Bleachers' Brew #196 A Miracle for Vancouver

Re-written (as intended) for my column in the Monday Feb 16 edition of the Business Mirror.

A Miracle for Vancouver

by rick olivares

When I think of the Winter Olympics, the things that come to mind are the Jamaican Bobsledding team, the Miracle On Ice, Doug Dorsey and Kate Moseley, Tonya Harding, Chuck Mangione, and now Lindsey Vonn.

It’s more Hollywood than a sporting event. The Miracle On Ice was for real and I followed Mike Eruzione and company as it happened before the film version came out. The Jamaican Bobsled team was for real but I have to admit that they were nowhere near as fun as Doug E. Doug, Leon, and the late John Candy in his final film. And flugel horn player Chuck Mangione’s “Give It All You Got,” the theme songs of Lake Placid Winter Olympics, was a hit in the pop charts and brought some crossover attention to the games.

Last week, I pulled off the racks the latest issue of Sports Illustrated that featured skier Lindsey Vonn. I was familiar with her but I bought the issue mainly for the feature on the New Orleans Saints. It did help that the cover – accordingly because of Vonn’s suggestive pose for feminists -- was subjected to some controversy.

As I was paying HK $35 for the magazine at Relay magazine stand in Lan Tau, another man, who also took a copy from the rack asked, “You’re getting it too because of the cover?”

“Nah,” I lied expertly in a knowing tone and excuse reserved for purchasing men’s magazines. “I got it for the articles.” We had a good laugh.

And so the curse of Sports Illustrated lives. Vonn, days after appearing on the cover and being on everyone’s list as the Michael Phelps of this Winter Olympiad is injured and will be competing under painkillers. Then the untimely death of 21-year old luger Nodar Kumaritashvili of Georgia cast a pall on the opening Ceremonies that was not without its own share of glitches.

Already, organizers and television carriers are losing money that has been dispersed to the Super Bowl and the NBA All-Star Weekend. Many are wondering that with the Olympics being so close to the Super Bowl, will affect ratings and viewership?

How do you top that scintillating story about the Who Dat New Orleans Saints winning against all odds? That right there is the story of the year unless Liverpool miraculously overtakes Arsenal, Chelsea, and Manchester United to pip them all for the English Premier League title.

Not even, eh?

To the casual sports fan, quick… this is the x edition of the Winter Olympiad? Where is it going to be held?

C’mon! stop pretending you know it and Google it now!

What has changed since the last meaningful Olympics (for me it was Sarajevo in 1984) and now? For one, Google is now a verb. And the Yugoslav Republic is splintered across the Adriatic with Sarajevo a part of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Imagine!

Third, Canadian authorities had to truck over snow to the competition sites because Vancouver, hell, the whole world is undergoing global warming. With temperatures rising to 50 degrees, some wags have dubbed it the Spring Games. Stands to reason that soon, the Winter Olympics will go the way of the glaciers.

Fourth, how will it stack against Beijing? Oh, yes, there will be comparisons.

So… what’s there to look forward to in the XXI Winter Olympics?

Well, there are actually some interesting sub-plots.

There’s Shani Davis, the best American ice skater since Eric Heiden, who is black lightning on ice. Yep, he’s African American in a sport (not to mention practically the entire Winter Olympiad) that is so snow white.

For your real life Doug Dorsey and Kate Moseley, then there’s the duo of Ben Agosto and Tanith Belbin. You think Canada will boo Belbin because she is an Ontario native who moved to the US and changed passports? Not exactly because America is losing the Reed siblings – Cathy, Chris, and Allison -- who although are from Kalamazoo, Michigan will be competing for Japan since the US team is stacked.

There's Patrick Chan trash talking familiar men's figure skating rivals Yevgeny Plushenko of Russia and Brian Joubert of France. New generation seeking to take over the older generation.

And here is another event that could break Canada’s maple leaf shaped heart – ice hockey. Four years ago in Turin, Sweden took the gold, Finland the silver, and the Czech Republic the bronze. So what happened to Russia and Canada, eh? Well, the Canadian Women’s Ice Hockey Team won the gold. But with all due respect to women, the Canadian team, and Canadians everywhere…. it’s Men’s Ice Hockey that is their pride and joy! Heck, Canadian geese can win a fowl competition and it would still not matter. They finished seventh in Turin. Seventh in a field of 12. Can the Canadian Men's Hockey Team regain the gold on home soil? Can Canada actually win the medal count despite the presence of Turin over-all winners Germany and the United States?

It isn’t only Canada that stands to lose face here, American broadcast giant NBC, the carrier for the games, is nervous. Not enough sponsors. Not enough sports heroes then Vonn goes done. There goes that $200 million down the slope.

The death of Kumaritashvili has already brought some attention whether rightly or wrongly. Their best bet here is that the games become compelling with some fantastic competition that will have people tweeting, OMG! Are you watching this?” That should bring in the ratings and hopefully some last minute advertising dollars.

That and some old fashioned rivalry that went out when the USSR split into US (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan) and SR (Russia) that ended the Cold War.

Now that would be the modern Miracle they will need... on the thin ice of Vancouver.