For all your extremely amateur coverage of the Olympics, mediocre attempts at being witty and original takes, overuse of GIFs and Memes & other random thoughts (and probably some handsome Olympians along the way).
The US Men are facing Great Britain in the Semifinals RIGHT NOW. During round robin play Great Britain ended 8-1 and we barely finished fourth with a record of 5-4. We need some John Shuster magic circa 2018 to really kick in right now. We are up 4-3 after 4 ends. A lot of curling left but Do Your Thang USA Curling.
Update: End of the 7th, USA trailing 4-5 but they have hammer in the 8th
This has been a very close and exciting match. Lots of aggressive sweeping. There are also some people in the stands getting ROWDY. I need to start learning some Curling Cheers. Since the arena is almost empty and both semifinals are happening at once I think the twenty people in the stands are taking polite turns cheering on their country. It’s peak curling.
Update: We Lost. It was a great match but we couldn’t pull the upset. On to the Bronze Medal Match tomorrow at 1:00am because who needs sleep?
Do you need a hint? He’s 6’5 and is competing in 5 separate events during these Olympics.
Last chance & hint. Canada has only won 3 medals EVER in the sport that he competes in.
It’s BIATHLON. The perfect event to put those luscious locks into a ponytail and control it with a headband.
Canada has surprisingly only won 3 medals in Biathlon, all by Myriam Bedard in 1992 and 1994. Jules was part of the Men’s 4×7.5KM Relay yesterday that placed 6th, the highest ever placing by the Canadien Men. Congrats Jules and thanks for playing another round of GUESS THE EVENT BY HAIR.
I’ve been a very bad hockey fan. Just like Joey Mantia got cocky in skipping the semifinals, I got cocky and thought I could wait longer and fully devote some time to the Men’s Hockey Team after last night’s game, which seemed like a safe bet based on how well we were playing in pool play.
But…I was wrong and I feel bad because I was fully passed out in front of the tv as they heartbreakingly lost in a shootout. I woke up for a hot second in the 3rd period and thought we had it in the bag so just closed my eyes again.
So tonight, I’m going to attempt to stay awake for the Women’s Gold Medal Game and live blog it for accountability. I’ll put myself in the penalty box until then.
CONFESSION #2: There is almost zero chance I stay awake the whole time since 11pm – 2am is the only time of day I can actually sleep deeply. If this game was at 4:00am I would be wide awake and stoked.
THURSDAY MORNING UPDATE
I fell asleep. Missed most of the game. USA lost. I’ll take the blame. This is one of those Olympic situations where Silver is not going to make these games fulfilling for any of the athletes on the Women’s team. They wanted to repeat Gold and they definitely have the talent, just couldn’t bring it all together in the gold medal game.
One thing is for sure, the rivalry is stronger than ever and I’m sure the Women’s team will be coming back in 2026 with a stronger desire than ever to bring home the gold.
We’ve now got 2 Gold & Silver Duos for the United States and their sports both have a lot of fun new vocabulary to learn!
Alex Hall & Nick Goepper
Freestyle Skiing: Men’s Slopestyle
The Pretzel: When you are spinning in the air in one direction and reverse direction at the very end. This is what Alex Hall did to win gold. Watch Here. I’m honestly not sure how this is possible, especially with skis on. I can barely go from fast to slow while running.
Nose Butter: The announcers keep throwing out this word with no explanation and I finally had to google it. Here’s a full video but it’s basically when you put pressure in the “nose” of the skis, the front, and lift the middle and back of the skis off the ground and do a 180? I think at least. Someone might need to correct me on that.
Cannon: A rail or box extending off a jump at an upward angle. So it’s like they are getting shot out of a cannon and have more airtime for extra tricks. I think parts of the Great Wall snow recreations might technically be a cannon on this course. Or I’m just making that assumption in my head because the Great Wall probably had cannons at one point. It at least did when Matt Damon fought aliens from it….
Kaillie Humphries & Elana Meyers Taylor
Bosled: Monobob
Monobob: Starting with the most obvious word needing a definition. The Monobob is a bobsled for a single person. The driver has to push, steer and brake all themselves. I’m very confused why female athletes only get to compete in Monobob and Two-Person while male athletes do two-person and four-person. It’s like a weird form of sexism where they don’t think women should be going too fast in a four-person sled but also totally fine with making them do it all by themselves in the monobob. Let’s just let everyone do it with as many or as few people as they want.
Chicane: A sequence of tight serpentine curves. We all know who could have survived Game of Thrones if he only knew how to serpentine a bit….
