Sunday, February 28, 2010

Au revoir, Winter Olympics!

For the last sixteen days I've been glued to my television set and watching the Winter Olympics. I hate to see them go, but when I saw William Shatner talking about having sex in a canoe, I knew it was really over.

Closing ceremonies aside, there has been plenty of entertainment during this year's Olympics. Every day since they began, I have come home from work, turned on the TV, finished up some work on the computer, and had the Olympics on for the rest of the evening. It's been wonderful! Some events I watched with great excitement (hockey) some I just watched passively (figure skating) and some I watched reluctantly (curling.) But the Olympics and I have been together throughout and I'm really going to miss having a constant competition to watch.

I don't know when I became such a sports fan. I think it was when I moved to Washington, DC. When I lived in Iowa, I was a C-Span junkie and constantly watched that network or the news. I have always been a hockey fanatic, but I think that when I moved to DC and surrounded by C-Span all day at work and living inside the beltway, my attention turned to sports to escape the total immersion in the political climate. I was ready to cancel my cable television until I found out I could add a sports package for $5 a month. I wanted to reach into the phone and hug the representative from the cable company when she signed me up.

Now I have traded watching C-Span in Iowa for watching ESPN, VS and the NHL Network in Washington. I actually blame it on the fact that there is not much entertainment on television anymore. Whatever the reason for my attention toward sporting events, I have really enjoyed the Olympics this year and I am really hoping that I will be able to watch some of the Winter Paralympic Games. The opening ceremonies will begin on March 12th in Vancouver at 9:00 p.m. I have never paid much attention to the Paralympic games, but after watching Murderball a few months ago and currently reading Mark Zupan's biography, I have a new-found interest in the competition. If I can go from being half asleep to jumping out of my bed in excitement at watching Latvia tie up a game against the Czech Republic, I can surely cheer enthusiastically for Team USA in Sledge Hockey.

It's all the spirit of competition, and that's what makes the Olympic games great. The athletes compete so hard and so passionately, and it's inspiring to watch someone compete when it clearly means so much to them. The Paralympic games will be no different. I actually anticipate they will be even more so. It is unfortunate that I've had to go to such great lengths to find out if the events will be televised. It is also unfortunate that when I mention the Paralympics to others, they often get them confused with the Special Olympics. It is a very different type of competition. If you are reading this and you do not know the difference, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the Paralympics do not get much media coverage. Televising the events would do a lot to show the perseverance of people with physical disabilities. One paralympic athlete was named to the Canadian Olympic team although in the end he did not have a chance to compete.

In my quest to find out if I will be able to watch the Paralympics after all, I did find a petition online to protest the decision not to work out a deal with NBC for the Paralympic games. I urge you to learn more about the games, and watch online as I will be doing and cheering once again for Team USA: www.petitiononline.com/USOCTV/petition.html

3 comments:

DARKSTARLLC said...

WELL......FOR ONCE I HAVE TO AGREE W/ A FEW THINGS,,I DIDNTLIVE IN THE BELT, BUY WENT THRU THERE ENOUGH!!! I OWNED AND DROVE A TRUCK(WHEN THE URGE HIT ME TO GET OUT OF THE OFFICE!!!)WE HAD 150 TRUCKS,, AND WE HAD CONTRASTS W/ C-SPANN!!!!!!!! WE WOULD HAUL THER EQUIP. FROM CAP. TO ... CONVENTIONS,,,, LAST 1 DID, WAS PHILLY, TO STAPLE CENTER IN LA,............CRAYZINYNESS!!!BUT IT IS GOOD TO TALK TO SOMEONE WITTH THEIR HEAD ON,,,,,,,I WOULD NOT WATCH....ANYTHING ON NBC!!!!!!! BECAUSE OF THE NON COVERAGE OF THE ANNOITED ONE AND HIS CREW!!!AS WELL AS THE REST OF,THEMAIN STREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I GOT 3 BOUTS OF CANCER 200. 2008 40 YEARS!!!!!! QUIT, SIO I STARTED BLOGING, AND IM STILL NOT IN TO POLITICS!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT IM INTO,,,IS THIS GUY FEELIN HE CAN DO AS HE DAMN WELL PLEASES!! , BRINGING ANYBODY INTO THE W.H. UNDER THE ROGUE OF CZAR,,, AND GET AWAY W. BRING, COMMINNIST IN, MAO LOVERS, MAO XMAS ORNAMENT???????????? AND IT GOS ON AND ON AND ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RAT,ON,OUR NEIGHBOR...(THE SS) MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!! AND THISH.C DEBOCKLE........NO ONE WANTS IT,,, WHAT IS HE MISSING, BESIDES A BRAIN!!!!! ANYWAY,,,GLAD U GOT OUT OF THERE COMPLETELY...TO TELL U THE TRUTH I WOULD LIKE TO MOVE TO AUSTRALIA,,,,THEY HAVE THIER TROUBLES TO........ BUT THR WIFE WONT HAVE IT,,,,SO MAY PACK UP AND GO W/O HER!!!!!!BUT YOUR CANOE LINE, IS HOW I FEEL ALL NEWS STORYS ARE ENDING IN THE GREAT OLS U.S.A.

crusher said...

I am not sure that anything I have to say will be able to live up to the previous three comments, but .... if I recall correctly, you didn't follow the NHL before you moved to D.C., and it's hard to watch the minor leagues on TV. If you had been a fan of an NHL team, you MIGHT have spent more time with watching games on VS. or Center Ice than watching C-SPAN. The only reason I have cable TV is to watch the Flyers; then I got Center Ice so I could watch hockey just about every other evening the Flyers weren't playing. And on the weekends it's excellent because sometimes the games start at 1 p.m. and continue all afternoon into the evening. It's an addiction, but there are worse addictions. I love the playoffs, but regret the number of games per week diminishes dramatically as they continue!

Kathleen said...

Yes, you're right Crusher. I didn't even have a favorite team in the NHL b/c they all seemed so far away & I didn't have any favorites to speak of. It has been very difficult to get excited about the Blackhawks up until recent years.

The Juniors World Championship is in Buffalo next year. 31 games between 12/26/10 and 1/5/11. Road trip!!!