The Olympics provide athletes with a chance to shine on the global stage with a myriad of nations covering the Winter Games.
It’s just too bad NBC is brutally showing Americans what’s happening in Salt Lake City.
But luckily for me, I don’t have to move to Kazakhstan to see decent coverage. I live in Michigan, dammit. I can watch the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
In the last week I have found a new respect for Canadian television, which previously was reserved for “The Kids in the Hall.” Our northern neighbor has provided me with a watchful eye on the Olympics, showing me more live sports, less Bob Costas (never a bad thing) and fewer American athletes.
We’ll start with the most obvious of NBC’s flaws (other than “Inside Schwartz”) - its lack of live coverage of events not on ice.
Figure skating and hockey, obviously, are the two sports most Americans demand to see and NBC airs them. Figure skating is shown live on the peacock network and hockey splits time between being seen live on CNBC and NBC and being tape-delayed on NBC.
I realize these are the two cash cows of the Winter Games, but then why would NBC ever show a men’s hockey game twice on two networks? What a waste of air time.
And NBC’s figure skating coverage of “Skategate” has played out like one of Oliver Stone’s wet dreams.
The conspiracy theorists have united over the gold-medal winning (insert asterisk here) pairs performance of Canadian figure skaters Jamie Sale and David Pelletier. The pair clearly looked like the best team in the world during Tuesday’s long-program competition.
But the judges thought otherwise and awarded the gold medals to (Are you ready for this?) Russian skaters Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze. Making things juicier, in the warm-up skate, Sikharulidze and Sale collided - knocking the wind out of the Canadian ice princess.
Yadda, yadda, yadda, the Canadians receive a second set of gold medals. Yadda, yadda, yadda the Russians are disgruntled. Yadda, yadda, yadda Scott Hamilton is in tears.
Quick side note: Is there a more Hollywoodesque villain in sports drama than a Russian? Was Ivan Drago involved here? Did Sikharulidze utter anything like “If she dies, she dies,” after he leveled Sale in their precompetition collision? Hmm
