To fully illustrate how bogus the scoring was, take a look at their Free Skate scores: Zagitova (Gold): 156.65, Medvedeva (Silver): 156.65. Uh huh. Sure. Yo, if skating is just a jumping contest, then dispense with the music, the costumes, the Program components and the routines themselves altogether. Just have the skaters complete a series of jumps. The gold medalist isn't doing anything technically more challenging than the silver medalist. She is just backloading the jumps to get more points. Once again, this entirely defeats the purpose of the 10% bonus rule which was put in place solely to prevent skaters from loading all their jumps into the first half of the program, so as to avoid compositional imbalance. I now fully expect this rule to be altered in the next season. There is no way the Skating Federation will let that continue. The Program Components scoring, though? Um, we may want to have an investigation into how judges are scoring those categories. NBC's commentators frequently seem to blow this off as "artistic marks", implying that the scoring is subjective and unexplainable. But that isn't true. Program Composition is understandable, and it is being grossly misscored here. Transitions is also explainable. Body line and extension are understandable. I wouldn't be bitching about this if Medvedeva was less skilled technically. But she is clearly on the same technical level. So, this is a huge problem. Skating must address this before next season. |
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Post by Baron von Costume on Feb 23, 2018 11:32:20 GMT -5
I think we can assume that the rest of the world has now reached curling parity with Canada. Although I don't understand why the curling teams keep losing, maybe they need some kind of mental training to handle the pressure? I don't think it's about the skills so much as disintegrating under the Olympic spotlight. That's true to some extent. The best teams from the rest of the world have definitely caught up though more so on the men's side. The women's side was absolutely a mental breakdown for the whole team. They handily beat all these same teams at worlds last year and should have at least made it to the medal round. Once you're at that point it can come down to one missed shot, a pick on the ice or anything really so it's a bit more random but those early games were pure choke. As I think I said earlier in the thread though, Homan's team seems to choke the first time they make it to any event then the next time they're ready... just a pity that trend continued for the olympics. |
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Post by MarkInTexas on Feb 23, 2018 17:28:22 GMT -5
I really hate the shootout as a way to decide who wins the game. But, no doubt this was tense and thrilling. OMG, that deke by Lamoureux-Davidson was incredible. Poor Canada, losing on that shot. Ugh, that would feel so awful if it were my team that gave up that goal. Great work by the USA goalie. Great game! USA! Wooo! I'm not a big hockey fan (a bit ironically, since my favorite webcomic is about hockey players in love, but I digress), so I only caught the shootout. I sort of understand not wanting to potentially play overtime period after overtime period, but still...there's something odd about ending a game, much less an entire tournament, with something like this. It's like, after 10 innings, Game 7 of the World Series suddenly becomes a home run derby. Or the Super Bowl being decided by a field goal kicking contest. Does the NHL end games like this? Also, I'm insanely jealous about you seeing Hamilton. Dallas doesn't get it until next year. |
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Post by Lt. Broccoli on Feb 23, 2018 20:04:07 GMT -5
I'm not a big hockey fan (a bit ironically, since my favorite webcomic is about hockey players in love, but I digress), so I only caught the shootout. I sort of understand not wanting to potentially play overtime period after overtime period, but still...there's something odd about ending a game, much less an entire tournament, with something like this. It's like, after 10 innings, Game 7 of the World Series suddenly becomes a home run derby. Or the Super Bowl being decided by a field goal kicking contest. Does the NHL end games like this? Also, I'm insanely jealous about you seeing Hamilton. Dallas doesn't get it until next year. The NHL ends games with shootouts in the regular season, but everyone hates it (the people who don't hate it are bad and they should feel bad). In the playoffs they just keep playing forever until someone scores a garbage goal because it's the sixth overtime and they're all dying. |
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Post by MarkInTexas on Feb 23, 2018 20:13:18 GMT -5
I'm not a big hockey fan (a bit ironically, since my favorite webcomic is about hockey players in love, but I digress), so I only caught the shootout. I sort of understand not wanting to potentially play overtime period after overtime period, but still...there's something odd about ending a game, much less an entire tournament, with something like this. It's like, after 10 innings, Game 7 of the World Series suddenly becomes a home run derby. Or the Super Bowl being decided by a field goal kicking contest. Does the NHL end games like this? Also, I'm insanely jealous about you seeing Hamilton. Dallas doesn't get it until next year. The NHL ends games with shootouts in the regular season, but everyone hates it (the people who don't hate it are bad and they should feel bad). In the playoffs they just keep playing forever until someone scores a garbage goal because it's the sixth overtime and they're all dying. I remember when the Stars won the Stanley Cup in 1999, the last game went to the third overtime or something ridiculous like that. The game wasn't over until about 2 am. |
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Post by ganews on Feb 23, 2018 23:55:43 GMT -5
I like watching speed skating. After they finish the race they pop out of their hoods, and you never know what you're gonna get. Also the little landing strip designs on so many of the skater crotches never stop being funny.
Great semifinal match between Korea and Japan in women's curling. Korea really blew it to let Japan steal and tie the 10th end; the former is lucky they had the hammer to pull it out in the 11th.
