World of Sports

Well, Hiller did recently sign a 4 year extension with the Anaheim Ducks for $18 million, Is that good enough?

-Erik-

Very pleased with the gold on the women's 4x5 km relay (cross-country) today, our first since the Sarajevo Olympics in 1984. But we're still behind Germany and USA, and now it looks like USA gets a double on the combined, which means it will be even more difficult to catch them.

Glad the womens hockey team at least got a silver

And with that gold, they sailed past Norway in the combined statistics too. I think Canada is going to win both curling finals too, both men and women (the men against Norway, incidentally), so I think Norway will just have to accept that our 4.5 million inhabitants is nothnig against super-nations USA, Canada and Germany.

Under normal circumstances, I would agree. It's just that several of the sports are national sports over here (we are the inventors of the modern ski, after all), so I put extra demands to them.

By the way, Canada has more gold medals in store beyond the two curling finals, I think. They will most definitely win the hockey tournament too, and then you've got strong candidates in almost every other event. Seems you like you have really done your homework before the home turf Olympics. If memory serves, your country has never been close to competing for the "best nation" prize in the last few games.

It will be a close call with USA (and maybe Germany), but I think you'll make it. It's measured in how many golds you have, after all, not how many medals combined.

We were third in the medal count in Turin.



I don't agree with that. Ranking by Gold instead of combined medals takes away from every athlete who WON Silver and Bronze. If they want to rank it by Gold only then they should only hand out Gold medals.

-Erik-

They feel they can't put equal value on the medals.

Actually, the Finns gave up! They didn't even show up. A novice tyke team could have beat the Finns. That game was a glorified practice for the US. Canada, on the other hand, just squeaked by the Slovak's. They uncharacteristically relaxed with 10 minutes to go in the third and almost blew a 3-0 lead. Luongo made a brilliant save on Demetra with 10 seconds left in the third to preserve the win. Sunday should be a classic Gold medal game!

-Erik-

A Polish day on the Olympics. Kowalczyk won the gold on 30 km classic style cross country, beating up Bjoergen (which she clearly has a grudge with, though they hugged after the competition, it's not only about the controversy with asthma medicine, sorry I didn't reply to that - I think that the issue *is* very serious, but it's not Bjoergen's or anyone's fault, it's just that either the medicine's Bjoergen's taking is legal or illegal, if asthma due to physical exhaustion DOES happen, which it does, the meds shouldn't be illegal *at all*).

We also got the third in team speed skating, winning the Bronze with the Americans. It's the best Olympic result in the history of Polish winter sports, which we were never good at. Out of 14 total medals we won in the history of Olympics, 6 of them are from Vancouver.

I think we surprised Canada the first go around. I think this time it will be different.

For Canada it's their first. All the Olympics they held before Vancouver ended up with them taking no gold at all.

Of course, the problem in judging it solely on a medal COUNT alone is that it will always favour the HUGE nations who have lots of athletes to choose from across many events. So in that way, I think it's more fair to the smaller nations who are nonetheless excellent athletes that it's judged by the golds first, then silver and bronze. And then medal count as a secondary "point of interest".

Say what?

However you determine. Perhaps a point system. 5=Gold 3=Silver 1=Bronze I really don't know

Congratulations, Canada! Go Sidney Crosby!!