Olympics!

[Schmeelkie]

Walked into my office today going, "USA, USA, USA"...had to annoy Canadian officemate after our win in hockey over Canada yesterday. She's a big hockey fan too... 'course, we're not in the medal round yet, so anything could happen.....

O Canada.....

Yeah - she came in today with a big "WOO HOO!" I caught the end of the game at the pizza place we went out to. Of course, I happened to turn away right when the winning goal was scored - I swear it took NBC 10 min to show a replay... Oh, well.

Overall Canada didn't dominate the podium like they wanted to, but did win more golds, and ended on that great hockey high note - so they should be happy and proud of themselves.

I just wonder when these hockey teams got to practice together - in the summer? Obviously not once the NHL season started... Pretty impressive for both USA and Canada to do so well when their teams probably had extremely little practice time together.

[Mahlersfifth]

The hockey teams, yours and ours, did not practice at all until they got to the Olympics.

Ah, well, we couldn't really Own the Podium - it must have been an American who told us to say that. It is pretty tough to beat a U.S. team to the top of any medal board because you have great depth of talent to choose from. But had our luck been better, we might have been on top... but then again had your luck been better you might have won more golds than any other country in the Winter Olympics for all time instead of us. ... but better than both our countries was Norway with a population of 4.7 million and it won 23 overall medals? Wow.

[piqaboo]

Congrats to Canada!
Using a hockey stick the way it was meant, rather than as a graphic description of the weather.

[Haggis@wk]

Sorry, like basketball, I just don't think professional sports team athletes have any place at the Olympics. The practice just lets the national Olympics organization off the hook to find qualified amateur players. I also thought it was crappy for the IOC to deny the female ski jumpers

[jamiebk]

Sorry, like basketball, I just don't think professional sports team athletes have any place at the Olympics. The practice just lets the national Olympics organization off the hook to find qualified amateur players. I also thought it was crappy for the IOC to deny the female ski jumpers

ditto

[Giant Communist Robot]

I just don't think professional sports team athletes have any place at the Olympics

Why not?

[dai bread]

Because most team sports have their own World Cup or its equivalent. Soccer and Rugby do; there is the Baseball World Series (even if it is only the U.S. & Japan), Cricket has all sorts of contests at various levels from Twenty/20 to 5-day Test Match Internationals. Basketball has a World Cup and so do Softball and Hockey...

[Schmeelkie]

Because most team sports have their own World Cup or its equivalent. Soccer and Rugby do; there is the Baseball World Series (even if it is only the U.S. & Japan...

OK - the world series in baseball is all American teams + the one remaining Canadian team (Toronto Blue Jays). But with players from the US, Japan, Canada, Dominican Republic and some other Caribbean nations - so it's somewhat international.

I just think having professional players in national teams just ruins it for the amature players, especially in countries where they don't have professionals. Thus the ability for national teams like Canadian hockey and American basketball to easily wipe the floor with most other countries teams - making it really no contest... although that's not always the case...