Winter Wonderland

I watched (for the most part) the opening ceremonies of the Olympics last night. Why? Good question. Maybe it was because I wanted to be inspired by the sight of the Koreans walking in as one team. More likley it was to see those lonely one-person contingents, where the poor guy or gal has to carry the flag and wave maniacially, as if they have to spread enough cheer to make up for dozens of nonexistant teammates. Or to wonder what the heck a race car pit stop has to do with anything in the winder olympics?

But the main thing that struck me was the fact that every team came out to some bad American Disco song. The topper was when a country actually came out to Disco Inferno. Now that I think of it, usually when sentences contain the words "came out" and "Disco Inferno" they are on another subject entirely.

I remember back to a college philosophy class - I think they called it the "Evil Genuis" theory where some evil genius is creating the world around us for our own benefit. When teams from around the world can't come up with better music than Disco Inferno for what's supposed to be the pinnacle of their careers, it makes me think that the Evil Genius got lazy with the details and hoped I wouldn't notice.

Watching some of the Olympics tonight, it seems as if they jump around too much and focus on American athletes way too much. This isn't a very original gripe - they get killed for this every two years. But I'm not sure what they can do about it. If they covered everything they wouldn't be able to broadcast anything else. And if they cut Americans from the broadcast you're gonna hear things like, "I don't give a damn about the Ethiopian skier, I want to see if Bode Miller is drunk." So it's a can't win situation for the network. I do fault the network for paying such an outragous fee for such a flawed property.

At least they'll have hockey soon. you know, the "good" kind of hockey with wide-open ice surfaces and fleet skaters. Janet Jones with bet you $75,000 that no one will really care about the "good" Olympic hockey.

Because what they need is old-school hockey. And I'm not just talking about fighting, although that's part of it. But back in the day when the NHL was populated with Canadian farmboys who came into the league with a sense of toughness and honor. Guys who may not have been considered "book smart" while pitching hay on an Alberta farm but come to the big city and somehow seem to be a step ahead of everyone else. Now, hockey players are almost indistinguishable from baseball players. I don't know the guy personally, but I don't think Ian Moran would last long on the Big Bad Bruins of yonder and have an article about his metrosexuality printed in the Globe. I'm pretty sure that if anyone even THOUGHT about asking Phil Esposity if he was a metrosexual, a couple of Bruno-Scarfo's finest associates would teach the questioner a whole new definition of uincomfortable.