Olympics 2010, Thursday, Feb. 18

I was going to post this last night, but when I finally finished watching the Olympics after 4 a.m. and realized I needed to be awake in less than five hours, I decided to wait.

I didn't have as big a day yesterday as some of the others, despite staying up until very late. I didn't get started until late, and then messed up my entire schedule. It also didn't help that two hockey games went to shootouts.

I watched:
Biathalon, women's 15,000m
Snowboarding, women's half-pipe qualifying round
Skiing, women's super combined
Ice hockey, men's, United States vs. Norway
Ice hockey, men's, Canada vs. Switzerland
Ice hockey, men's, Russia vs. Slovakia
Figure skating, men's long program

There were actually a number of events on yesterday that I didn't get to watch because the time got away from me. No worries--they are recorded and I will finish watching them today. Between the hockey games and figure skating, it was an exciting Olympic-watching night for me. I was disappointed that Russia lost to Slovakia (as I said in an earlier post, Slovakia should not be counted out). Russia just didn't have the firepower that they should have in the game. Also, I was flabbergasted that Russia's coach gave Ovechkin so many shootout chances. For those who don't know, in the Olympics, if a hockey game is tied after regulation it goes to sudden-death overtime for five minutes. If it is still tied, it goes to a shootout. Each team must choose three different players to shoot. If the score is still tied after each team has players shoot, the shootout continues with one player from each team shooting in each round until the tie is broken at the end of a round. I absolutely adore Ovechkin (really, I totally worship him), but the one thing he is not great at is shootouts. This is pretty common knowledge in DC. Despite this, Ovechkin was chosen as one of the first three players to shoot for Russia. Again, not totally surprising, because he does have an incredible shot. He did score, but so did someone from Slovakia, so the score was still tied after the first three players from each team went. At that point, Russia had Ovechkin shoot again. At that point they hadn't tried Kovalchuk, Malkin or Semin, so I was surprised. He didn't make it in, so they gave Kovalchuk the next chance. When he didn't make it, they again had Ovechkin try (he missed again). I found it confusing.

Canada's game also went to a shootout. In their case, Sidney Crosby (although I'm not a fan, I will be fair and say he is very good at the shootout) missed on his first try. But after both goalies blanked the three shooters, they put Crosby back out there and he scored for a Canada win. Boo. Canada did not look great against Switzerland at all, Russia lacked firepower against Slovakia, and although the US won, they looked anemic for much of their game against Norway. It will be interesting to see if Sweden looks strong today on their second game of the tournament or if they falter as well.

It was nice to see Evan Lysacek win the gold in figure skating. I have never been a huge fan of Plushenko, and I thought that Lysacek actually skated a more exciting program. It does seems odd to me that there are still men competing who don't have any quad jumps in their programs, let alone that there are men winning Olympic gold medals without quad jumps. I think the most impressive thing about Lysacek was his spins. I know that Todd Eldridge was always known for his spins, but I prefer Lysacek's. I was never a fan of Eldridge's (he seemed very whiny), but I don't think that is biasing my opinion.

I'm going to take a short rest before watching more Olympics and catching up on what I missed yesterday.