Fragile?

The Olympics are done for another four years. I prefer the winter over the summer, probably because I spent the entire 2002 winter games on the couch with a back injury. This afforded me the opportunity to acquaint myself with the intricacies of speed skating and snowboarding, as well as the stuff I grew up watching on Wide World of Sports—alpine skiing, figure skating and the like.

The games in Pyeong Chang were riddled with the usual assortment of political scandal, heartbreak, and upsets (some happy, some not). They also featured swan songs for a number of athletes who have been staples in competition for years, and showcased the next generation of champions who will follow them. Ter and I watched the hockey (no gold medal game should be settled by a shootout) and the figure skating, the latter being a favourite because of the artistry as well as the technical skill. Truly, I can’t tell a salchow from an axel or a lutz, never mind counting the number of rotations in midair, but the beauty of the human form in flight rivals that of a horse at full gallop.

Our compostable containers are miraculous works of engineering. The things they can do on an Olympic scale are astonishing. Strength, agility, flexibility, speed, endurance ... in every competition, I saw something amazing. The slow motion replays only accentuated the marvel that is the human body.

At the same time, it doesn’t take much to knock us out of whack. A twist in the wrong direction will tear a tendon. A sneeze will cause a muscle spasm to seize us in our tracks. A hard fall will break a bone. A hard hit will scramble a brain. A crash in training will sideline an athlete for years and maybe kill their dream of Olympic gold. That’s how fragile our flesh and blood forms are.

Then there’s Mark McMorris, who recovered from a broken pelvis to compete in the snowboard event this year. The British pairs skater who shattered a kneecap and came back to skate in Pyeong Chang. The hockey player who broke his neck a year ago and won bronze for Canada. I can’t even name the others, and there were more than a few. They came from all nations with the same story: debilitating injury and a refusal to concede. So while the human body may be fragile, it seems the human spirit is far from it.

And that’s not only true for Olympians. It’s true of every soul inhabiting the planet. The indomitable power in each of us can rise to the most daunting challenge. The nature of this mortal coil means we can’t overcome everything, which presents a challenge of a different sort: the challenge of acceptance, which can be as difficult as fighting back from injury. Knowing when to stop may be the toughest hurdle of all.

Us? Fragile? Nah.

Hockey All the Time

Such excitement! Under the new deal between Rogers and the NHL, Hockey Night in Canada now features more televised games on Saturday than at any other time in my history! Last night, we had the perennial CBC option, plus four others via various Sportsnet and CITY channels. For the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long, the Flyers were my first game of the Saturday night season.

And the buggers lost. Not only did they lose, they blew a 3-0 lead to do it. At home, no less. That takes talent. Montreal beat them 4-3 in a shootout, so they got a point, but no win. No matter how you spin it, that means they lost. For the third game in a row. Just like last year.

Is Craig Berube in trouble? Peter Laviolette lost his job after losing the first three games in 2013/14, but I suspect that Berube is okay for the nonce. Philly is notoriously slow out of the gate, but will pick up momentum as the season progresses. As hard as it is on Basher and me, the 82 game season is a blessing. If this was back the old days, we’d already be out of the playoffs.

Like Toronto, perchance?

And, boy, did Don Cherry go on a rant about the Leafs continually ignoring Canadian prospects and selecting Europeans in the draft. He was so bent out of shape that he got his mords wixed and called two of the Leafs’ picks “a Swinn and a Fede”—which is in no way the players’ fault; they just want to play in the big league. But so do the thousands of kids in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), and according to Grapes, none of them will ever make it to Toronto. He’s a bit of a doofus in other matters, but the man is a patriot and he knows hockey. I must admit, I prefer the Canadian kids myself—they play a sturdier game and seem to be better team players than the flashier Europeans. I think that’s why Russia blew the Olympics. They were badly coached, yes, but all those NHL “stars” jostling for puck possession to be the hero … You really do have to leave your ego on the bench, ’cause the game is as much about opportunity as it is about skill, and if your third line winger is still on the ice but hovering off the radar, get him the frigging puck and settle for the assist. You’ll still get a point in the fantasy pool.

Is this enough ranting, Ru? Not quite …

Game Two of HNIC: the Vancouver home opener, where the visiting Oilers also blew a fast lead. It was a better game than MTL/PHI because the Canucks are trying to resurrect themselves after the Tortorella debacle and they came from behind a couple of times to win last night’s game in a shootout. I hate hate hate that their #17 isn’t Ryan Kesler anymore—they should have “retired” the number for a year to get me over the trade—but it was fun to see the Twedes working their cyclical magic again, and now that Roberto is Luongone, the net is in good solid hands with Ryan Miller. No goalkeeping controversy this year (one hopes).

