2006 Winter Olympics [R]

[Goodsport]

Only three days to go!

How much of it will you watch, and which sports in these Games are you most excited for? :confused:

I'll watch as much of everything as I can (particularly now that most of it will be broadcast on NBC-HD and Universal HD (http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=7456910&postcount=43), as well as on NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, USA Network and Telemundo), but besides the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, what interests me the most (perhaps not surprisingly (http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=291544)) is the Ice Hockey. :)

GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! :cool:


-G

[Goodsport]

Speaking of Olympic Ice Hockey, both the men's and the women's tourneys will each be split into two groups:


Men's teams

Group A
Canada
Czech Republic
Finland
Germany
Italy (host)
Switzerland

Group B
Kazakhstan
Latvia
Russia
Slovakia
Sweden
United States


Women's teams

Group A
Canada
Italy (host)
Russia
Sweden

Group B
Finland
Germany
Switzerland
United States


This is gonna be fun!


GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! :cool:
GO USA!!! http://home.pacbell.net/torvic1/usaflagsmall.gif
VPERYOD ROSSIYA!!! http://home.pacbell.net/torvic1/rusflagsmall.gif


-G

[Hawkeye17]

Speaking of Olympic Ice Hockey, both the men's and the women's tourneys will each be split into two groups:


Men's teams

Group A
Canada
Czech Republic
Finland
Germany
Italy (host)
Switzerland

Group B
Kazakhstan
Latvia
Russia
Slovakia
Sweden
United States


Women's teams

Group A
Canada
Italy (host)
Russia
Sweden

Group B
Finland
Germany
Switzerland
United States


This is gonna be fun!

Snowboarding and hockey enough said...

Interesting the Kazakstan is in the tournament, and their best goalie left to play for Russia! You might have heard of him--Evgeny Nabokov of the Sharks, married to an American...

Alexander Ovechkin and Ilya Kovalchuk will be the stars of the games. The women, well, there are a few lookers if you check out the NBCOlympics website. ;)

Whack it up figure skaters!

[Goodsport]

Snowboarding and hockey enough said...
Great choices!


Interesting the Kazakstan is in the tournament, and their best goalie left to play for Russia! You might have heard of him--Evgeny Nabokov of the Sharks, married to an American...
I may indeed have heard of him (http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=7457165&postcount=68).

Interestingly, I seem to recall that Nabokov almost played for Team Russia either in the last Winter Olympics or in some tournament around that time, but ultimately wasn't allowed to because he had earlier played for Team Kazakhstan in a junior competition. That seems to have since been gotten straightened out and he's not only now allowed to play for Russia (similarly to how Chris Armas played a few unofficial games for the Puerto Rican National Team and was later allowed to join the U.S. National Team), but because of Nikolai Khabibulin's recent injury, Evgeni may very well become the starter.


Alexander Ovechkin and Ilya Kovalchuk will be the stars of the games. The women, well, there are a few lookers if you check out the NBCOlympics website. ;)
I'll certainly be watching - and in high definition, no less!


Whack it up figure skaters!
Not exactly what Nancy Kerrigan would want to hear... :eek:


GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! :cool:


-G

[Hawkeye17]

That's correct--Nabokov was "cap tied" to Kazakhstan but give they are a lightweight (unlike the old Soviet days) there was that possibility that they wouldn't make it back into the Olympic tourney but alas.

The Ukraine is the only other country that could have been in Turin, ditto Lithuania.

I'm also glad that it's back to a 12 team tourney instead of the split 8 with the top two advancing. If I remember they're starting the tourney a bit late to accomodate the NHL players. It is, in effect, the World Cup for those guys.

Reason why I hate figure skating is 1994--it really got too overhyped.

[Hawkeye17]

Despite his shaky play of late--nod to Nabokov. Bryzgalov of Anaheim is a reserve at best--on any other team he'd get a chance to start.

[Goodsport]

Just one more day to go until the Opening Ceremonies! :D

It seems like only yesterday that I was watching the 2004 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies even though unlike now, I had neither HD nor an HDTV back then... damn, I'm old. :(

GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! :cool:


-G

[Goodsport]

Today's the day! (http://www.torino2006.org/ENG/OlympicGames/home/index.html) :D


http://www.olympic.org/upload/news/gallery/ARTP_1097_369_big.jpg


GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! :cool:


-G

[billreeves]

I set up the Tivo earlier this week to record things for the first week.

Sports I'm getting a lot of: Curling, USA Hockey -- unfortunately, there's not enough space on the Tivo to get those marathons of five straight games on CNBC for the other countries, but I watched a bunch of those four years ago, good times. I totally prefer watching Olympic hockey to NHL because the rink is so much bigger.

Sports I'm getting some of: Biathlon, Cross Country Skiing (my wife wants to see it), Bobsled, Luge, Short Track Speed Skating

Sports which I'm getting only because they're in the same programming blocks as the above: Downhill skiing, ski jumping, etc.

Sports I'm actively avoiding: Ice Dancing and Figure Skating, and the Opening Ceremonies -- fortunately, this leaves the Tivo free to record other stuff during prime time like USA-Japan, Arrested Development and Sci-Fi Friday tonight.

[Hawkeye17]

I set up the Tivo earlier this week to record things for the first week.

