Olympic Thread
 

Can I just say that our team had the dumbest hats in the opening ceremonies?
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...n060210get.jpg
And this seems to be the silly hat Olympics. Men's Biathlon is up today. I don't know about you, but I'm keeping the tv on for the next two weeks and tuned to CBC. What's your favourite Olympic Sport?

My wife and I were gobsmacked at how ugly the uniforms were... They look like they are getting ready to decontaminate a biohazard.

Can't say I think much of the outfits one way or another - but the damn Olympic stuff at HBC is horribly overpriced. Yes, I love the Olympics. No, I'm not paying $70 for a sweatshirt.

We're Olympic junkies also - obviously, hockey is great, but we love the speedskating as well. My wife likes the figure skating as all women do. I'll be pulling for Becky Scott in the cross country events also. She's amazing.

Didn't Russia throw those hats in for free when Canada bought it's latest submarines. Oops,..wrong country.

And putting the word CANADA on the bottom of the jackets is terrible. Product placement is key here and what get's dirty on a jacket first? Usually the part you sit on. Not to mention white highlights dirt and filth quite well.

And are all the gloves different in colour? Strange. Wonder who the maufacturer was? Probably some place is China.

Am I the only one who wishes the media wouldn't raise our expectations so high? Every outlet, from the Sun Tabloids to the CBC, is going on and on about how we're going to win the "MOST GOLD MEDALS EVAR!". Its no wonder several athletes have been avoiding the spotlight.

Not to be too cynical, but It seems we have at least one choker per games (Perdita Felicien in Athens comes to mind) and the huge media build up only feeds my sense of impending doom.

Given the shadow of Ben Johnson, corrupt figure skating judges and other scandals, I'm always a little on edge when I watch the games. I guess it's just part of the drama, so I'm hoping for the best with my teeth clenched.

Canada Kicks Ass in the moguls!! Even the announcers in Turin screwing up our country couldn't dampen my pride at a gold medal on the first freakin day!

Well, we should win the most ever - until 2010 in Vancouver when we should win more. There's been a big build up towards 2010 and with the facilities available now in the country, we should be looking forward to doing well.

Unlike the Summer Games, where we are not deep, at the Winter Games we often have several medal hopefuls in each event.

Congrats to Jennifer Heil for the gold in the moguls. Our women are so cute, too.

I saw that one, I was pretty surprised at how the last two contestant including Jennifer Heil choose not to go with sophisicate jump compared to the Norweigian chick and still managed to get the first place :thumbsup:

I usually am a HUGE olympics junkie. I could watch the Olympics all day long. I am a big nationalist, and I love watching Canada on the world stage, and I really hope they do well this year. I hope that there aren't many disappointments this year. We need a strong showing at the Olympics, especially the winter ones. I know Beckie Scott already didn't win the medal she won last time, but hopefully someone else will pick up where she left off.

Looks like the womens hockey team is doing well. Do you all think they're running up the score, or that they're doing what they have to do because of how the round robin scoring points system is set up? Should they have taken it a bit easier on the Italians?

I mainly hope Canada does well in the events they're supposed to do well, like speed skating and hockey... I would love a few suprise medals in there too.

Go CANADA Go!!!

I noticed the gloves as well... I am pretty sure they are the colours of the Hudson's Bay blankets (green, red and gold). I haven't had confirmation of this but it makes sense.

They should score as many goals as possible - goal differential can and does happen in these tournaments, so score as many as possible.

If the Olympics or IIHF or whoever doesn't want stronger teams pounding weaker teams, they should set up a mercy rule (if you're leading 7-0 or something, call the game). Never understood why some people (like that idiot Don Cherry) want to blame the players when they are just doing their job. Blame the system. Unless the system changes, fire away.

I agree.

Besides, if the woman had come out with a victory of 4 - 0 against Italy everyone would have said, "OMG! What's with low score! Either the Italians are better than we thought or out women's team isn't as good."