Let’s save that one for Philadelphia.

Medallion Men

Canada 3, Sweden 0

0400 PST. Ter and I are up and in position with tea and teddy bears. I’m waiting for the anthems, but the game starts without them. Oh, duh, thinks I, this is the Olympics. They play the anthem after the game. Which one will it be? Canada’s or Sweden’s?

By now the whole world—whether or not they care—knows it was Canada’s. Jonathan Toews scored in the first period. Sid Crosby plucked the puck and scored unassisted in the second. Chris Kunitz sealed it, also unassisted, in the third. Final score 3-0. BC’s Carey Price got the shutout. I’m glad I got up to watch it live, especially since Ter is hilarious when she’s dopey and during one of Price’s few roaming moments, she loosed a stream of gibberish that sounded like Chinese though she said was more likely native to the fourth dimension. We were happy. The boys played like, well, pros. They stuck to their plan, didn’t give an inch, and pounced on the other team’s gaffes. They played like that through the whole tournament, and while this was the only one of two games I watched from start to finish, I got a look at their style against Latvia and the US, and they stayed solid against stubborn opposition. It was a better team than we had in 2010. Who knew?

I guess they did, and they’re the ones who truly mattered.

So, the party’s over. I felt a similar sadness when the 2010 Games were done. As with Christmas, you spend so much time and energy prepping for the event, get tired enough to wish it was over halfway through, then feel slightly let down when it ends. It made sense to feel that way in 2010—not only were we the host country, but I live across the strait from the host city. The party atmosphere leaked over the water to brighten the dreariest month in Victoria’s calendar. While they were on, like it or not, everyone was in to the 2010 Olympics. When they were over and the world went home, the locals stood around looking alternately lost, relieved, and satisfied. We’re probably still paying the bills (Montreal finally finished paying for 1976 last year), but at least Vancouver escaped the dubious honour of being the most expensive Olympics to date. Sochi put on a grand show, but 50 billion dollars’ worth? That’s a lot of rubles. And they didn’t win the gold they wanted. I’d be sorrier about that one except that it went to our guys instead. The spirit of the Games is one thing. Hockey is a definite other.

I will remember more of Sochi than Canada winning all the gold in hockey, though. My 2014 champion is the Latvian goalie who nearly killed himself to hold our boys at bay—57 shots and the second goal only went in because his coach didn’t call a time out to let him breathe. Being mesmerized by Yuna Kim and dazzled by Carolina Kostner in the ladies’ free skate. Laughing with Ter over the baggy pants on the halfpipers. Wondering what the heck happened to les freres Hamelin in speed skating. Sharing pins and needles with my co-workers while the Canadian women fought back in the hockey final against the States. My heart beating with the clock on the bobsleigh run. Tearing up for Teemu Selanne after the Finns won hockey bronze. Watching Virtue and Moir perform to Rihanna’s “Stay” in the exhibition skate. Feeling immense pride in every athlete who sported the maple leaf in every event, win, place or show. I don’t know why they do it; I’m just grateful that they do.

And I’m glad I was able to see so much of it. Thank you, world.

Go, Canada.

Potpourru

Ter and I have been sick for what feels like forever though I’m sure it’s only been a couple of weeks, but it’s interfered with any sort of mystical magical airy-fairy philosophical wonderment that normally makes my day more hopeful. When I’m trapped in an ailing third dimension, I get no further than the first rung of the survival ladder, and that means little-to-no astral meandering while my compostable container fights off the flu bug.

Life dares to continue without me, however. Canadian women have won tons of gold at the Olympics, this week. Curling, halfpipe, bobsleigh. The hockey game was on in the boardroom at work yesterday and man, was I glad I hadn’t taken the day off to watch it from the beginning; by the time my 10:00 meeting was done, I dropped in to discover that the girls were almost done as well. 3.5 minutes to go and they somehow scored twice to force overtime, then scored on a power play. If not for Marie-Philippe Poulin and some questionable calls, we’d have been singing The Star Spangled Banner instead of O Canada. I was briefly kinda sorta maybe a little but not really sorry for the US team, given that I’d have been extremely bitter to lose the gold after shutting out the opposition through 56 minutes … but since the outcome went my way, I’m good with it.

