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spottoIT IS HERE! ....okay, it came more than a week ago. Nonetheless, I have NEVER followed the Olympics as religiously as I've had this year. This is obviously due to the games being held in my city, so it was hyped up beyond anything I could've ever imagined. It also helped that my Hong Kong relatives were over (went back a few days ago) and they tended to watch a few of the olympic events, sparking my own interest as I caught sight of the TV.
Before the games the only thing I expected to be following was Men's Hockey, but I have been watching hockey, figure skating, speed skating (long AND short-track), ski jumping, and even freestyle skiing (along with a few snowboard events, bobsledding, skeleton, and even freakin' curling.) I must say, after hockey, short-track speed skating as been the most amusing/entertaining so far...and also controversial.
Yesterday, Canada defeated Russia with a final score no one expected in 7-3. I honestly thought it would end up being a very close game, maybe a 3-2 or a 4-3, but apparently the Russians didn't seem to up the tempo. I do know Russia lost to Slovakia and their apparently super-awesome offensive force that is their NHL line (Of Ovechkin, Semin, and Malkin, along with Kovalchuk and Datsuyk also on the team) hadn't been gelling as well as their KHL line. Then I heard sometime before the game that one of their KHL players was out, so there did seem to be a few holes in what looked like an extremely strong Russian team.
But Nabokov letting in all those goals? The Canadian offense was going through the defense pretty easily, and the Russians had some brutal brutal giveaways. Besides some remarkable highlights in the third period Luongo didn't need to be spectacular, which is good. If the goalie has to stand on their head something is wrong with the rest of the team, but having both brilliant goaltending and amazing offense along with defense is what everyone will want going into the Canada - Slovakia semi-finals on Friday.
Nonetheless, I am STOKED. I have my own Canada hockey jersey, and I have hanged a few gigantic flags around the house. I am very much behind Team Canada, but Canada is not the only team I am cheering for in the Olympics.
Besides hockey, we have short-track speed skating, which I've followed pretty much entirely up to this point. The Koreans are obviously dominant, and so are the Chinese. I'm glad Canada managed to get some medals as well from the powerful teams in that area. I'm actually cheering on all three of these teams. My mentality in these Olympics is that, "No matter what happens...USA must LOSE." That team can have all the bronzes they want...except for yesterday.
Yesterday, I ran from the television in my parents' room to the one in the living room back and forth to watch both the hockey game and the short-track ladies' relay. Most likely if the Canada-Russia game had been close I would have been watching the replay of the short-track relay, but because it was 7-3 by the time the relay came on I alternated. Anyway, the finals had all four teams I mentioned: Canada, Korea, China, and the US, competing for medals. The race was quite long, so I basically spent most of it watching hockey, but came back for the end.
Korea won by a wide margin, then China, then Canada. I was quite happy with that result, since the US got NOTHING. THEN out of nowhere they announced that the Koreans were disqualifed and the Chinese had won. While I am very patriotic in being Chinese, I was not particularly happy, it almost spoiled my joy when Canada defeated Russia in hockey. Watching those young Korean girls suddenly go from utter happiness to absolute despair was rather hard to watch. They were already celebrating, holding up their flags before the disqualification was announced.
So I decided to see what the big deal was and saw really nothing in the replay that showed the apparent "bump". The impeding replay was so ambiguous and innocent that disqualifying the Koreans was basically a retard move. The Chinese skater stepped on her skate just a little, and when the Korean turned the corner obviously her arm would have flown up (and the other to graze the ice) for balance and speed, just because her arm happened to touch the Chinese skater right when she stepped on her skate was the most unfortunate things of all things to happen. The call was ridiculous!
I looked up a few articles from both the Korean, Chinese, and American media and even the Chinese article didn't look quite certain about that call. Obviously they were still biased to the Chinese (it was mostly them quoting what the officials and chinese players said. The star chinese skater who I consider the fastest lady in the universe basically said "no matter what the call was we accept it whether it was for us or against us". Basically instead of saying "THE OFFICIALS WERE RIGHT!" she kept her statement neutral.) From reading the Korean articles I learned that the official/judge who disqualifed the Koreans was the same Australian who disqualifed another Korean in another olympics, which turned out to be extremely controversial as well, and also was suspended once for like four years for bad officiating.
