Sports Digest 2.14.10

Happy Valentines Day Everyone! 🙂

Vancouver Olympics

What a start to these Olympic games! So many great stories already and I love seeing sports that only pop up on the radar every 4 years.

Simon Ammann is back folks! Forget him? Switzerland’s ski jumper burst onto the scene at Salt Lake in 2002 and grabbed two gold medals in the sport. After an absence in the Torino games, Ammann captures a gold in the normal hill event yesterday, bringing his total to 3 gold medals. Not too shabby. What’s so enjoyable about Ammann is his enthusiasm and joy for the sport. His frantic and excited interview after medaling mirrored his interviews in 2002. It’s nice to see his enthusiasm for the sport never faded in his through his trials in the past eight years

Unbelievable.

Apolo Ohno is the bomb. Seriously. Anyone that reads this blog, even semi-regularly, knows that my Valentine Ohno and I go way back. While I’ve always admired his athletic ability in addition to his dashing good looks; I think that last night, Ohno’s athletic ability definitely took over. In the 1500 preliminary round, Ohno sat in last place and, with two laps to go, passed the ENTIRE field in about 2 seconds and won by about a quarter lap. I have NEVER seen anything like that in sports. (I can’t find the video ANYWHERE to include in here! If someone has it please let me know! :)) Make sure, if you didn’t see that AWESOME display of athleticism, that you do.

After coming in second in the semi’s, Ohno earned the silver medal in the 1500 event. (After two Koreans trip and fall with a quarter lap to go … sports are so fun when they’re unpredicatable!) This medal ties Ohno with Bonnie Blair as the most decorated Winter Olympian of all time. It’s well deserved. Check out the craziness of the final race here : NBC Olympics

Side note: BIG Congrats to Bronze medalist, American JR Celski. JR had a severe injury in September (some reports said he almost died on the ice) when a skate cut his thigh. It’s amazing to see him bounce back five months later for Olympic glory. A lot of people are saying that Celski is the heir apparent to Ohno. Whether or not that’s true, these two definitely have a great mentor/mentee relationship.

Ohno & Celski

Hannah Kearney wins the US’s first gold medal of the games in Women’s Freestyle Moguls. Kearney, who wasn’t supposed to win, had a near flawless final run to capture the prize. Holler for the first US winner being a woman and holler for how awesome the sport is! 🙂

Gold medalist Kearney

College Basketball

Syracuse is tipping off right now in the dome vs. Louisville (i miss it so much!) Hopefully they can play tight and will still be on their current run when they Face-off against Georgetown on Thursday. I still think Kansas is the best team in the country (obviously) but I’m not quite sold on Kentucky yet. While I know Kentucky is a good team, I don’t see how they leap-frogged Syracuse for the #2 spot. In fact, at 24-1, Syracuse not only has the best record in the country, but also has the best shooting percent. So I’m not quite sure why they’re hanging back at #3.

Daytona 500

I’m not a huge NASCAR fan. My family leaves the knowledge of that sport to my older brother, Chris and his wife, Alicia (@alicamflynn) are the staples here. So while I can’t comment whose going to win, I am going to say that Danica Patrick crashed yesterday and that’s all I was hoping for.

NBA

Everything about the All-Star break is lame. Props for trying though!

MLB

PITCHERS AND CATCHERS REPORT IN THREE DAYS!!! HOLLER! 🙂

What’s your favorite sports story of the Olympics so far? What am I missing? Do you think Kentucky deserves its ranking? Anyone been to any NBA All-Star events ever? Talk to me people, and Happy Valentines Day! 😀

-Sam

The Vancouver 2010 Olympics

The day is finally here folks. Today is the opening ceremony for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. I’m not going to pretend that I know a lot about these various sports. I’ve always pictured myself as more of a Summer Olympics fan, never bothering to watch the winter ones. Things changed in 2002 when the games were in Salt Lake City and I was introduced to my future husband Apolo Anton Ohno (who doesn’t seem has aged A DAY in eight years). So while it was Ohno’s studliness that got me interested in the Winter Olympics, I have been paying a lot more attention to them ever since …. sue me 🙂

some crushes never die

I’m really excited to see these Olympics. Beijing did an amazing job with the opening ceremony/game hosting in August 2008 and Vancouver has a tough act to follow.  Also, these Olympics are being touted at ‘the warmest Winter Olympics ever.’ While the East Coast of the USA is pummeled with almost four feet of snow, Vancouver is having snow flown in!  I also think the Vancouver logo leaves a little to be desired.

That’s not important though. I think what makes the Olympics so special are the human interest stories. These stories captivate the entire globe for two weeks. The beauty of it is that a lot of them have yet to even develop. The Olympic games are almost to predict. (Except I am fairly confident the USA will represent really well in the snowboarding category!)

So what am I looking forward to the most? Speedskating (if for no other reason than to root on Apolo), Hockey (this level of hockey is only seen once every four years…soak it up while you can) and Ski Jumping. Seriously. Ski Jumping is FRIGGIN AWESOME … and I never get a chance to see it unless it’s during the Olympics. I prefer ice-dancing to ice skating, but I’ll imagine I’ll tune into that a little as well. Luckily for me, the Vancouver location will lend itself to a lot of live events…way better than the eight-hour delay in Beijing!

Vancouver 2010 Logo

So while I can’t tell you the athletes on team USA or predict favorites in several events, I am excited to watch these games unfold with the rest of you. Look for as much up-to-date info as possible. Look for plenty of human interest stories. Look for the ‘regular’ sports stories to take a little bit of a back seat these upcoming weeks.

