Winter Olympic epilogue...

"Costas overload" set in just after the opening ceremonies...


Funny, whenever the Winter Olympics end, I am sad to see them go. Maybe because I have good memories of Winter Olympics when I was younger. I recall vividly NBC's coverage of the 1972 winter games at Sapporo (the only non-ABC covered Olympics in a 20 or so year period), when I was first exposed to a young announcer named Al Michaels. USA hockey even won a silver that year, I believe, with the young Howe boys leading the charge. The Olympics of Ard Schenk and Yukio Kasaya, the Japan ski jumper who became a national hero when shockingly winning on the 90-meter hill, with Art Devlin, my favorite winter analyst who looked to be sweating profusely whenever on camera, shouting in disbelief at Kasaya's performance.

ABC's coverage always seemed more incisive, for some reason, and I fondly recall its 1976 coverage in Innsbruck, especially the excitable Bob Beattie calling the skiing with Gifford, Jackie Stewart and his high-pitched voice describing the crashes at luge and bobsled (in later years ABC would use Sam Posey, I suppose they thought ex-race drivers should be involved with luge), Dick Button's critique at skating, and of course Devlin, who moved from NBC's coverage four years earlier and became a staple of sorts for the next 3 or 4 winter Olympics on ABC, reminding us how easy it was for a ski jumper to "choke" on that big hill. Innsbruck '76 also coincided with my senior year in high school and the end of basketball season, which was always more fun than the start of the season because practices were so short at the end of the year.

1980 was of course the year of the great hockey upset, and '84 brought us Katarina Witt, who sort of influenced the naming of Cristina when she was born a few weeks later (Cristina was sort of a compromise choice name; it sounded like Katarina, but I really had no chance of selling that name to my wife, who might have suspected I was leering at Ms. Witt a bit too intently, whereas Cristina was an easier sell). So you can see I relate old winter Olympics with various events at the same time in my life that were memorable.

It's a good thing we're not having another baby in a few weeks, not sure how I could work a name that sounded like Tanith Belbin's into a similar name without being too obvious...

As for NBC's coverage, I just think there is something pretentious about the way that sports department goes about its business. ABC used to acknowledge the quirkiness of some of the events like luge, as Jim McKay would often smile and add a little chuckle whenever it was time to throw it to Jackie Stewart or Sam Posey. NBC treats all of these events like they are the Super Bowl. Serious to the athletes, I know, but the winter Olympics lost its charm long ago. Maybe I'm just an old-fashioned Olympics fan, but the snowboarding and free-style skiing seem awfully contrived, too much like the "X" games. Curling, however, has a nice Winter Olympics feel to it. Maybe we can see barrel jumping like they used to show on Wide World of Sports at an upcoming winter games.

Looks like NBC has locked up all of the Olympics for the forseeable future, however, so we probably will get more of Bob Costas (and his even more-drab clones like Bill McAtee) than we can stand all of the way up to his eventual retirement. Costas or not, however, I still look forward to the winter games every four years and to Vancouver 2010, when we can watch many events that won't be tape-delayed, and perhaps I might even be able to make it up to watch in person (God willing!)...