Sports I'm getting a lot of: Curling, USA Hockey -- unfortunately, there's not enough space on the Tivo to get those marathons of five straight games on CNBC for the other countries, but I watched a bunch of those four years ago, good times. I totally prefer watching Olympic hockey to NHL because the rink is so much bigger.

Interesting enough, curling is nice to watch. If only more people in places like here could try it--it's ver popular in Minnesota.

Me too--more action on the ice, and it allows the skill players to move.

Sports I'm getting some of: Biathlon, Cross Country Skiing (my wife wants to see it), Bobsled, Luge, Short Track Speed Skating

Sports which I'm getting only because they're in the same programming blocks as the above: Downhill skiing, ski jumping, etc.

Besides luge, there's skeleton, where instead of riding feet first and head back, it's the reverse (head first and feet back).

Short track is basically speed skating on an ice hockey sized oval, compared to the traditional long track race. The former is basically a dash to the finish line where the latter is based more on time.

Sports I'm actively avoiding: Ice Dancing and Figure Skating, and the Opening Ceremonies -- fortunately, this leaves the Tivo free to record other stuff during prime time like USA-Japan, Arrested Development and Sci-Fi Friday tonight.

I got tired of figure skating in 1994. Unless they get "extreme" forget it. Freestyling that's a dinosaur.

There's snowboarding and freestyle skiing mate--I think in our day it was called "hot dogging"... :D

[Goodsport]

There isn't a single event that I'm actively avoiding - it's just that the Ice Hockey and the Ceremonies (Opening and Closing) are what I'm most interested in. They're all interestingto me, even moreso now that I'll be able to watch them on NBC-HD and Universal HD (the latter was temporarily added onto Comcast for the Olympics)

About 1 1/2 hours to go before the start of the Opening Ceremony! :D

GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! :cool:


-G

[Goodsport]

That was a pretty cool Opening Ceremony, particularly in HD! :)

Onward toward the games...

GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! :cool:


-G

[sc2002]

I think this opening ceremony was the best I've seen.

I know Sydney was up there as far as ceremonies go, but I think Torino knocked it on its ass. Very cool stuff. I loved how they lit the flame. So awesome.

The skiier made of people and the dove made of people were really cool too. The use of the F1 car was fun stuff too.

I liked how they managed to make theirs different, but not bizarre different.

[Goodsport]

I think this opening ceremony was the best I've seen.

I know Sydney was up there as far as ceremonies go, but I think Torino knocked it on its ass. Very cool stuff. I loved how they lit the flame. So awesome.

The skiier made of people and the dove made of people were really cool too. The use of the F1 car was fun stuff too.

I liked how they managed to make theirs different, but not bizarre different.

It certainly was one of the best I've seen. Barcelona's was really nice too (especially how the archer lit the torch), as was Athens'. :)

For some reason, I don't remember much of the Salt Lake opening ceremony - was that one really good overall? :confused:

GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! :cool:


-G

[sc2002]

It certainly was one of the best I've seen. Barcelona's was really nice too (especially how the archer lit the torch), as was Athens'. :)

For some reason, I don't remember much of the Salt Lake opening ceremony - was that one really good overall? :confused:

GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! :cool:


-G

Apparently not if it's not memorable.

[Goodsport]

Apparently not if it's not memorable.

Well, I do remember that in the opening ceremony show, a boy was lost in the woods but was helped by a bear, a hare and a coyote (that game's three official mascots) - and I certainly remember the members of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Ice Hockey Team lighting the torch. :)

GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! :cool:

-G

[sc2002]

Well, I do remember that in the opening ceremony show, a boy was lost in the woods but was helped by a bear, a hare and a coyote (that game's three official mascots) - and I certainly remember the members of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Ice Hockey Team lighting the torch. :)

GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! :cool:

-G


I couldn't even remember it til you mentioned it. Now I remember!

But still, it's sad that I still remember the Sydney opening ceremony better than the Salt Lake ceremony.

The hockey team lighting the torch in Salt Lake was cool though.

Though I think Torino topped the way of torch lighting.

The arrow, the elaborate other stuff they've done, but this was just the coolest.

[Goodsport]

I couldn't even remember it til you mentioned it. Now I remember!

But still, it's sad that I still remember the Sydney opening ceremony better than the Salt Lake ceremony.

The hockey team lighting the torch in Salt Lake was cool though.

Though I think Torino topped the way of torch lighting.

The arrow, the elaborate other stuff they've done, but this was just the coolest.

I agree that this was the best torch-lighting in recent memory - made even better that it was shown in High Definition (I honestly can't emphasize that enough!)! :)

GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! :cool:


-G

[sc2002]

I agree that this was the best torch-lighting in recent memory - made even better that it was shown in High Definition (I honestly can't emphasize that enough!)! :)

GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! :cool:


-G


Hell, it looked good on a tv without hd (mine).

[JazzyJ]

I got tired of figure skating in 1994. Unless they get "extreme" forget it. Freestyling that's a dinosaur.

There's snowboarding and freestyle skiing mate--I think in our day it was called "hot dogging"... :DIt's kinda funny to watch the snowboarders and other "new generation" athletes in interviews and such because they kind of have their own sub-culture, with their own language and stuff. The Bob Costas interview with "the flying tomato" last night was a good example. They were both trying hard to connect but they wound up just sort of talking awkwardly over each other.

Kind of appreciate their attitude, though. Seems like they're somewhat competitive but really mostly just having a good time, with lots of camraderie, a contrast to uptight, ultra-competitive figure skating.