Olympic Notebook

The Winter Olympics make blog writing so easy. All I have to do is pick out a couple of things that drew my interest over the previous twenty-four hours and make some humourous or witty observations. Boom. Finished.

(Then I can go back to staring at my reflection in the mirror)

I forgot to add something to yesterday’s post and I was reminded of it watching Maelle Ricker’s victory ceremony last night.

Did you see the horrible rendition of ‘O Canada’ during the opening ceremonies? My God, it was absolutely terrible. I refuse to post the name of the singer lest I give her free promotion for her offensive caterwauling.

I don’t understand why every singer tries to turn a national anthem performance into an American Idol audition. Just sing it straight, with passion and conviction. There’s no need for contrived runs and over-pronunciation of the lyrics.

I’d rather listen to 20,000 people singing ‘O Canada’ at the top of their lungs than listen to professionals try to ‘make it their own.’

The Canadian women’s hockey team continued their assault on the rest of the world with a 13-1 drubbing over Sweden last night. They’ve outscored their opponents 42-3 in three games thus far.

This is an embarrassing situation for the IOC. Women’s hockey is a joke. If the sport cannot field more than two competitive entrants, then it does not belong in the Olympics. I’m sick of hearing the Canadian women complain that there’s a double-standard and the men’s game started out this way and the World Juniors have analogous blowouts.

Sorry, ladies, but your argument is flawed. The first women’s world hockey championship took place in 1990; the women’s international game is not ‘starting out.’ Furthermore, the discrepancy between North America and the rest of the world is widening, not narrowing.

Yes, the World Juniors have some blowout scores, but there are also 5-6 teams who have a realistic shot of winning the gold. Is there any chance the Canadian or US women won’t meet in the gold medal game? Nope.

No one even cares about the women until the gold medal game because everyone knows the round robin is an embarrassment to the sport.

Speaking of embarrassment, Team Canada needs to learn how to win with class. I watched the highlights of the game versus Sweden and the women full-out celebrated the 10th and 12th goals.

Are you kidding me?

You are crushing a team by double digits and have the audacity to thrust your arms into the air and wildly celebrate a meaningless goal?

Act like you’ve scored before, for Christ’s sake.

Watch this video of Bobby Orr. Not once does he raise his arms after he scores a goal.

That’s the Canadian way.