Sports Guy North

Closing Ceremony’s

Ladies and Gentlemen: you have your televisions back. Skeleton and biathlon will be replaced in your prime time lineups again with “classics” like Survivor and Desperate Housewives and whatever the other crap is these days that people are told to like. In fact, no matter how hard you try you won’t find any sports from the Olympics, apart from Alpine and Hockey, even outside of prime time hours on your TV for 4 years (unless you live in Canada where the Scott and Brier have the next month under wraps as well. And for curling fans, with Kelly Law absent from the Scott, my curling attention will be on hold until the Brier starts up in a couple weeks). Since most Olympic events aren’t really worth watching (until barrel jumping is introduced in 2018 that is), this really isn’t a big deal. The games are over, and USA was just barely able to hold Canada off in the medal race, finishing with 25 medals to Canada’s 24. American has 10 times more people than Canada, and shares a good deal of similar climate, which makes this result incredible. But it also got me thinking. Canada itself is quite populous compared to the other Winter Olympic countries – the 12th largest of the 26 medalling nations to be exact. Here, now, are the medal standings if all nations’ results were scaled to the same population (around 13.3 million people):

55 Norway
37 Austria
30 Estonia
25 Switzerland
23 Finland
21 Sweden
9.7 Canada
8.9 Croatia
7.3 Netherlands
5.8 Latvia
5.2 Czech Republic
4.7 Germany
3.0 South Korea
2.5 Italy
2.5 Slovakia
2.1 Russia
2.0 France
1.8 Bulgaria
1.3 Australia
1.3 Belarus
1.1 United States
0.7 Poland
0.6 Ukraine
0.2 Great Britain
0.1 China
0.1 Japan

Canada still fares fairly well in this measure, with their record setting medal-haul coming in 7th in the standings. The Americans, on the other hard, would win a disgraceful single medal, finishing in 21st out of 26 countries on a medals per population basis.

Here are a couple of further notes about Canada’s record-setting haul:

Canada was the only Nation who medalled in 10 of the 15 Olympic disciplines.
Canada finished with 45 top 5 finishers, which tied them for first overall.



Minnesota T’Whiners

Wow. Did anyone see this thing? I hope for your sake that you didn’t. Look it up if you must, but I am not going to give that guy any more coverage here. It was the ultimate soccer play, if you know what I mean, and it came from a fan in the audience. Pathetic. Z was clobbered on the head by Wallace yesterday for a decent number of stitches, and I didn’t see him taken off on a stretcher. Just pathetic, guy. I can’t wait to see your lawsuit thrown out, which it damn-well better be.

Who NASCARes?

My fortunately named team pulled it out again, as “Jimmie Johnson’s Bush Sacks” leader, Jimmie, came in second place to some other guy, and just ahead of some hicks whose names escape me. I am clearly the NASCAR pool master now! Speaking of NASCAR, there were some highlights of the race on TSN, and Hillary Duff was there to drop the flag. What’s that all about? I would wager anything that she hadn’t seen a NASCAR race before, unless her daddy made her suffer through some as a kid. What an odd choice.

Groin Watch

One last day of games at the Olympics, and one more addition to the Groin Watch. This one is horrible news for the Rangers, as Jaromir Jagr has been added (for the second time) to the list of Olympic casualties, choosing this year’s popular injury to do so. Before the games started I said that the players whose teams could least afford to lose them to injury during the Olympics were Hasek, Elias and Jagr. I guess it was the kiss of death since all three of them are among the injured from the games. All three.

I said it many times before, and I’ll say it again one last time before 2010: they should not hold these tournaments with NHLers if they occur during the playoff run. How do Canucks fans feel right now, having lost 2 more blueliners to injury on a squad that was short to begin with? How do Sens fans feel about relying on Emery in net as their playoff spot is determined? And it’s not just injuries. 4 years ago Tommy Salo was one of the hottest goalies in the NHL going into the Olympics. During the games he had that long goal go in on him over his shoulder to knock Sweden out of the games. He took more heat for that goal than he should of, and to the degree that it happened it’s no wonder it shook his confidence. He was never the same since, and that pretty much finished off Edmonton’s season. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of NHLers representing their countries in a kind of all-star game where everyone plays like they care. It makes for a great watch… in June or September. But for people who really care about hockey, they care about the NHL and their teams. Having NHLers in the Olympics does nothing but hurt NHL teams, and their fans once the league starts up again. Can the Rangers actually win games without Jagr? It’s hard to picture too many.

Sure, USA and Canada had trouble medalling with only amateurs in the games (probably at least partially why the rules were changed), but it was still fun to watch. It was the one chance for amateur players to actually make a name for themselves. Something for them to strive for in their game. The professionals had the Stanley Cup, and the Canada Cup (ie. World Cup), and this was the only showcase for anyone else. Sure, that meant someone like me would be playing, and inevitably losing badly to Russia, but so be it. At least Ohlund would still be around for the playoff run under that scenario, and once the games are over, does anyone really care anymore about individual results? Not nearly as much as hockey fans care about a playoff spot.