Olympic Gold

I've never really been a huge fan of the Olympics - Summer or Winter.  I vaguely remember watching them as a child, but I don't think I invested more than an hour to watching them.  Although, I do recall being partial to the figure skating back when good ol' Scott Hamilton, Bryan Boitano and Kristi Yamaguchi were wowing the world with their triple axels and their back flips.  My active duty as an American to watch the games thereafter, however, dropped off over the years to a shameful zero hours of logged viewing time.

There's something different about the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2010 Winter Olympics though.  I have a theory - I think the Olympic Committee had a global pow-wow and decided they needed to get good looking athletes in order to draw in more viewers.  This is the only conclusion I've come up with.  I mean, can you think of a better explanation??  The ratings for the games have gone through the roof.  It could be because they've been playing nonstop Olympic coverage on NBC, CNBC, MSNBC and even on the USA Network.  They pretty much force you to watch the games much like they force you to watch coverage of the Presidential Address as they hijack everything from NBC to QVC.

But never have I ever watched as much curling as I have these past two weeks.  As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever, in my 24 years of life, watched a round...or game...or match?  of curling.  And guess what - it's kind of amazing.  Curling puts Ice Dancing to shame.  It's like a combination of bocce ball and darts on ice (with brooms).  I never really thought I would find myself gasping in astonishment as I watch a game of curling but I did last night when I watched the Canadian women lose to Sweden.  That was intense!  Not quite as intense as watching 80 yr. old Brett Favre throw his shot at the Superbowl away in the game of his lifetime, but nevertheless, it was an intense match.  Now, I don't really know anything about the rules of the game but in my opinion, the men play with a lot more strategy than the women do and therefore, it is more interesting to watch the men's curling.  Let's not forget about my theory of good looking athletes.  Check it out the curlers:

Other Sports:

Looking at this fine panel of athletes I say, not bad, not bad at all.  We should have the Olympics more often.  Am I right, am I right?  Searching on the NBC Olympic site for athletes to put in this post felt like I was searching through Match.com candidates.  More importantly, I have discovered that all of these men that I have selected have their hair styled very similarly...is that odd?

Anyways, I guess the moral of the story is to say that there's a lot more to the Winter Olympics than one would think.  Skill, Speed, and Experience aside, there are a lot of good lookin' athletes underneath those layers of lycra.