THINGS THAT BOTHER ME #2

I was fighting hard to keep from commenting on this but I just can’t let it pass. If you have read my earlier blogs you know I love the Olympic Games, both winter and summer. Thanks to phenomenal television coverage we are treated to many events spread over many venues. A difficult task I am sure, particularly when many of those competitions are occurring simultaneously. One network and a couple of cable stations are used to bring us as much of the action as possible. Somewhere, someone makes the decision as to when and where the different events are beamed around the world. I am sure television ratings are the prime consideration as to which events are shown in prime time and on the network telecast. The others are relegated to the cable channels at odd hours of the day and night. I get the fact that, as an advertiser paying big bucks for air time, you want as many viewers as possible. Which, in the winter Games, means some form of ice skating.

So last night, I settle down on my couch after Sunday dinner, anxiously awaiting any one of 3 historic hockey match-ups. In addition to Bode Miller, a compelling story himself, we have Apolo Anton Ono some sledding and other stuff and then I can’t wait to see which hockey game we get, Russian vs. Czech Republic, Sweden vs. Norway or Canada vs. the United States. Each of these games a classic match-up of very bitter rivals with great history. But noooooooo, we get almost 3 hours of ice dancing. ICE DANCING. What’s up with that. And it was only the second of 3 rounds. ICE DANCING in lieu of USA vs Canada. Not only that, the hockey game had been televised earlier on one of the cable channels. We got a short interview of Al “Do you believe in miracles?” Michaels and Chris Collingsworth from the game site saying how electric the atmosphere was and what a ferocious attack the Canadians unleashed on the American goalie in the closing minutes and what a monumental upset they had just witnessed as the Americans upset the favored Canadians at their own game on their ice. It was the first US Olympic win over Canada since 1960. It would have been great to see.

I guess I only have myself to blame. I should have read the fine print to see when the various events were on. But in a million years it would never have occurred to me that more viewers in our country would rather see ice dancing than the USA vs. Canada hockey game. I mean ice dancing is a lovely sport if you like sequins but where did we go wrong? What kind of a life lie’s ahead for our children? Is nothing sacred? In the future when we have an Olympic soccer final of, say, Brazil vs. France, are we going to cut to synchronized swimming? God help us.