Olympics 2010, Tuesday, Feb. 16

Today I watched:
Ice Hockey, men's, USA vs. Switzerland (missed about half of each period)
Ice Hockey, men's, Canada vs. Norway (only a few minutes)
Figure skating, men's short program.
Curling, men's, USA vs. Germany
Curling, women's, USA vs. Japan
Snowboard cross, women's quarterfinals, semifinals, finals
Biathalon, women's 10,000m
Biathalon, men's 12,500m
Ice Hockey, men's, Russia vs. Latvia


Some thoughts:
If I didn't already have an Olympic boyfriend, I might have chosen Swiss figure skater Stephane Lambiel. I loved the sleeves of his outfit, the pant/boot combination, and he's pretty cute. (The photo doesn't do his face justice, but you can see his outfit in all its glory. His wasn't even the most outrageous--not by a long shot. I should do an entire post on men's figure skating costumes.) On the other hand, I cannot stand Johnny Weir. His whole attitude about fur makes me dislike him; of course it's wrong that people are threatening him, but his complete lack of consideration or introspection about the fur issue disturbs me.

Curling continues to confuse me. I like watching it, but I really don't understand how the scoring works. I watched today's match between the US and Germany from the beginning, hoping the announcers would explain the sport to me. But no. I understand a little, but not much. Regardless, I was happy to see that my Olympic dream is not over; some of the curlers are over 30 years old!

Biathalon was exciting today! So much so that Bailey sent me an e-mail that said, in its entirety, "biathalon is exciting!" Both the men's and women's races came down to shooting in the last lap; it was all full of suspense.

I was shocked to see Lindsey Jacobellis go down in her semifinal. She has been such a big story at the Olympics, and I always figure that the big stories will somehow succeed. But not Lindsey. However, it was really nice seeing someone who grew up right outside of Vancouver win.

I have a lot of thoughts on the hockey--so many that I think I'm going to hold most of them and try to write a post devoted to hockey tomorrow. But in case I don't (quite likely), a few quick thoughts. I didn't watch very much of the Canada-Norway game, but I saw about half of each period of the USA-Switzerland game and Russia-Latvia game, and I didn't think USA or Russia looked great. The US won 3-1 and Russia blew out Latvia 8-2, but the Swiss and Latvians were not considered great competitors. The US seemed to lack firepower, and Russia just looked sloppy. It often looked like the Russians were trying to make pretty plays rather than trying to score. I realize the teams are getting used to playing together, and have only been doing so for a few days, so hopefully things will improve. It was nice to see Ovi score twice (bringing his Olympic total to 7 goals in 9 games).

Tomorrow there is more hockey cross-country skiing, snowboarding halfpipe, downhill skiing and speedskating. Speaking of speedskating, my television's online guide said I would be seeing women's speedskating (500m), but I didn't. What happened there?