Is it over yet?
Few more Olympics thoughts as it's almost done -- none too soon with baseball and the tournament on the horizon ...
-- Nice finish to the curling competition -- especially the six (and should've been seven) in the sixth end by the Canadian men to clinch gold over Finland. The Finnish skip looks like an acquaintance of mine, or at least the guy from Rent who was also in A Beautiful Mind and Road Trip. (how's that for a resume?) And congrats to the U.S. men for winning bronze; Bemidji is getting a medal after all.
(Side note: Finland's president caught the gold-medal match a week after finally meeting Conan O'Brien, who used the Olympic break constructively.)
On the women's side, the Swedes (complete with cheesy metal video) took gold over the Swiss team (whose skip oddly resembles Shaun White) with Canada taking bronze.
It's interesting how much of a hit curling seems to be stateside (or at least every four years), and I wonder if it's the fact that a whole match gets shown (live in many cases) and thus you feel like something is unfolding in front of you -- as opposed to the chopped-up runs, races and heats on NBC's prime-time or mid-afternoon shows. Or it could just be that we could do that if given the chance (sort of how poker seems to be taking off since it seems any schlub could win the World Series of Poker main event).
-- However, while curling seems to be doing just fine on the fringes, Salon's King Kaufman has a point in that hockey seems to be shunted to the same edges of the primary NBC coverage -- although it's front and center for me because it's something live during the day. It's probably the biggest event at the Winter Olympics other than figure skating, but you don't see much of it on regular NBC coverage (even though it would be a good way to promote its own NHL coverage). But I suppose it's hard to chop up a hockey game and present it in the same prepackaged bite-sized nuggets like they've done with other marquee sports like skiing, figure skating or snowboarding.
-- Speaking of the Flying Tomato (and I'll agree with Flax that two straight SI covers with him seems a bit much; then again, Jerome Bettis had two covers in three weeks last month), it was amusing seeing Bob Costas pressing Sasha Cohen into responding to White's request for a date or whatever after his gold-medal win. Even more amusing was her "I'm so flattered, but ..." response. (That response sounds familiar. Oh wait, I think I've heard that from at least a couple of women over the years.)
Of course, if things with Sasha don't work out, White probably has a few other options.
-- Oh yeah, what was up with Thursday night's head-to-head-to-head-to-head TV lineup of ladies figure skating vs. American Idol vs. Dancing with the Stars vs. Survivor? God forbid if you're a male who dislikes reality TV.