The system is what it is and the more goals they have the better.

I'm sure someone will start a separate thread about this shortly, but I just wanted to weigh in with my $0.02 about the Canadian Womens Hockey Team winning GOLD for the second Olympics in a row, thereby further asserting the dominance of Canadians on the international hockey scene...

What was that sound??? A collective "ho-hum" from the rest of the world??? More alarmingly, from the rest of Canada???

It seems to me, and I could be wrong here, that we're more focussed and preoccupied with the Canadian Men's hockey struggles than we are on the Canadian Women, who kicked butt and took names... Is that in part because we just expected the women to win? Is it because we believe that womens hockey really is only a one country sport, whereas mens hockey is more international???

Well, I for one am celebrating the Canadian Womens Hockey team. Congratulations team. Congratulations Canada, the premier nation of HOCKEY....

...that is, unless the men lose...

People here were pretty jazzed about it, but certainly did expect the women to win, despite what happened to the US team when they faced Sweden.

You know, someone on another board posted the scores from the 1928 Olympic Games when Canadian men won by very lopsided scores - but eventually, the world caught up to us. Ditto the Dream Team. I can see the US coming back, and Sweden, Finland, Russia and maybe China fielding stronger teams over the next 2 Olympiads.

I'm very proud of our women's hockey team! There's even a player from good ol' Brampton! :D

I wish our Alpine skiers had been that little bit better to get bronze instead of fourth.

Yeah, three 4th place finishes - that's hard for the athlete to take. So close...

I'm way more impressed with the women's hockey team than I am with the mens. And not just cause they won. The women's team are amateurs, not professionals culled from the NHL.
But my real beef so far with Team Canada, is at the medal podium, where our athletes are wearing their stupid gloves to get the medals, and then they shake hands while WEARING THEIR GLOVES!! Haven't we got an etiquette manual for athletes? No one else is wearing gloves, it can't be that freaking cold...

People are very jazzed here that the Women's Hockey team won Gold!

I agree with Lucifer's comment about them being amateurs rather than NHL superstars. It makes it all the more sweet.

It's great to see the women so dominant and play so freaking awesome. What an inspiration. I have to admit though, I'm a big hockey fan of both women's and men's hockey.

As for the men, I hope they can get it going. When I first saw the roster I kinda went oh oh, mainly because Gretzky picked alot of his buddies. If I had a say, Chris Draper and Todd Bertuzzi would have been replaced by Jason Spezza and Eric Staal.

Bertuzzi just looks completely uninspired and has all year. Regardless of his suspension, he doesn't seem to know how to play hockey without being physically dominant. If he doesn't get it together his career will be over very soon. Someone told me he was overated which at the time I didn't agree with but the more I watch him, the more that sentiment keeps creeping into my psyche.

And Pat Quinn has to formulate a lineup and stick with it. Switching lines every game if not every period shows a lack of continuity which can, at this late stage in the games be very nerve racking.

My prediction will be Canada bronze at the best, if they even win a medal. I hope they do better than my prediction.

No bronze,silver or gold.... only medal Mens team will get, is the steel toe in my boot when I kick their arses!!!!! Couldn't do it, wouldn't work together...... rrrrggggg!!!!

I'll be waiting at Pearson with a SAM on my shoulder.

Meanwhile, Chandra Crawford blew away the whole pack in Cross country sprint for a Gold. Plus, it was gratifying to see her enthusiasm on the podium and how well she carried herself in the inteviews afterwards.

I think I said everything I needed to say in the hockey thread in sports forum

most disappointed I've been over sports ever

yeah, that was exciting and a bit unexpected for her to win gold. But she was really on her game.

And Cindy Klassen! 4 medals in one Olympics! thank God for the Canadian women. I think of the 18 or 19 medals we've won so far, 13 or 14 of them came from our female athletes. Jennifer Heil, Chandra Crawford, Cindy Klassen, Beckie Scott, Sara Renner, Kristina Groves, and all the others, including the women's hockey team - they've done the country proud.

my thoughts exactly. To bad the hockey results clouded an otherwise stellar effort by the Canadian contingent!

