Monday, February 20, 2006
Hurling Over Curling!
How many of you have been watching the Olympics? It has been excruciatingly difficult on so many levels. NBC has gotten better since the last Olympic ‘Love-In’ with all the special interest stories of athletes with dyslexic parents who raised twenty kids on a farm, etc. But there are still too many stories like that and not enough sports.
Next, there are the endless commercials. OMG – The Commercials. Watching the downhill Super G yesterday was painful. After every two skiers, commercials and more commercials. Commercials for the plug of the Olympics brought to you by…another commercial. Here’s an idea: how about no self promotion broadcast commercials and let us watch another athlete.
Curling! Where to start. First, this is such a Canadian event (it ain’t a sport if you can’t hit anyone or travel faster than you can run!) Curling is said to be a ‘thinker’s game full of strategy and precision.’ Well, so is estate planning but does it need to be an Olympic event? The American version is called Shuffle Board and it’s played all over my state of FL with people who are certainly more entertaining than the gits on NBC. Why this event is so disturbing for me is that it is so Canadian: boring, unimaginative, and lllloooonnnnggggg…my God it takes forever. And brother has NBC shown this event to its Novocain-dulling conclusion! I’d rather have my gums scrapped!
As for the rest of the Olympics, I can only say that cable and regular broadcast TV has ruined it for everyone. When I was little, the Olympics were 24/7. If you wanted to watch an event, you had to set your clock to 3AM so you could see it live. Now, all we get is the edited, fit for prime time packaging and it’s horrible. You get no feel for the event since everything is edited. Even with a six hour time difference, at least an event can be shown in its entirety so there is continuity to what you are viewing. So you really can’t get into the event since it’s so edited and compromised by all the bloody commercials.
On to the athletes...Did you hear or read about the Austrian Team being investigated for drugs and doping its own team members right at the Olympic Village? In fact, on the sports radio show this AM, the Austrian Team Manager was being chased by the Italian Police to escape capture and he wrecked his car into the compound (He got a 9.5 for style from all judges and a 6.8 for technical difficulty!).
And lastly...the hype. All of the darling athletes that NBC hyped are gone: Miller, Apollo and Kwan - out. There is no one left for NBC to drool all over. And even with all of the manufactured human interst stuff, NBC was not able to create an Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards type story. It tried to do that with a piece about Bill Johnson after the ski injury which left him brain damaged.
Hey NBC - you're getting your ratings butt kicked by American Idol. You've got two years to get it right before Beijing!
Next, there are the endless commercials. OMG – The Commercials. Watching the downhill Super G yesterday was painful. After every two skiers, commercials and more commercials. Commercials for the plug of the Olympics brought to you by…another commercial. Here’s an idea: how about no self promotion broadcast commercials and let us watch another athlete.
Curling! Where to start. First, this is such a Canadian event (it ain’t a sport if you can’t hit anyone or travel faster than you can run!) Curling is said to be a ‘thinker’s game full of strategy and precision.’ Well, so is estate planning but does it need to be an Olympic event? The American version is called Shuffle Board and it’s played all over my state of FL with people who are certainly more entertaining than the gits on NBC. Why this event is so disturbing for me is that it is so Canadian: boring, unimaginative, and lllloooonnnnggggg…my God it takes forever. And brother has NBC shown this event to its Novocain-dulling conclusion! I’d rather have my gums scrapped!
As for the rest of the Olympics, I can only say that cable and regular broadcast TV has ruined it for everyone. When I was little, the Olympics were 24/7. If you wanted to watch an event, you had to set your clock to 3AM so you could see it live. Now, all we get is the edited, fit for prime time packaging and it’s horrible. You get no feel for the event since everything is edited. Even with a six hour time difference, at least an event can be shown in its entirety so there is continuity to what you are viewing. So you really can’t get into the event since it’s so edited and compromised by all the bloody commercials.
On to the athletes...Did you hear or read about the Austrian Team being investigated for drugs and doping its own team members right at the Olympic Village? In fact, on the sports radio show this AM, the Austrian Team Manager was being chased by the Italian Police to escape capture and he wrecked his car into the compound (He got a 9.5 for style from all judges and a 6.8 for technical difficulty!).
And lastly...the hype. All of the darling athletes that NBC hyped are gone: Miller, Apollo and Kwan - out. There is no one left for NBC to drool all over. And even with all of the manufactured human interst stuff, NBC was not able to create an Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards type story. It tried to do that with a piece about Bill Johnson after the ski injury which left him brain damaged.
Hey NBC - you're getting your ratings butt kicked by American Idol. You've got two years to get it right before Beijing!
With AFN as my only source for the Olympics, there's no "commercials." Plenty of public safety crap, but not commercials. Even with that benefit, it's still boring as hell. The Austrian twist was the most entertainment that I've got out of the whole deal.
You know what's funny about this...the ratings for Curling are the highest in all Olypic coverage. Which means we ahve been invaded with Cannucks with TVs, or the Pro Bolwer's season has ended.
Hurling does not have anything to do with vomiting, unless you’re suffering a heat stroke during a game or drinking too much after.
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