...THEN WHY WAS HE OFFICIATING AGAIN, IN THE OLYMPICS?
Then the article said something about boycotting Australian products, lol.
The AMERICAN article just made me laugh because after stating what happened they immediately went and accused the Canadians for bumping the Americans and the Americans should have gotten silver. EVEN THOUGH half the race (I caught the replay later P:) the Americans were so far back they weren't even on the SCREEN. I still don't think they deserved BRONZE even, and that the Koreans should have gotten gold. The title for the Chinese article even said "Why were the Koreans disqualifed?".
This kind of reminds me of that incident in the NHL between Burrows and Auger. Auger clearly made a phantom call during the third period. Whether or not he actually told Burrows he'd get back at him is up in the air, but that phantom call was on NATIONAL TV. The stupidest most bullshit call ever, which really did suggest that he was trying to get back at Burrows. Yet in the end the NHL did nothing to him, and fined Burrows. The only good thing that came out of it was that Auger no longer officiates Canucks games...but he still has a job, and he's still referee'ing in other NHL games!
But $2000 in fines is nothing compared to an Olympic Gold Medal. The only reason this incident isn't as hard-hitting (to me at least) is that Koreans are pretty dominant in speed-skating anyway, and will only improve (I think the entire Korean team consisted of teenagers. I call the shortest one Mighty Mite! ...lol the horrible nickname came from the commentator, seriously. ) but that official who already had a shady past with controversial calls (SAME as Auger) will still have a job tomorrow and probably more olympics to come, we can do nothing but rage and rant, like I am doing. (He looks like a jerk on television anyway.)
I had no idea I'd be this passionate for SPEED SKATING. Luckily my day was not ruined because the Canadians did awesome in the hockey game yesterday. It ALMOST made up for that horrible loss to the Americans the other day, when I wished Kesler was Canadian instead...and that Miller would choke. The only thing that can make up for that is defeating them in a gold medal game, obviously. (I can't believe Sweden lost to Slovakia...we better not take those guys lightly. They defeated Russia too O: ))
In other events, I watched ski-cross two days ago. Never expected to, I just opened the television one day and found four people skiing side-by-side almost as entertaining as short-track. My personal favourite skier (after the Canadian winner, Ashleigh McIver of course) was the sole Spanish skier, last name Delgado. She barely qualified, and in the quarter-finals hilariously got stuck at the feature, but despite not making it to the semi-finals (since the two skiiers ahead of her were long gone) STILL went to finish the face, and crashed into the finish line. She was okay, and even tried to entertain the audience by landing on her belly. Everyone else who had no hope for being the first two winners to qualify for the semi's didn't bother to finish the race, but she did! I admired that, and the fact that she amused me.
I also wanted the poleless Russian skier (I cannot spell her last name) to be successful as well, unfortunately she crashed during the first heat and had to be taken away on a sled-stretcher thing. (She finished her qualification with no poles, that was awesome.)
Those are the only events I watched the entire thing for. I caught a lot of other events though, including Figure Skating! (Men's freeskate) I was going for Plushenko to win (after Patrick Chan couldn't break the top three, of course.) and also because I don't like Americans. LO' AND BEHOLD, LYSACEK, the American, wins barely. Bastard. I wouldn't have minded if that Johnny Weir guy won even though he was American because he dressed very awesomely and had a very fabulous style. Unfortunately he didn't break the top-three either. Bah. Oh well, nothing wrong with a platinum medal. Only quads can get you platinum medals.