Normally I would be greatly dissapointed over the huge losses by the Mens Hockey, but after watching whats happened in Cross Country, Speed Skating and the other events that we've done awesome in, combined with the womans gold, I am very happy with Team Canada (as a whole).

Personally, I'd prefer to see Olympic Hockey played by the Juniors - this is supposed to be amateur sport.

Well, that's no longer the case. The whole "amateur" thing has never really existed in Olympic history, it's an utter myth. You know, when Red Army was pounding the crud out of our 18 year olds all those years, it wasn't much fun. And the original amateur designation kept a lot of working men from participating in the Games in the early incarnations around 1900 - it kept it restricted to the upper classes.

Everyone gets paid for their sport now, skiers, skaters, and so on. As it should be, IMO.

Good points. I concede.

There's actually an Italian student here in some of my classes and after the women's hockey team crushed the Italian team, he told me that he was applying for Canadian residenency and now is going to head back and return the forms.

That's just plain bad attitude, for starters the Italian team should've never been in the tournament in the first place. Plus, what were we suppose to do? Score couple of goals and then declare the game over by then?

Yeah, I'm sure when Italy whups our soccer team 4-0 (which is the equivalent of a 12-0 hockey score) he'll feel real bad.

:rolleyes:

What a goof that guy is.

Welp, the Games are now over for Canada in terms of medals. There are two events tomorrow: the Gold medal hockey game which we are not involved in, and the 50km cross country race, in which we have entrants but who are extremely unlikely to get a whiff of a medal unless about 30 guys ahead of them fail drug tests.

We will finish with 24 medals, by far a record haul, including 7 gold. That puts us in third overall and fifth in terms of gold, an amazing achievement.

To our athletes who brought it home, I thank you. You made my family and I very proud and we were thrilled by your victories and achievements. Cindy Klassen, you are the superstar of these Games for Canada, winning 5 medals! Clara Hughes, you made history as the only person from any nation to win multiple medals at both Winter and Summer Games (2 in cycling and 3 in speedskating). If you two don't get some serious endorsement contracts, corporate Canada is dropping the ball. Chandra Crawford, you came out of nowhere to win at cross country. Duff Gibson, even at 40 you proved you can still win Gold. Jennifer Heil, your freestyle skiing Gold to start the ball rolling was sweet. To the good people of Newfoundland who closed the schools on Friday to watch your native sons win the curling gold, you showed the greatest national pride. To all those young athletes who must have posted a record number of top tens, you will reap a bunch of medals in 2010 in Vancouver and will break the record set these Games we have no doubt.

A great Games for Canada! See you in 2010 in British Columbia!

Well said Hightheif. We tend to ignore these athletes in between games, and then suddenly pin so much of our hopes and pride on them once every 4 years. They deserve our thanks.

Our Speed Skaters made Saturday a great finish for Torino.

I'll be in Vancouver for 2010 (Hooray for moving back there and outta the NWT) and I absolutely can't wait. I'll be taking my daughters to show them the best the country, and the world has to offer.

Incredible. Fills you with pride after watching our country in the olympics. Here's hoping that 2 years from now when these athletes need our help so they can train, we don't forget the feelings they imbued in the past two weeks.

Mad love to Canada. I miss home a great deal these days and it makes me happy that we did so well at the games. Despite the major FOLD of the men's Hockey team. I am very proud!

Well I must admit I am sad that the Olympics are over...and extremely proud of what our Canadian athletes accomplished. What an amazing way for us to lead into Van 2010. I hope the rest of the world is prepared for what Canada is going to be bringing to the table!!!

Anyone catch the Vancouver 2010 scarves the Canadian contingency were wearing at the closing ceremonies. Very cool. I forgive them now for what they wore at the opening of the games