Once every two years the world tries to put aside its regular biases and iron out their conflicts on the field of sport – its time for that now bi-annual event we call “The Olympic Games”!

First founded by half-naked and fully-naked sweaty men in Greece, the Olympics have become a strange mix of commercialism, impressive athletics, banal commentary and a whole mess of odd, little things.

As a public service to all of our Moodspins readers (and because I’ve been sidelined the last few days with an eye infection usually found in infant baby type people), I’ve been watching a lot of Olympic coverage and true to my job as a pop-culture reporter for this site, I’ve been making a lot of little notes to pass along to you.

Here it comes: Scott C’s official coverage of the Twentieth Winter Olympiad!

The Opening Ceremonies

The Olympics always start and end with a fantastic floor show that tries to impress the world. Usually it involves a lot of fireworks and people dressed up in silly outfits spelling out inspirational messages that need interpretation from a sportscaster who has inside knowledge on what five hundred dancers dressed in blue silk are supposed to represent and these games were no exception.

I was sure that Italy, with it’s penchant for drama and art would pull out something above and beyond past host countries, but I was disappointed. Aside from the presence of Luciano Pavarotti, it wasn’t very different from any previous year.

No wait, they did have one thing above and beyond the previous games – that really hot woman carrying the Italian flag out to be raised on high. You know the one, the woman in the shimmering white and rhinestone evening gown…Italians man, they know how to present a lovely woman to the world.

But then, this is the country that once elected a porn star to parliament.

The Olympic Medals

Am I the only one who thinks the Olympic medals look really dumb this time? They don’t even look like medals. They look like bagels, only less bready.

I hate to sound [negative] here, but this is the country that gave us the pizza – couldn’t they have styled their medals after that at least?

Snowboarding

I’m not a fan of anything “extreme”, especially eXtreme sports but after watching the half-pipe and “motorcross on snowboard” events, I gotta admit that snowboarding is a pretty neat addition to the games. But why is it that the American team members are all dressed like the New York Yankees? Or rather, small Yankee players who were mistakenly issued size XXL uniforms?

Curling

Why is curling still an Olympic sport? I know curling is the butt of a lot of jokes already and I hate to be another voice in the stadium, but let’s face it – curling is just shuffleboard on ice. Old men play shuffleboard, not Olympic athletes.

Figure Skating

I have an innate love of music. Because of that, I started noticing that all the team/solo performances (programs) in Olympic skating are based around either classical or native folk music. My question is: Why they don’t open their minds and skate to something a little more “tough”? I think it would provide a great psychological weapon – can you imagine a figure skating pair coming out and skating around the rink to Metallica’s “Fuel” or “Seek and Destroy”? Or Megatdeth’s “Sweating Bullets” or “Symphony of Destruction”? How about something even more threatening, like NWA’s “Straight outta Compton”?

To illustrate what I mean, let’s play a quick game of “imagine this”. Imagine this: you’re a skater from let’s say Sweden. You scheduled to skate right after the American skater. The American figure skater comes out, bows, and then gets into their first position. The music for their program begins to play…and instead of something by Mozart, John Williams or even Aaron Copeland, the sounds of Godsmack or Ministry simply explode through the speakers…wouldn’t you feel just a little more frightened of your opponent?

On a related note, compared to figure skaters, cheerleaders are halfway there. They haven’t stepped up to the level of “psych out” that heavy metal and gangsta rap give off, but they do play jock jams like 2 Unlimited’s “Get ready 4 this”. I guess that has to count for something.

Men’s Ice Hockey / Post-Olympic Olympic Athletes

As I write this, the men’s hockey teams have arrived in Torino and have begun their tournament. Men’s ice hockey is probably the most watched [winter] Olympic event and this year it promises to be more spectacular than ever.

But think about the players. If many of them weren’t pooled from the NHL, would you really care about them? What I mean is, when the Torino Olympics fade into the back of a sports almanac, will you really remember them (if they didn’t also play in the NHL)?

While thinking of men’s ice hockey, I got to thinking about Olympic athletes in general, not just the winter competitors. For all the hype than many of these athletes get, they fade really quickly once the TV cameras shut down and move on to cover something else.

A few remain in the limelight. Nancy Kerrigan, Mary Lou Retton, Mark Spitz, Nadia Comaneci and the legendary Jamaican bobsled team come to mind, but beyond those privileged few, very few Olympians retain their glory later on – particularly in the sport they’re known for being in.

For example, what’s Kerri Strug (the American poster girl of the 1996 Atlanta games) up to these days?

This brings me back to my original point – if the players in men’s ice hockey or the American “Dream Teams” of Olympic basketball weren’t known in their other leagues, would we really care about them after the Olympics? Would they go on to capture our hearts and imaginations after the torch is doused for four more years?

Is this only in America or do other countries have a similar situation? Does, say, a Norwegian biathlon medalist go on to be revered in Norway for years to come on the Norwegian biathlon circuit? I wish I could answer that question, but since I’m only a resident of America, I can’t.

The only sport I can name where an Olympic athlete goes on to excel in their sport, even going so far as to capture world acclaim is boxing.

But that’s the summer games…for now, the “back 9” of the Winter Olympics are upon us. In just over a week, Italy will lob another volley of colored gunpowder into the air and the world will wait. Wait two more years to decide who its newest heroes and legends will be.

Personally, I’d like to see a pair of American divers become heroes for competing in “synchronized diving”…but I’m not holding my breath.

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