I also watched the doubles free-skate (or whatever it was called), and the Chinese teams basically took that thing by a landslide. Everyone in my family was watching that! I caught a replay of some of the women's free-skate short program (poor Canadian, was it Rochette? Who lost her mother. She skated very well two days back.) and damn, they're good too. I actually find the Russians this year to be underachieving at the olympics. I honestly thought they'd get more medals. (Apparently they're SUPPOSED to dominate in figure-skating and NOT lose to Canada 7-3, whoops.) Even though people are saying the Canadians are underachieving too I think they're doing quite well. It very much sucks when we get a million fourth/fifth place finishes (including Patrick Chan! D:)
Long-track is not as exciting as short-track, but it's cool that we got some Canadians winning at that event too! I had no idea the only person (Clara Hughes) to win medals in both the Summer and Winter Olympics was a CANADIAN. I feel so proud right now. She got a bronze yesterday, I was watching that too. I think she got a gold earlier in the Olympics.
So far I've managed to watch ski-cross, bobsleigh, and skeleton live when a Canadian got gold. (So many women doing better than men, lol) It's really exciting to watch Canadians get a gold live, and there are a number of times when I've said: "NOOOOOOOOOOO" when a Canadian fell to silver or bronze, lol. I watched freestyle skiing, the one where they flip in the air off a plank yesterday. There was a lot of chinese people in the finals, but the gold went to an Australian. So I've seen an Australian win gold too. The only time I was unhappy is when an AMERICAN won anything. Goddamn Americans.
My dad is odd. He's the most judgemental and ignorant person I know. Before my relatives came over he'd be complaining about curling being boring (and I agree) and then just a few days back he claims curling is so much more interesting to watch than bobsledding. CURLING. Over BOBSLEDDING. You're kiddin' me. I respect curling as a sport but I do not find it interesting to watch at all. At least bobsledding they go really really fast on really really dangerous courses...and sometimes the sled flips. (Hopefully they don't get injured, but spills are entertaining!) Curling is like....billards, except with stones, and no pool stick, instead we have brooms...that help the rock glide. Or whatever. Not interesting. Nonetheless I hope Canada gets a medal there, they're the heavy favourites I believe.
To dig into the point of that horrible short-track call on the Koreans, even my mom, a very biased person for the chinese, said that China was REALLY LUCKY to get the gold. Although she basically says that for everything, but still. (Asian parents are not one to praise people easily. AT ALL.)
Anyway, for today we have the Women's Hockey finals between Canada and USA. GO CANADA GO. America can suck it. There's also the ladies' freeskate finals. Go Canada Go again!
Before the games the only thing I expected to be following was Men's Hockey, but I have been watching hockey, figure skating, speed skating (long AND short-track), ski jumping, and even freestyle skiing (along with a few snowboard events, bobsledding, skeleton, and even freakin' curling.) I must say, after hockey, short-track speed skating as been the most amusing/entertaining so far...and also controversial.
Yesterday, Canada defeated Russia with a final score no one expected in 7-3. I honestly thought it would end up being a very close game, maybe a 3-2 or a 4-3, but apparently the Russians didn't seem to up the tempo. I do know Russia lost to Slovakia and their apparently super-awesome offensive force that is their NHL line (Of Ovechkin, Semin, and Malkin, along with Kovalchuk and Datsuyk also on the team) hadn't been gelling as well as their KHL line. Then I heard sometime before the game that one of their KHL players was out, so there did seem to be a few holes in what looked like an extremely strong Russian team.
But Nabokov letting in all those goals? The Canadian offense was going through the defense pretty easily, and the Russians had some brutal brutal giveaways. Besides some remarkable highlights in the third period Luongo didn't need to be spectacular, which is good. If the goalie has to stand on their head something is wrong with the rest of the team, but having both brilliant goaltending and amazing offense along with defense is what everyone will want going into the Canada - Slovakia semi-finals on Friday.
Nonetheless, I am STOKED. I have my own Canada hockey jersey, and I have hanged a few gigantic flags around the house. I am very much behind Team Canada, but Canada is not the only team I am cheering for in the Olympics.
Besides hockey, we have short-track speed skating, which I've followed pretty much entirely up to this point. The Koreans are obviously dominant, and so are the Chinese. I'm glad Canada managed to get some medals as well from the powerful teams in that area. I'm actually cheering on all three of these teams. My mentality in these Olympics is that, "No matter what happens...USA must LOSE." That team can have all the bronzes they want...except for yesterday.