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Post by Tellyfier on Feb 24, 2018 3:39:56 GMT -5
So how's the great hockey nation of Canada today?
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Post by MarkInTexas on Feb 24, 2018 5:37:54 GMT -5
Thank goodness the curling gold medal game was overnight on Friday/Saturday, because there's no way I could get up in a couple of hours to go to work.
I was so keyed up after it was over I stuck around to watch 50k cross country, which of all the Winter Olympic sports, seems to be the one that would be the least fun and most torturous.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 24, 2018 19:19:23 GMT -5
Thank goodness the curling gold medal game was overnight on Friday/Saturday, because there's no way I could get up in a couple of hours to go to work. I was so keyed up after it was over I stuck around to watch 50k cross country, which of all the Winter Olympic sports, seems to be the one that would be the least fun and most torturous. I got home from seeing "Black Panther" around 11pmMST. The Curling gold medal game was on. I must have scored pretty high on the Cultural Whiplash meter by seeing Black Panther then immediately turning on Curling. Unfortunately, I had a 9am call for rehearsal on Saturday morning at a venue 45 minutes from my apartment. Had to be up by 7am. So, I went to sleep after the 5th end. I was utterly shocked to wake up and find out the USA had won the gold medal. WOW! Couldn't even watch any clips or anything this morning. Rehearsal ran until 1pm. As soon as I got home I turned on the replay and started from the 5th end. Curling is so much more intense than I ever knew. I can understand why the players might need a sports psychologist. Mere mm change shots from brilliant to utter disasters. That last shot Sweden's Edin made in the 8th end didn't miss by very much. But you could see that Edin knew it was a disaster even before Shuster took his shot. Unbelievable to see the USA score 5 in the 8th. What a shocking end to the Olympics. Who would have ever picked the USA to win the gold medal in men's curling?! That is wild! The only other event I saw from yesterday (today?) was the women's parallel snowboarding. That Czech snowboarder, Ester Ledecka, is amazing. I'm in awe that she won a gold medal in Super G AND in Parallel Snowboarding. That is insane! How the hell is anyone that good at two different sports?! Skiing is not the same as snowboarding. That is just crazy. She's my new hero. |
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Post by MarkInTexas on Feb 24, 2018 22:06:24 GMT -5
I know figure skating is a lot more showbiz than nearly any other Olympic sport, but it is still weird to me that they get an entire night to essentially take a bow and have an encore.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Feb 24, 2018 23:10:37 GMT -5
The NHL ends games with shootouts in the regular season, but everyone hates it (the people who don't hate it are bad and they should feel bad). In the playoffs they just keep playing forever until someone scores a garbage goal because it's the sixth overtime and they're all dying. I remember when the Stars won the Stanley Cup in 1999, the last game went to the third overtime or something ridiculous like that. The game wasn't over until about 2 am. It was the third overtime of Game Six, yeah, and that very play prompted the elimination of the in-the-crease rule, given how controversial the ref's ruling on the Stars' Cup-winning goal was. |
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Post by ganews on Feb 25, 2018 0:51:13 GMT -5
Lots of great curling to watch. Amazing end for USA men and a great game to watch. Sweden's women were unstoppable, they were going to destroy whoever they faced.
The Japan vs. Great Britain women's bronze match was tight but not exactly full of amazing shots; it was what I imaging good-but-not-Olympic curling looks like. Good for Japan, though. GBR's final shot looked more desperate and unplanned than it needed to be.
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Post by MarkInTexas on Feb 25, 2018 22:18:21 GMT -5
NBC's coverage, while not fantastic, was considerably better than the coverage in Rio. This isn't new, as they do a much better job covering the Winter Olympics than the Summer Olympics. I think I've figured out why. Unlike the summer games, there are no winter sports that the Americans traditionally dominate, and unlike the summer games, there are no sports where sexy athletes are dressed as skimpily as possible.
At the summer games, Americans tend to do very well in swimming, gymnastics, and at least the short distance races of track. That's why NBC tends to devote tons and tons and tons of primetime coverage to Americans winning medals in swimming, gymnastics, and track. To round out their coverage, they show a lot of beach volleyball, with women in bikinis, and diving, with men in Speedos.
In winter, NBC doesn't have the option to build 2 weeks of primetime programming around American-dominated and/or sexy sports. So, since it's not like they'll be missing any Americans winning gold medals anyway, they have the freedom to cover skiing and snowboarding and bobsled and luge and speed skating before they go to their two hours of figure skating coverage. So, to see some of the non-marquee sports in prime time in Tokyo, we just have to hope that the US sucks at swimming and gymnastics in 2020.
Anyway, I guess this is wrap for this thread. See everyone when they announce the 2026 host in a year or so, as well as in late 2019, when Russia gets itself banned again. Opening ceremony for the Tokyo games is July 24, 2020.
