Think the selection of Katie Couric as a patty wack to Matt Lauer was interesting. But they should have gone with Anne Curry. Now onto the sports.
I really don't know any of the athletes but I plan on watching as much as I can. I'm excited to see the Ghanaian-American female short track speed skater. That Asian guy from Utah figure skater. He had a horrible first day. I looks like he has a tremendous amount of pressure on him. Shani Davis is still racing. I'm rooting for everybody black #NinjasInTheSnow but this dude has no personality. The only other names I know are Shaun White and Lindsay Vonn.
I am really interested in the NASCAR on ice event. Sign me the f' up for that. I haven't been interested in an event like that since Russia's moto ball.
I know people who don't know the sport make fun of curling, especially when they only know the sport seeing people sweeping in front of the stone. But I actually find it interesting once I learned what it was about. It's actually simple. You score a point by having the stone closest to the center and in bounds when all stones are thrown. If the 2nd to nth closest are also the same color, you get nth points. I just find watching teams trying to thread stones, knock out stones, block stones make an interesting game. I guess I might be the only curling fan here though.
I'm about the short track and the snowboarding. Won't bother with anything else except some hockey. The short track relay is crazy, so much fun.
I noticed they haven't really hyped any of the Olympic events this year. I remember when the games where in Russia, there was a lot more publicity and dedicated channels. There was nothing about Hockey leading up to these games. I don't watch Hockey at all, but I watch Olympic Hockey. I just read that none of the NHL players are at the games this year. No wonder they aren't talking about it. They aren't even talking about the women and most the team is back. It's hard for me to get up for these games without the hype since I know nothing about snow activities.
I'll watch most of the ski/snowboard events, but I watch that stuff regularly. I'll probably leave the rest on in the background and watch if anything is interesting.
NBC always gets a lot of heat for their tape delay methods at the Olympics, but so far they've kind of lucked out in that figure skating is happening in the late-morning in Korea, which is prime time here in the US. They didn't have to worry too much about it for the last summer Olympics since Brazil wasn't that far off time-wise, but this time difference is brutal. Day and night from here to there are basically inverted to where things are just getting rolling there during prime time hours here, but a majority of the events are happening in the middle of the night here. It's only been a couple of days, but I can't tell you how often I've flipped on a curling match or a snowboarding event, kind of forgetting about the extreme time difference, thinking I was watching something live, and then finding out the result online or something as I'm watching it on the screen, more or less ruining the experience. That's not so much a complaint about NBC's coverage (there's not a whole lot they can do unless they just decided not to show any tape-delayed events during the day) as it is frustration with the hours being so off.
Unfortunately, this is going to be the case for the next few major events: 2018 World Cup: Russia 2020 Olympics: Tokyo 2022 World Cup: Qatar 2022 Winter Olympics: Beijing I've enjoyed the events so far this year, but I agree that the time difference is brutal. I'm trying to go radio silent during the day so that I don't accidentally see any of the dramatic moments (like the German luger messing up his turn and gifting the US a silver medal) before NBC airs them.
You're not alone. Curling is one of my favorite winter sport to watch. I love the strategy of it all. One great story was the Norwegian cross country guy who fell in the first few hundred meters but was able to come back and take the gold. Talk about an emotional low to high for that guy. The Ladies Slopestyle was painful to watch with the wind. They were lucky if they could even get a clean run and it was amazing no one was seriously hurt.
I'm with you guys on curling as well. It's my Winter Olympics guilty pleasure. Handball, for the record, is the Summer Olympics equivalent for me. What's funny is I do the same thing every two years. I get into these niche sports during the Olympics and convince myself that I'm going to learn everything I can about the sport and follow the sport (at least casually) after the Olympics are over, and every single time, I completely forget about it as soon as the Olympics end. i suppose that suggests that it's the perfect little diversion for two weeks.
