Miracle
I’m a failure as a blogger. Somehow I let the 40th anniversary of The Miracle on Ice pass without writing or sharing anything about it. Seriously, the biggest sports moment in the first 10–15 years of my life, and the event against which I have compared all other sports, and I don’t share a word? Weak. Here are two pieces…
Winter Olympics Notebook
I feel bad. As a loyal Olympics viewer and long-time blogger, I’ve shirked my responsibilities waiting until after this year’s Winter Olympics wrapped up to share any thoughts. Yeah, we were watching the games pretty much every evening. But with the oddness of this year’s time difference, there was usually one thing on a night that I was interested in.…
Week One Olympics Notebook
What up, fools?!?! It’s that time! Time for an epic Olympic notebook unloading! Not the most timely first edition this year, as I’m waiting nine full days into the games to get to this. So we’ll race through some of the things I jotted down 6–9 days ago that aren’t exactly fresh. Opening Ceremonies. Watching these things with kids is…
Forgotten Miracle
As all of the US and Canada prepare for today’s women’s gold medal game and tomorrow’s men’s semifinal games in Sochi, here is a fun read on the 1960 gold medal winning US team. On the first day of practice in Squaw Valley, for a workout open to coaches of all of his upcoming rivals, Riley told his team to…
London Calling
Another summer Olympics has come-and-gone. These were good ones, I think, although if you’re a loyal reader of the blog and this was your only connection to the games, you wouldn’t know it. In both 2004 and 2008, I wrote extensively throughout the games. This time around, for a variety of reasons, I didn’t do any immediate posts after important…
The Greatest
One of the many cultural icons of my generation is the 1992 US men’s Olympic basketball team: The Dream Team. While this oral history of the greatest team ever is good, I must admit I was a little disappointed by it. It doesn’t seem nearly long enough. I know there were more great stories that could have been repeated. Johnson:…
Miracles
I made it out of L’s room just in time to see the last 11 minutes or so of the US – Canada hockey game Sunday night. That was something else. I think I’m glad I didn’t see the whole thing, because I might have been awake all night after a game that exciting.* (If you missed it, the Americans knocked…
Olympic Wrap Up
Sigh. The Olympics are over. What the hell do I do now? Actually, the Olympics didn’t dominate my time this year the way they did four years ago. But I had a two-week-old baby then and we just kind of sat on the couch for about 20 hours a day anyway. That year, the Olympics were a God-send. This year,…
Usain In the Membrane
Usain in the brain! Sweet baby Jesus. As I said earlier, my favorite run ever was Michael Johnson’s 200M world record in Atlanta. Second, before this week, was the 4×100 relay in 1992, when the U.S. destroyed the field, Carl Lewis ran away and hid, and Dennis Mitchell went nuts after he handed off to Lewis.* Bolt’s two world records…
Mini-Olympic Notebook
Trying to keep these things shorter. I’ve never been a gymnastics guy, and this year has reinforced the wisdom of that decision. Not that I understood the scoring before, but it’s even worse this year. I’ll be the one millionth person to ask, how can you fall down on your dismount and still win a gold medal? My favorite technical…