Kreisel: German for circle; a curve that forms a circle by having the track cross itself. There are apparently only 7 active courses in the world that have one of these so it’s pretty exciting we get to see it in action. Maybe this is where they should make the Luge relay folks actually high-five each other.
Why do Hockey Coaches dress up in suits for games? Why are they so fancy/look like Mighty Ducks Villains? – Audrey from Maine
Great question Audrey! I wish I had a more definitive answer but from what I can find there is no formal rule. But in an interesting aspect of sporting history, hockey tradition and NHL standards have kept coaches wearing suits as an unspoken rule of Olympic Hockey.
Hockey was first an Olympic sport in the 1920 Antwerp games and you can see from the picture above, suits were part of Hockey over 100 years ago! Also, don’t some of the hair-dos look surprisingly modern, fun to see.
Jump forward 60 years and you can see our favorite USA Hockey Coach rocking a very fun suit behind the bench. Suits still going strong in the 80s. Thanks Herb!
Jump to the 90s when wearing a suit officially became a regular part of the NHL player’s agreement for pregame and travel. And if the players are getting fancy, the coaches can’t slack off. (Except for the Winter Classic).
Audrey’s question arose from the USA-Germany game where the German coach, Toni Söderholm, and his coaching staff decided to go full-blown villain and extra fancy with a vest. Which one is a screenshot from Mighty Ducks 2 and which one is a screenshot from the Olympics? It’s almost impossible to tell!
Toni is from Finland originally, came to North America for college and then returned to Finland to play professionally. So he is definitely going to be familiar with The Mighty Ducks, and hockey traditions in general.
The US coaches are going with a little more color, a little less bond villain. I would like to see a little more American-themed ties or suits but can’t win them all.
As almost every other sport (NBA is one of the major exceptions) has lost the ties on the sidelines I’m guessing Hockey coaches are going to hold firm and keep this unique part of hockey tradition alive. Or Gritty will get them….
RIGHT NOW (February 15 at 2:22pm) the country medal count order is exactly as I predicted! And I’m honestly a little surprised. We’ve had a good amount of disappointments but we still have the third most gold medals! There are still a lot of medals to be won so definitely a lot of opportunity for some shakeups. What might be the biggest story though is Norway, as expected, is at the top of the medal table but I feel like they were expecting to have more medals by this point. Not quite as dominant as everyone expected.
If we are seeing a spreading out of medals across more countries I’m all for it and I think a great thing for the future of the games. As long as they are all playing fairly (cough, cough Russia cough, cough).
I have to admit I’ve been a little disappointed in the Curling Tournament because no team (that I’ve seen at least) is continuing the tradition of Crazy Pants. Maybe someone is saving it for the medal round for maximum effect but Norway brought their pants A-Game to previous Olympic Games.
2018 was a strong pants year
BUT, I think I might have just found the Pants Successor. Ilia Burov of Russia is competing in the Men’s Freestyle Skiing – Aerials and I’m very impressed. Lots of different patterns, lots of different colors, looks especially good while he is flying through the air. Kind of like an 80s snow party in pants form.
As long as they aren’t secretly doping pants I’ll give them a 10.
Gold Medalist Lindsey Jacobellis was joined by another veteran of the sport, Nick Baumgartner, for Snowboard Cross and they brought home the gold! I don’t think anyone has called them old directly but all of the media loved combining their ages to passively-aggressively call them old. I’m a little disappointed they don’t have to physically hand something to each other like a proper relay but it was still fun to watch Nick have a lot of emotions while watching Lindsey bring home the gold.
Freestyle Skiing – Mixed Team Aeriels
(Photo by MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP via Getty Images)
Chris Lillis, Ashley Caldwell and Justin Schoenefeld combined their high flying, twisty-turny, flippity flips on skis for a gold medal. You can watch some highlights here. But serious question, why did the Chinese dude that landed, did a front flip and landed that as well not get extra points for that? Some other people look like they bounce their butt off the ground on their landing, seems like the easier option to me. I do like how they all seemingly add some extra waves in the middle of their jumps just to say hi. It’s a nice touch.
F* You Russia. That’s it. That’s the message. You know what you did and what you were doing and how to get around the rules by doping up a minor and now there are no medal ceremonies for the clean athletes as well? I’ll let GAYLE take it from here:
Olympic pins are an INCREDIBLY hot commodity in the Olympic Village. In addition to dancing during an opening ceremony I would love to get in on the bartering system. People apparently trade pins for EVERYTHING.
I don’t have much experience with bartering but I’m ready to pretend it’s the 1500s and there isn’t a trustworthy monetary system. As long as there isn’t a Taco Bell because they would be able to commit Highway Robbery for what I would give away for some Cheesy Gordita Crunches.
Royer's Olympic Blog 