King Kaufman's Sports Daily

Dick Button's Olympic skating commentary reminds us it can be done well. Plus: Wardrobe reform.

Read more: Sports, Olympics, NBC, King Kaufman, 2002 Olympics, Curling, Sports Daily, 2006 Olympics

Feb. 15, 2006 | Welcome back, Dick Button. Where've you been?

Button was for three decades the star analyst for ABC. But that network's been out of the Olympics business since the 1988 Games in Calgary. Button's done plenty of other events in the meantime, and he's also a lawyer and a theatrical producer, among other things, so it's not like he's been living in a cardboard box the past 18 years.

He's been missed at the Olympics, though.

Scott Hamilton, the 1984 gold medalist, has been the figure-skating analyst for the last five Olympics, first for CBS in Lillehammer, Albertville and Nagano, then for NBC starting in Salt Lake City.

It's quite the step down from Button's dry wit, erudition and technical knowledge of skating to Hamilton's limited arsenal of exclamations.

They've been working together in Turin, and while I've never liked Hamilton's work, having him sit next to Button, who won gold in 1948 and '52 and was among the greatest and most influential skaters ever, really highlights what we've been missing all these years.

Hamilton mostly tells you what you're looking at, labeling the moves and then yawping over their execution -- "Triple toe loop? Wow!" or "Quad toe? Oh! Stepped out of it." Button analyzes.

The way the two of them narrated replays of a fall by Frenchman Frederic Dambier Tuesday illustrates how Hamilton describes the results of a failure in technique, while Button describes the actual technique, and what went wrong.

Hamilton: "He sets the edge right there, and it didn't look like it gave him enough room, and he was just too up and down, too straight up and down, he couldn't control the landing."

Button: "And right there, you can see the unhinged foot. He's leaning back, the foot is not getting out, and he simply cannot hold that edge."

If you've ever heard Hamilton before, you're never going to learn anything from him again. I can't imagine listening to Button for a couple of hours and not learning something.

Button is also famous for his brutal honesty and willingness to criticize a skater. Hamilton's a softie. You won't hear him saying anything like Button's description of the footwork sequence of another Frenchman, Brian Joubert: "He really isn't fleet. He isn't live. He isn't fast. He isn't capable. He's more like a soccer player trying to do a tap dance."

Button and Hamilton were in a crowded booth Tuesday, which may have had something to do with the fact that NBC's published schedule had Button working only on the pairs skate, not the men's.

They were joined by play-by-play guy Tom Hammond, who mostly takes care of the nuts and bolts and then shuts up, and Sandra Bezic, a Canadian former Olympian, who could scarcely get a word in edgewise.

Next page: "Cats" look on the way out. Plus: More medal ceremonies, please. And: Curling