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Post by MarkInTexas on Feb 25, 2018 22:26:25 GMT -5
I think Johnny Weir and Effie Trinket are fashion soulmates. I don't remember him in Rio, but boy howdy did he embrace the Hunger Games look each and every night in PyeongChang--including tonight. |
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Post by Pedantic Editor Type on Feb 25, 2018 22:58:14 GMT -5
I think Johnny Weir and Effie Trinket are fashion soulmates. I don't remember him in Rio, but boy howdy did he embrace the Hunger Games look each and every night in PyeongChang--including tonight. I had totally forgotten I said this! But yes, he was half Effie, half Cesar Flickerman.... |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 26, 2018 0:27:57 GMT -5
NBC's coverage, while not fantastic, was considerably better than the coverage in Rio. This isn't new, as they do a much better job covering the Winter Olympics than the Summer Olympics. I think I've figured out why. Unlike the summer games, there are no winter sports that the Americans traditionally dominate, and unlike the summer games, there are no sports where sexy athletes are dressed as skimpily as possible. Yes, and their streaming services were also improved. The commercials rarely cut into the actual events, which was a vast improvement from 2016. And they actually made the streaming services available live and the replays available right away. Previously they held the marquee events replays until after the Primetime coverage ended. This is very helpful to those of us who actually just want the pure sports competition. It was the first Olympics where I didn't have to use a VPN to get access to the BBC's live streams! It helped that the Americans aren't very competitive in figure skating, so NBC actually covered the likes of Yuzuru Hanyu and the two Russian women's skaters. And Virtue and Moir kinda write their own story. Plus, the Shibutanis, who did win a medal, have a compelling story. (I only wish they had been so generous in coverage in the Summer games to Japanese gymnast Kohei Uchimura, who is every bit as great as Hanyu, and is widely considered the greatest gymnast of all time.) It was also a great help to have Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir commentating on figure skating because those two actually understand the sport and will praise great skating from whoever it comes from, and will critique mistakes. Previously NBC's coverage was "Rah Rah USA! And here's some other people...." It also helped that there were some interesting non-American stories going on in the other sports. Norway's dominance in skiing. That great Norwegian cross country skiathlon win, with the crash at the beginning and Kruger coming back to win. The crazy loss by the Men's Luge front-runner. Aksel Lund Svindal finally winning the downhill gold medal. Marcel Hirscher finally winning an Alpine skiing gold medal. Ester Ledecka winning gold in skiing and snowboarding. It also helped that Americans won in sports they don't normally win in, such as the Cross Country relay gold medal and the Men's Curling gold medal. That brought some primetime attention to 2 sports NBC doesn't usually give primetime space to. Of course, they did still have some problems. The biggest problem was Bode Miller calling Alpine Skiing. That was beyond awful. They need someone who understands how to call events for television. Immediately. And smaller problems were that NBC still had too many pre-packaged gauzy backstory videos. I get that the Olympics is a big undertaking, and they want to have some material ready to go. But NBC seems to want to dictate the narrative of the Olympics, instead of letting competition do that for them. Ie: "Shiffrin is going to win 5 medals!.... Oh wait, no, not really.... um, now what do we talk about?" But, you are correct, that any gains will probably be reversed in the Summer 2020 games. Because the American teams will probably be dominating in Swimming and gymnastics. Well, I'm not really sure what is happening with the Women's gymnastics team right now. But, the swim team will likely produce several medals, at least. And NBC can do the same thing with the Swimming coverage that it did the last time the Summer games were in Asia, which is schedule the finals in the morning sessions, so that they air live in Primetime in the USA. I'm not sure what will happen with the Track & Field coverage, because that sport has never changed its scheduling to meet NBC's demands. They always race in the evening, which will be very early in the morning in the USA. The gymnastics events were also in the afternoon/evening local time, so middle of the night/very early morning in the USA. I am not optimistic about the NBC on-air coverage of the 2020 Olympics. But, as long as the streaming works as well as it did this time, I guess I don't care. The Primetime coverage can be terrible as long as NBC provides me with working live streams of every sport. And for the love of God, please don't go back to blocking the event streaming replays until after the Primetime coverage has concluded. |
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Post by MarkInTexas on Feb 26, 2018 10:19:55 GMT -5
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 28, 2018 1:22:49 GMT -5
Ha! I guess I should have read that, too. He's pretty much saying what I tried to say. Curse him! |
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Post by Jimmy James on Jul 23, 2021 11:28:35 GMT -5
Never enjoyed running it, but the 800m might be my favorite track and field event to watch. Most sprints are over too quickly for any excitement to build, whereas watching a full 10000m takes a deal of patience. But elite runners can knock out a half mile in the time of your average Ramones song. These are two of my favorite examples from Olympic finals, queued up to the race start times
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Post by ganews on Jul 24, 2021 15:23:24 GMT -5
Thanks for resurrecting this thread Jimmy James. If you are planning to watch streams and don't want to see banners all over NBC's website announcing the medalists, go ahead and find your sport's full replay video page. For example, all fencing events are at www.nbcolympics.com/replays/sport/fencing ; you can use this url and just paste in the name of any sport in place of fencing (use the accurate name though or you will get routed back to the homepage). |
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