King Kaufman's Sports Daily
The Olympics refuse to follow NBC's script. Plus: Turin sure is beautiful! (Trust us on this.)
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Feb. 16, 2006 | The Olympics continue to go smashingly for NBC. That is, just about every athlete the network hypes seems destined to have his or her hopes smashed.
From Michelle Kwan to Bode Miller, Apolo Ohno to Jeremy Bloom, the big names keep coming up empty.
The U.S. men's hockey team even got into the act Wednesday, the first day of competition in that sport. The roster full of NHL players -- jet-lagged and having almost no practice time together, but still NHL players -- blew a two-goal lead and had to rally for a 3-3 tie against Latvia, which has only two current NHL players on the team.
And one of them, Sandis Ozolinsh, had been in the league's substance-abuse clink and hadn't played in a game since Nov. 27.
Latvian goalie Arturs Irbe, 39, who made 19 saves in the third period alone, is out of the league, having spent the last two years before the lockout bouncing between the minor leagues and the Carolina Hurricanes.
The good news for the Americans is that the 1980 "miracle" team also began the Olympics with a tie, though that was against Sweden. The good news for NBC is it really hasn't hyped the American hockey team that much.
Canada, which is essentially an NHL All-Star team, with six captains on the roster, got a scare from Italy, which held the Canadians to a 1-0 lead in the first period and sent the arena into a frenzy with a tying goal early in the second.
It didn't last. The Canadians woke up and scored five goals in the period to end the threat.
And while it didn't make the prime-time show or anything, the U.S. curling team got dumped by Italy, a heavy underdog only in the tournament because it's the host. Italy finally broke through with a win after giving a scare to Great Britain and Sweden. How about those plucky Italians on ice!
Bloom came into these Olympics as the most famous athlete on these shores who isn't a figure skater, hockey player or, at least in the last month, Bode Miller. That's because Bloom played football at the University of Colorado, then unsuccessfully fought the NCAA in court when it said he couldn't keep playing if he accepted sponsorship money as a skier.
Favored to win the moguls, he had trouble on his last jump and finished out of the money. Instead it was Toby Dawson who pulled off an upset by winning the bronze, making it two nights in a row a lesser-known American skier had upstaged a star compatriot. On Tuesday Ted Ligety had won the men's combined, beating out the better-known Miller and Daron Rahlves.
Dale Begg-Smith, a Canadian Internet millionaire skiing for Australia, won the moguls gold.
The good news for NBC: Toby Dawson, abandoned as a toddler in his native South Korea, adopted by a ski-instructor couple in Colorado, and painfully shy growing up, is a Big Detroit Automaker Olympic Moment waiting to happen. Look for that on Thursday.
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