GROTE'S GRIPES: OLYMPIC WRAP UP

VANCOUVER, CANADA – A fortnight into the Olympics I’ve decided to follow up my original guide to the XXI Winter Games with some random observations of events that have transpired since.

The International Olympic Committee is evil. Not only did they show little regard for human life with the lack of protection on the insanely fast luge track, but poor Boner from Growing Pains got so depressed visiting Vancouver he Chek-offed himself. Way to go IOC! In fact, thanks to the IOC there were no Gold Medal winners at the 2010 Olympics. This years “Gold” medals contain only six grams of gold plating or roughly 7% of the medal’s metal. The remaining 93% is made of silver. Talk about bait and switch.

What is wrong with the National Broadcasting Company? First they kick Conan O’Brien out as host of The Tonight Show after only half a year, then they decide to subject us to countless hours of Curling on CNBC. They also failed to show many timely events live, instead showing them on tape delay during prime time. What is this the 60’s? Even Time Warp Tony was getting the Alpine Skiing results from Sports Phone long before the events aired. The final insult happened last Sunday when the most exciting event of the Olympics so far, the US-Canada hockey game, was relegated to MSNBC while Ice Dancing was shown on parent NBC stations. Mr. Blackwell would have a field day at that event.


    Offensive On So Many Levels

Enough with Lindsey Vonn. I know she was supposed to be the face of the Olympics but she is not even America’s best skier at these games. I don’t care that she is in the SI Swimsuit Issue or that she has a bad shin or that the poor baby broke her pinky. She has been a dud, gold medal victory or not. When the media gets a storyline they hound it to death whether it plays out to be true or not. Over the years I’ve heard how great a QB Michael Vick was, how Michele Wie was the greatest female golfer ever and that Danica Patrick was a top notch race car driver. I wish the media would just let reality dictate who deserves to be showered with accolades based on performance. I predict Lindsey will be taking her top off in GoDaddy commercials before the year is through.

Does anybody else feel a sudden urge to punch Jeremy Roenick in the face every time he opens his mouth? I wish Mike Milbury would take off his shoe and beat him senseless already.

Watching women’s hockey, even the gold medal game, is like watching mediocre pee-wee hockey. I appreciate the effort put forth but the quality of play isn’t very good. Inevitably the team that loses the championship game has multiple members who are left crying uncontrollably. That stuff should be saved for Yankee fans.

So there was a bit of a slap fight between Gold and Silver medal winners in Men’s Figure Skating after a controversial judge’s decision. That is about as surprising as a Killer Whale actually killing its trainer. What do these people think Killer Whales do? It’s part of the mammal’s name for Christ’s sake. Supposedly this whale, named Tilikum, killed two other people in separate incidents back in the nineties, making him a serial killer whale.


Seafood at SeaWorld

Here’s hoping for a Canada-US Gold Medal rematch on Sunday. I was at the 2002 Salt Lake Gold Medal game where Canada was victorious and would like to see a different result this time around. In the end this will be the best showing medal wise for the United States in Winter Olympics history. To that I say well done.

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