1) Both the Russia-Czech Republic and the US-Canada men's hockey games were fantastic, and the emotion displayed by the US guys when they beat Canada was great to see. NBC (of course) managed to make me ill shortly thereafter, however, with the comparisons of last night's victory to the 1980 men's team upset of the Soviet Union. Look, I get that the US men haven't beaten Canada in 50 years, but a team of NHLers beating a team consisting of somewhat better NHLers in a preliminary round game doesn't even come close to what our boys accomplished in 1980.
2) Though figure skating ain't my bag, I did tune in to see the Russian pair of Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin perform their ice dancing routine last night due to the controversy it has been stirring up. If you aren't aware, the routine is "inspired" by the Aboriginal peoples of Australia who, in turn, find it offensive. Not surprising since it involved hair-pulling, nose-rubbing, a woman wearing the forbidden color red and (up until last night) Shabalin had been wearing a dark skin-toned suit when performing.
What really got me, though, was a comment from the announcing team before-hand that the Russian pair, in trying to smooth things over had "exchanged gifts" with a representative of one of the Canadian "First Nations" earlier in the week. How, exactly, does that work? You offend an indigenous people in Australia but make up for it by swapping stuff with an indigenous people from the other side of the world? Doesn't that kind of indicate the Russians think all them "abos and injuns" are one and the same, compounding their problem?
A few years back I vacationed in Australia, and though you could climb Ayer's Rock/Uluru, I chose not to because, as was made clear to me, it is a rather sacred site to the local Aboriginals. Had I known then that I could just come back home and "make it right" by buying my buddy who's 1/16th Cherokee a burger or something, I might have chosen differently.
I thought Oksana and Maxim looked like extras from "Apocalypto," not Aussie aborigines.
I also respectfully disagree with your interpretation of the "smoothing over." Although I obviously don't know how it went down, I would bet the First Nations of Canada appointed themselves as the arbiters of good taste for all things aboriginal, and were the ones that started making demands. The clueless Russians didn't know what to do except buy them off and make a few costume changes. That would be the more normal (and PC) approach to grievance-mongering, where offended groups band together in solidarity.
Posted by: LarryK | February 22, 2010 at 11:22 AM
The hockey games were fantastic. Ryan Miller deserves a medal for that game alone.
As for ice dancing, I don't understand why it is an Olympic sport. Ballroom dancing is not a summer Olympic sport.
Posted by: Allison | February 22, 2010 at 12:20 PM
Interesting post. I can see why NBC would want to fool people by making comparisons to the US/USSR 1980 hockey showdown. But there's simply no comparison. The Olympics will simply never be interesting again the way it was those couple weeks in Lake Placid. The turn to professionals. The end of the Cold War. It changed everything. While it was dumb policy, I am kind of thankful that Carter boycotted the Summer games in Moscow that year. Might have had the effect of creating an odd epilogue to the story -- like Michael Jordan's forgettable Wizards career. Much better to go out with Jordan's game-winner v. Utah in 1998, and Jim Craig draped in a flag looking for his dad in the stands.
Posted by: BATMAN | February 22, 2010 at 09:48 PM