USA hockey gold medal

The 2010 Paralympic Games have ended with a much sweeter outcome for USA hockey than we saw last month. Sled hockey, that is. Team USA didn't just win the gold medal at the Paralympic Games, they dominated every team. The games are set up tournament style, much like the Olympic Games. The U.S. beat Korea 5-0, Czech Republic 3-0, Japan 6-0, Norway 3-0 and Japan again 2-0 for the gold medal. (Japan beat Canada, which helped them advance to the gold medal game while team Canada played Norway for the bronze. Norway won, Canada did not medal in sled hockey.)

Team USA played five games and did not allow a single goal in the entire tournament. That is amazing. But that's just one of numerous amazing things I witnessed in the Paralympic coverage.

Every night last week at 11:00 p.m., I deprived myself of sleep to watch the Paralympic highlights. During this time, I watched amputees play hockey, I watched blind people ski down the hills in Whisler - slalom style. My jaw hung open, thoroughly impressed, as I watched a man with no arms cross-country ski. To my amazement, the event I was watching was not just cross-country skiing, it was Biathlon. He then proceeded to the shooting range, then got back up and finished his 12.5k cross-country ski. This was Josef Giesen from Germany, who went on to win the bronze medal.

Watching these athletes affected me very, very deeply. I enjoy watching sporting events and competitions, but the perseverance I saw in these athletes was awe-inspiring. Watching these people overcome the odds and achieve this level of competition is indescribable. You simply have to see it for yourself.

Therein lies the problem. NBC owns the rights to the 2010 Olympics and Paralympics, but they made the decision to show only the two hours of highlights on Universal Sports - a channel that most people don't have, or may not even know if they have it. Unless you go out of your way to seek out the Paralympic coverage, it is very easy to let the events just slip by you. I'm glad I did not let that happen, but I can't help but question who is making decisions for NBC. They decided not to show these games, but they had plenty of airtime for the Marriage Ref and other sub-par reality television.

It really perplexes me that there was so little broadcast coverage for the Paralympics. I understand that there is not an audience for them like there is for the Olympics, but there never will be if the public never has any exposure to them. It makes no sense. All of the tragic backstories of the athletes were dragged out and mentioned endlessly throughout the Olympic Games. The whole world wanted Joannie Rochette to win a medal for figure skating after her mother passed away. The suspense of whether or not Lindsay Vonn could compete with her shin injury was built up to a climactic and triumphant finish when she won the gold medal.

I don't wish to diminish the challenges the athletes faced, but I do wish to point out that perseverance and overcoming tragedy is a big theme every year in the Olympics. Yet the Paralympics, where every athlete who competes has already overcome odds, is not even mentioned in the mainstream. Du Haitao of China lost both of his arms playing with high-voltage electricity wires when he was four years old. Two of the four U.S. gold medals were won by Alana Nichols, the first woman to win gold medals at both the winter and summer Paralympic Games. I could go on and on, but I will spare you any additional rambling. I would simply like to argue that a double amputee does not compare with an injured shin on the tragedy scale.

Everyone in life feels discouraged at some point, and most of us have felt sorry for ourselves, feeling like the odds are against us at any given time. There is nowhere better than the Paralympics to truly witness the strength of the human spirit. If you ever find yourself feeling powerless and feeling sorry for yourself, watch a visually impaired person ski slalom down a hill. Or someone with no arms ski cross-country without poles. It will put things into perspective real quick. I hope the 2012 Summer Paralympics find a bigger audience. I also hope that the fact that Russia won more Paralympic medals than any other country helps ease the sting they felt at the Olympics. It's good to know that some Russian jobs are safe this time around.

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