2010 Olympic USA Women's Hockey Team

Also, look for the fabulous olympic theme song (we all know my feelings on that) and fellow Syracuse Alum Bob Costas anchoring all the action on the desk. It’s gonna be a fun two weeks, folks. Looking forward to chatting with you all 🙂

For TONS more information on the 2010 Olympics including: athletes, events, schedules and photos. Visit www.vancouver2010.com

What are you looking forward to about these games? Do you have any favorite events?

Talk to me people!

–Sam

Sports Digest 1/10/2010

So…., I haven’t posted since Tuesday, blame “The Lovely Bones” and my hectic work week.  Anyway, a lot has happened over the past five days. I’ll try to condense it and make it as concise as possible!

NFL– well it seems like my playoff predictions are going as well as my BCS predictions. So from now I’ll pick the opposite of what my gut says. There has also been some shake-ups in the NFL since my last post

• Pete Carroll- Bombshell! I’m really surprised, not so much that the Seahawks offered Carroll a job but that he accepted it. I have always viewed Pete Carroll as a college football coach.  While Carroll had a lot of success as a defensive coordinator. His track record of NFL coaching has been pretty awful. He has been head coach of the Jets and Patriots. The Jets team went 6-10 and he was fired after one year.  His three seasons with New England earned him one AFC East title and two wild card losses.  So, with this spotty track record, I’m not exactly sure WHY Carroll thinks after ten years of success at USC, Carroll thinks he can all of a sudden coach the NFL. As everyone will agree, coaching college football is really different from coaching the NFL. Carroll is on a list of many coaches that are GREAT in the collegiate setting only (Spurrier, Saban, etc.) Who knows, maybe even JoePa would not be a good NFL coach (thank god he’s never tried) but the difference is, once these collegiate coache have little success they usually stay out of the big leagues. Carroll hasn’t seemed to learn this lesson. So I’ll be very interested to see how he does, but I don’t expect much success from him
• Shanahan to the Redskins-I like it. I think he got the short end of the stick with Denver and I always thought he was a pretty good coach. What he needs to do though, is go into D.C. , clean house and kick some ass.  The Redskins coaching job has seemed like the black hole of the NFL . I haven’t seen a Redskins team playing with purpose for over a decade.  The second most valuable franchise in the NFL (valued at 1.5 BILLION) , you know, the one that broke the Lions 18-game loss streak, needs to get its shit together and put forth a solid season effort. Hell, I think everyone would be impressed if they could finish 9-7. Shanahan might be just be the person to do it.
• Dallas Cowboys—First off. Thank you Cowboys for knocking those Eagles out of the playoffs. I can breathe easier knowing that no Pennsylvania team will win the Superbowl this year. That being said, I can’t figure out how Dallas has managed to embarrass the Eagles all season long. I still don’t believe the Cowboys are THAT good…I just think the Eagles played THAT bad…two weeks in a row. As we all know, McNabb is one of the top 5 choke artists of all time, so it’s not a surprise that he did, but it is uncharacteristic how early in the playoffs he decided to suck this year. Big win for Wade Phillips and Tony Romo…it buys them some more time and credibility (Phillips is the time, Romo is the credibility) The Cowboys-Vikings match-up should prove to be awesome.
• Jets-looking pretty good boys. I don’t think you’re winning the Superbowl, but you’ll put together a pretty nice run. Sanchez played well. Not fantastic but well. ZERO turnovers. Way to go, kid. On another note, can we all finally agree that Carson Palmer sucks? I’ve been saying it since he was drafted. He’s a mediocre QB that can lead his team to the playoffs every few years and lose in the wild card round. OchoCinco was CONTAINED and CRYING. Like a girl. Seriously, he was crying like most girls (myself included) do at the end of The Notebook. Grow a pair, Chad. Seriously. Oh and maybe you think about devoting a little less time to your unnecessary off the field antics and larger than life persona and focus on being a better receiver.
• HOW ABOUT JOE THEISMAN AND JOE GIBBS NEVER DO COMMENTARY AGAIN. HEARING ABOUT THE PUNTER STORY AND THE TIMES WHEN THE JOES WERE RELEVANT PUT ME IN A CATATONIC STATE. Seriously, I ended up shutting off the game because they sucked so much. NBC FAIL.
• Jim Leavitt fired as USF Coach…WOW.

College Basketball

Purdue and Duke lost…which sets things up pretty nicely for my Orangemen who play USF at noon today and handily beat Memphis on Thursday. With only three unbeatens left in the league (Kansas, Texas and Kentucky) this season is shaping up to offer some exciting key matchups throughout the winter. Sidenote: Marquette University WILL play spoiler at some point this season. They are playing well and their luck will eventually change and they’ll be on the winning side of the 3-point difference in the game.

WTA

Justine Hennin-Hardenne, who at one time was the most dominant female tennis player, retired from her match yesterday citing a knee injuring in the second set. This was her first tournament since she came out of retirement. Bummer, since she probably won’t be a go for the Australian Open. I’ll go into some more AO insight as the day approaches

Winter Olympics

Ok. I’m pumped. Sure, I prefer summer Olympics (really WHO DOESN’T) but over the years, my fondness has grown for the winter olympics as well.  And no, not for the figure skating. I’m really pumped to see all sorts of winter sports that I could only DREAM about doing, including giant slalom, hockey, bobsled and of course speed skating. (Shout out to Apolo Anton Ohno…I’ve had a crush on him since I was 16…some things never die ;))

So that’s it for now and I will be more diligent with my postings J What are your thoughts on coaching carousel? Are you surprised by the jets or the cowboys? What are your predictions for today’s games? Talk to me people

–Sam