Some observations on men's ice hockey

I just finished watching the U.S/Canada gold medal game in the Olympics. (BTW, congrats, Canada, good game.) Anyway, I was struck by a few things while watching. I'm used to watching either Pee Wee boys, or 10 year old girls play, and men play quite differently. First of all, it's a lot faster. In fact, so fast that I had a lot of trouble following the puck. This makes the play by play by the announcers all the more impressive. Their brains work so fast! They must be geniuses. (I'm serious)

Another thing is that none of them wear face masks which makes me think that men think it's cool to lose teeth. Hey guys, it's not that cool. I see that they wear mouth guards, but that is not going to prevent a puck that's going 100 mph from smashing through all of your front teeth.

There was also a lot of spitting. More spitting than I've seen in any other sport. Why are they spitting so much? No wonder they are so thirsty. You never see a figure skater spitting on the ice. Maybe that's why they don't wear facemasks, in order to have more spitting freedom.

My last observation was that they are constantly racing from one side of the rink to the other. That has to be tiring. Why don't they pick a position and stick with it? My friend Tonya did this in gym class and she was the all-time highest gym-sport scorer in the history of FHS (this is a totally anecdotal guess on my part. I don't think anyone actually keeps those statistics.) She would stand right next to the goal and wait. Usually the goalie was Joe, who was the star hockey goalie on the school team. I bet Tonya made more goals on him than any single other person.

Here's Joe and Tonya in their soccer positions:

Here they are in their floor hockey positions:
Here they are in their ice hockey positions:
Here's Tonya making a goal in soccer:
Here's Joe's reaction to it:

He has just jumped onto the chain length fence that surrounds the field and is shaking it to get his rage out at being scored on by Tonya for the 500th time.

Here he is after she scored on him during ice hockey:

He's hanging off the boards and shaking them and screaming. Tonya made more goals than anyone, her team never lost and she never broke a sweat running around like a fool. I hope she got good grades in gym.

Move over Scott Hamilton!

Our Olympic ice dancing dreams may be dead, but now Mitch and I have a new dream: ice skating commentators. We are surprisingly well-versed on the sport for only watching it for two weeks every four years. Here's some of our conversations:

Mitch: I don't think Mao should do the triple axle double toe loop combo because Yu Na is doing a triple triple and that is more points. Mao should just go for the points.

Me: Agreed!

And during ice dancing finals:

Me: I think that Jana Novitski's costumes are always colored and Sergei Khokhlova's are always black because she's the stronger skater, and the colors on her draws your eye to her instead of him.


Mitch: Scott Hamilton said the same thing 30 seconds ago. And you were sitting right here.

Me: OOO, NICE TWIZZLES!

Fools

I love ice dancing so much

I forgot how much I love it. It's so pretty just watching people skate together so well without having to worry about the girl getting thrown thirty feet across the ice and landing on her face. When I was looking for pictures of ice dancing I saw that it can be a little risque. I realized that this may be the only sport that a person could legitimately say that they accidentally had sex with their partner during their routine.

When I downloaded this picture the caption for it was "icedancingfilth.jpg"

This one is just weird. How do you end up in that position from a dance? Or get into a dance from this position. I hope this pair is in the Olympics so I can see it for myself.

This picture is from a new event called "Ice Dancing Gynecological Exams."

Oh snowboarders, you're so unconventional that it's almost conventional

But it doesn't matter that their snowpants look like jeans and they wear big baggy plaid jackets because when you watch them you are amazed at how high they jump above the edge in the half-pipe event. It makes you say, holy shit! and then you have a new respect for how daring/suicidal they are.

I find Shaun White to be a very pleasant sort of person in interviews, but having seen the movie Children of the Corn at the tender age of 13, (yes it was rated R, but we bought tickets for Footloose, and snuck into C of the C. Mistake.) I can't help but to be a tiny bit creeped out by his uncanny resemblance to mass-murderer, Malachi.

One of these pictures is Shaun White and one is Malachi.
Do you know which is which?

Some part of me is subconsciously waiting for Shaun White to land at the top of the pipe and start slashing throats.

It's just a matter of time.

Skating!

Okay, I can't keep this opinion to myself anymore: I think that olympic figure skaters should just wear some kind of team uniform instead of costumes. I am watching the men's figure skating now and these men are incredibly talented and athletic, but I can't get past the stupid podunk "I'm wearing overalls because I'm country" outfit on the guy I'm watching right this minute.

The American skater, Johnny Weir, comes on soon and I got a glimpse of what he's wearing and all I can say is, oh boy.

Really Johnny? Really???

This is why people call skating a gay sport even though when men and women skate together, much of their contact is hand to crotch:

Or crotch to face:


Okay, that's it for my opinion. I have to go watch Skeletor from Belgium now.

Olympic Fever

I am generally completely bored at the idea of watching any kind of sport until the Olympics rolls around, and then I'm a sports super-fan. Right this very minute I'm watching the Russian pairs skaters and I'm not even watching my hands type this.

Eight years ago Mitch and I were going to start practicing for ice dancing. We were thinking of doing pairs, but I'm afraid of heights and I don't know if I'd trust him to toss me spinning through the air with blades on my feet, expecting me to land in a way that doesn't result in orthopedic surgery and weeks in the intensive care unit of a hospital. We practiced our moves (move). It was mostly melodramatic "look at me - don't look at me" choreography.

Look at me, Don't look at me


Seriously, stop looking at me
(look at all the blood!)

Didn't turn out to be much and we sort of forgot about it until four years ago when the Olympics were on again, and we re-committed to our goal but then forgot about it again after the Olympics ended. At this point I don't think it's going to happen.

I watched moguls last night. I never even knew what a mogul was until I was on a youth group ski trip to Giant's Ridge when I was in eighth grade. I was an okay skier (as good as a skier can be without knowing what a mogul is) and I decided to go down a hill I hadn't tried yet. About half way down I ran into the moguls and was wondering why the hell anyone would groom a hill like that. It was a spine crushing little surprise. I didn't know you were supposed to sort of skirt the outside of them and let your knees take the impact, so I was out of control going fast enough over the top of one to jump it and land horribly on the next one, regain enough control to involuntarily jump the next one etc. etc. all the way down the hill.

I'm old enough now where I'm no longer jealous of the olympians. I used to think that if I just would have stayed in figure skating I could be there myself. (stop laughing) Now I'm happy if I can beat an old guy in a fifty yard race in the pool at the Y.

this guy