Yesterday, I ran from the television in my parents' room to the one in the living room back and forth to watch both the hockey game and the short-track ladies' relay. Most likely if the Canada-Russia game had been close I would have been watching the replay of the short-track relay, but because it was 7-3 by the time the relay came on I alternated. Anyway, the finals had all four teams I mentioned: Canada, Korea, China, and the US, competing for medals. The race was quite long, so I basically spent most of it watching hockey, but came back for the end.
Korea won by a wide margin, then China, then Canada. I was quite happy with that result, since the US got NOTHING. THEN out of nowhere they announced that the Koreans were disqualifed and the Chinese had won. While I am very patriotic in being Chinese, I was not particularly happy, it almost spoiled my joy when Canada defeated Russia in hockey. Watching those young Korean girls suddenly go from utter happiness to absolute despair was rather hard to watch. They were already celebrating, holding up their flags before the disqualification was announced.
So I decided to see what the big deal was and saw really nothing in the replay that showed the apparent "bump". The impeding replay was so ambiguous and innocent that disqualifying the Koreans was basically a retard move. The Chinese skater stepped on her skate just a little, and when the Korean turned the corner obviously her arm would have flown up (and the other to graze the ice) for balance and speed, just because her arm happened to touch the Chinese skater right when she stepped on her skate was the most unfortunate things of all things to happen. The call was ridiculous!
I looked up a few articles from both the Korean, Chinese, and American media and even the Chinese article didn't look quite certain about that call. Obviously they were still biased to the Chinese (it was mostly them quoting what the officials and chinese players said. The star chinese skater who I consider the fastest lady in the universe basically said "no matter what the call was we accept it whether it was for us or against us". Basically instead of saying "THE OFFICIALS WERE RIGHT!" she kept her statement neutral.) From reading the Korean articles I learned that the official/judge who disqualifed the Koreans was the same Australian who disqualifed another Korean in another olympics, which turned out to be extremely controversial as well, and also was suspended once for like four years for bad officiating.
...THEN WHY WAS HE OFFICIATING AGAIN, IN THE OLYMPICS?
Then the article said something about boycotting Australian products, lol.
The AMERICAN article just made me laugh because after stating what happened they immediately went and accused the Canadians for bumping the Americans and the Americans should have gotten silver. EVEN THOUGH half the race (I caught the replay later P:) the Americans were so far back they weren't even on the SCREEN. I still don't think they deserved BRONZE even, and that the Koreans should have gotten gold. The title for the Chinese article even said "Why were the Koreans disqualifed?".
This kind of reminds me of that incident in the NHL between Burrows and Auger. Auger clearly made a phantom call during the third period. Whether or not he actually told Burrows he'd get back at him is up in the air, but that phantom call was on NATIONAL TV. The stupidest most bullshit call ever, which really did suggest that he was trying to get back at Burrows. Yet in the end the NHL did nothing to him, and fined Burrows. The only good thing that came out of it was that Auger no longer officiates Canucks games...but he still has a job, and he's still referee'ing in other NHL games!
But $2000 in fines is nothing compared to an Olympic Gold Medal. The only reason this incident isn't as hard-hitting (to me at least) is that Koreans are pretty dominant in speed-skating anyway, and will only improve (I think the entire Korean team consisted of teenagers. I call the shortest one Mighty Mite! ...lol the horrible nickname came from the commentator, seriously. ) but that official who already had a shady past with controversial calls (SAME as Auger) will still have a job tomorrow and probably more olympics to come, we can do nothing but rage and rant, like I am doing. (He looks like a jerk on television anyway.)
