Geeked Out For The Olympics

I have always been a sucker for the Olympics.  When Wayne Gretzky failed to win Gold at Nagano back in 1998, I was one of the stupid ones who woke up at 4:00am to see the slumping Gretzky all alone on the Canadian bench, devastated that they had lost to the Czech Republic. 

When Canada won gold at the next Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, I decided to forgo studying for my first year psychology midterm at the University of Toronto and drive into the city and party on Yonge St until the wee hours of the night (I actually aced that exam, which is further proof of my friend's inverse studying theory whereby the less you study the better you do and vice verse).

On the other hand, when I asked another friend who lives in Vancouver if he would be watching any of the events he told me that he did not even want Vancouver to get the Olympics, and in fact that many people from the area were actually taking the two weeks to leave the impending chaos that will engulf their city. 

I understand why some people may not be excited for the Olympics but there is still a piece of me that perhaps foolishly believes in the games.  Growing up I was always led to believe that the Olympics were about friendly competition and sportsmanship, which were qualities that professional sports lacked.

I realize that the previous statement probably makes no sense for a number of reasons that include ballroom dancing being a sport in the summer games, recognizing the long lineup of amateur athletes who have tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs, or even the publicly vilified crooked judges. 

All of these reasons should have made me more cynical and jaded about the Olympics but since I pay attention to 90% of the Olympic sports for only two weeks every four years, I can just turn my blinders on and get swept up by the moment.

I may have become a little excited by the Olympic flame passing through my city's streets, but that excitement quickly faded away to indifference and that is how I felt about the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics until approximately a week ago.  I can even tell you the precise moment when the geek-out happened because apparently I am a sucker for advertising since I could not get enough of the CTV's "I believe" ads during the Super Bowl.  Idiots like me are the reason why companies have the same commercial replaying five times every hour as by the end of the 3rd quarter and my tenth viewing, I too was singing along in my head with 16-year-old Nikki Yanofsky. 

As much as I was suckered into the commercial I do have to say that the rest of the world probably thinks Canada stopped teaching grammar in grade 2 without extending beyond the noun and verb lecture since the song's chorus ("I believe in the power of you and I ") should end with "me" and not "I" as the former is the object of the preposition. 

Last night I completed my geek out by buying the coveted $10 red mittens from The Bay to go along with my Paul Kariya Team Canada jersey which I will be wearing to work over the next two weeks until a) somebody complains of the smell or b) I end up reliving Turin and Canada's 7th place finish all over again. 

Regarding the jersey, Paul Kariya is not on Team Canada and in fact is now an overpriced $6 million second-line player in St. Louis but back at the 2002 Olympics, when I bought the jersey, he was sometimes even mentioned in the "best hockey player on earth?" debates. I still remember struggling to decide on whether I wanted Mario Lemieux or Paul Kariya on the back of my jersey... I chose the Asian... I do not think that I have ever been more wrong in my entire life.

I am not the only one who is being swept up 2010 Winter Olympics being in Canada as when I was lining up at to buy the mittens there were 8 people also in line, and what is remarkable about this is that The Bay had 8 customers and 6 of them were buying Canadian Olympic gear.  Heck, the next week at work is being called "Spirit Week" with curling/hockey games being played in the lab.  I have no idea how that is going to be accomplished with the millions of dollars of laboratory equipment on the floor, but I am all for body-checking some middle-aged woman into a centrifuge. 

And make no mistake, as the Olympic fever is not limited to only those wearing red mittens or getting hip-checked into a microscope by me, what makes the Olympics an event worth geeking out for is the fact that there is something for everybody. 

The Summer Olympics are about athletes who can do mostly normal things much better than the rest of us.  The Winter Olympics, on the other hand, seem to have more sports that were made up by bozos who were probably smoking a joint at the time.  You can just picture a couple of drunks guys named Bob and Doug thinking about how they can make tobogganing more fun... "I know let's attach a couple of blades onto a board and propel ourselves head first down an ice mountain with no mechanism for steering or braking."

At any other time, that sort of suggestion would be one a punishment for the TV show Kenny vs. Spenny, but at the Olympics it is known as skeleton, and it is not surprisingly my new favorite sport for the next two weeks.  Furthermore, there are always one or two great stories that will come from the game.  Of course all of Canada will be watching the men's and women's hockey teams and all 16-year-old boys plus NBC executives will be keeping an eye on Lindsey Vonn hoping for a wardrobe malfunction like what happened to that female British bobsledder but in every Olympics there always seems to be one surprising heartwarming story.

Canada will do well in the Olympics, win lots of medals and I will correspondingly feel proud to be Canadian.  I will be surprised if there was not at least one scandal that will takeover the games and sure it will be sad to think about how well a country can do in these events when enough funding is put into their athletes (basically, paying for medals) but for two weeks, I disregard all of the negative and believe in the Olympics.