I had no idea I'd be this passionate for SPEED SKATING. Luckily my day was not ruined because the Canadians did awesome in the hockey game yesterday. It ALMOST made up for that horrible loss to the Americans the other day, when I wished Kesler was Canadian instead...and that Miller would choke. The only thing that can make up for that is defeating them in a gold medal game, obviously. (I can't believe Sweden lost to Slovakia...we better not take those guys lightly. They defeated Russia too O: ))
In other events, I watched ski-cross two days ago. Never expected to, I just opened the television one day and found four people skiing side-by-side almost as entertaining as short-track. My personal favourite skier (after the Canadian winner, Ashleigh McIver of course) was the sole Spanish skier, last name Delgado. She barely qualified, and in the quarter-finals hilariously got stuck at the feature, but despite not making it to the semi-finals (since the two skiiers ahead of her were long gone) STILL went to finish the face, and crashed into the finish line. She was okay, and even tried to entertain the audience by landing on her belly. Everyone else who had no hope for being the first two winners to qualify for the semi's didn't bother to finish the race, but she did! I admired that, and the fact that she amused me.
I also wanted the poleless Russian skier (I cannot spell her last name) to be successful as well, unfortunately she crashed during the first heat and had to be taken away on a sled-stretcher thing. (She finished her qualification with no poles, that was awesome.)
Those are the only events I watched the entire thing for. I caught a lot of other events though, including Figure Skating! (Men's freeskate) I was going for Plushenko to win (after Patrick Chan couldn't break the top three, of course.) and also because I don't like Americans. LO' AND BEHOLD, LYSACEK, the American, wins barely. Bastard. I wouldn't have minded if that Johnny Weir guy won even though he was American because he dressed very awesomely and had a very fabulous style. Unfortunately he didn't break the top-three either. Bah. Oh well, nothing wrong with a platinum medal. Only quads can get you platinum medals.
I also watched the doubles free-skate (or whatever it was called), and the Chinese teams basically took that thing by a landslide. Everyone in my family was watching that! I caught a replay of some of the women's free-skate short program (poor Canadian, was it Rochette? Who lost her mother. She skated very well two days back.) and damn, they're good too. I actually find the Russians this year to be underachieving at the olympics. I honestly thought they'd get more medals. (Apparently they're SUPPOSED to dominate in figure-skating and NOT lose to Canada 7-3, whoops.) Even though people are saying the Canadians are underachieving too I think they're doing quite well. It very much sucks when we get a million fourth/fifth place finishes (including Patrick Chan! D:)
Long-track is not as exciting as short-track, but it's cool that we got some Canadians winning at that event too! I had no idea the only person (Clara Hughes) to win medals in both the Summer and Winter Olympics was a CANADIAN. I feel so proud right now. She got a bronze yesterday, I was watching that too. I think she got a gold earlier in the Olympics.
So far I've managed to watch ski-cross, bobsleigh, and skeleton live when a Canadian got gold. (So many women doing better than men, lol) It's really exciting to watch Canadians get a gold live, and there are a number of times when I've said: "NOOOOOOOOOOO" when a Canadian fell to silver or bronze, lol. I watched freestyle skiing, the one where they flip in the air off a plank yesterday. There was a lot of chinese people in the finals, but the gold went to an Australian. So I've seen an Australian win gold too. The only time I was unhappy is when an AMERICAN won anything. Goddamn Americans.
My dad is odd. He's the most judgemental and ignorant person I know. Before my relatives came over he'd be complaining about curling being boring (and I agree) and then just a few days back he claims curling is so much more interesting to watch than bobsledding. CURLING. Over BOBSLEDDING. You're kiddin' me. I respect curling as a sport but I do not find it interesting to watch at all. At least bobsledding they go really really fast on really really dangerous courses...and sometimes the sled flips. (Hopefully they don't get injured, but spills are entertaining!) Curling is like....billards, except with stones, and no pool stick, instead we have brooms...that help the rock glide. Or whatever. Not interesting. Nonetheless I hope Canada gets a medal there, they're the heavy favourites I believe.
To dig into the point of that horrible short-track call on the Koreans, even my mom, a very biased person for the chinese, said that China was REALLY LUCKY to get the gold. Although she basically says that for everything, but still. (Asian parents are not one to praise people easily. AT ALL.)
Anyway, for today we have the Women's Hockey finals between Canada and USA. GO CANADA GO. America can suck it. There's also the ladies' freeskate finals. Go Canada Go again!