Oh, and it’s always good for morale, when you’re in your fifties and feel like crap, to watch figure skating of any ilk. Ramp up the competition to Olympic caliber and prepare for tears. I’m grateful that I had no aspirations as a kid because my bones would have shattered bigger dreams, but I still envy the athletes who can create such memorable moments of grace, beauty, art and physical strength. I don’t always care which country they’re skating for, either. Yuna Kim skated a short program that was pure poetry; regrettably, she lost the gold to Russia. Controversy rages after that one, too, by the way. Will they never get past Salt Lake in 2002?

I’ve also been watching True Detective. Another grisly-crime-committed-in-a-southern-backwater-dump-cop show where said cops are polar opposites yet must forge a relationship if they want to bring the murderer to justice. This one is interesting because of the format—the cops who solved the murder are being interviewed 15 years later, and the story jumps back and forth between then and now—and because Matthew McConaughey plays the oddball in the pair. I want to see where he goes with it … and it’s entertaining me between sneezes and re-steeps.

I read more when I’m sick. I’m almost finished with Dangerous Women and am three-fourths through a steampunk mystery/romance that has pretty well assured me that it isn’t my genre. Then the author of Fifty Shades of Gray was in Vancouver for a book signing last week. She wasn’t interviewed but a few folk in the lineup were—the most amusing thing about the story was the one member of the broadcast team afterward who admitted to reading the first book and clearly did not get the cult obsession that sprang from it. The inevitable movie is in production, gods help us. Maybe I should start writing porn, since that’s what seems to be selling.

I’d have to lower my standards, though.

Augh! Can’t do it!

So much for that idea.

*cough, cough*

Medal Mettle

It kills me to hear an athlete say that they’ve disappointed their country when they don’t win gold at the Olympic games. Ter and I watched Patrick Chan this week, biting our nails when Japan’s Yuzuru Hanyu blew a few jumps in the free skate and thus left the door ajar for our man on blades. Four points had separated them after the short program and after Hanyu proved to be fallible, in theory, the gold was Chan’s to lose.

Only he had a rough skate, too. In the end, those four points made all the difference. Patrick Chan won silver in Sochi—twice. He also helped his mates to silver in the first-ever team skating event, and if not for those Russians …

Finnish hockey god Teemu Selanne said in Torino that bronze is better because you have to win that medal. Silver simply means that you lost the gold (Sweden beat the Finns in 2008—thanks to a broken hockey stick, of all things). Since he put it that way, I understand the disappointment and long faces often seen on the second place finishers. My attitude has usually been, Hey, you got to the final! But in sport, there’s one winner and there’s everyone else.

Patrick Chan said with tears in his eyes that, among other things, he felt like he’d disappointed his country. I’ve heard others say it, too, and every time my heart breaks not for the country, but for the athletes themselves. They’re the ones who put it on the line, who work and train and devote their lives to pursuing their passion. Wow. Olympic gold. Sure, it’s a pretty colour. It symbolizes supremacy. It’s a funny thing, but I watch the Olympics and see greater things than gold medals being awarded. I see the athletes supporting each other regardless of nationality. I see relationships being forged and differences being dissolved. Champions don’t always win a medal. Sometimes they just finish the race. And while I get that flying your nation’s flag lends some responsibility (kind of like how you behave in someone else’s home reflects on your parents), there isn’t one member of the Canadian team who doesn’t deserve to be at the Games. They’re all heroes to me.

Going for Gold

Team Canada - 2010

The Canadian men’s Olympic hockey team was named yesterday. No real surprises, a couple of disappointments, and at least one derisive smirk – but while I could go the Leaf fan route and downplay the team’s chances in Sochi, I’ve decided to get fully behind them and cheer until they reach the Finnish line. Did I say Finnish? I meant finish. Silly me; still smarting from the world juniors. Anyway, who knows? Despite naysayers and injuries, past stats and increasingly skilled opposition in the Games, the Canadian guys could very well win gold! They have to believe it going in, else why bother? And we have to believe it, too. Expecting failure is a good way to ensure it … though I hope Carey Price is the starting goalie over “24 second Lou”. Pittsburgh played in Vancouver last night; before the game I wondered if Sidney Crosby would skate up to Luongo and say, “Am I gonna have to save your a** like I did in 2010?” Ter replied that such trash talk wouldn’t be terribly captain-like, and after a short debate about what constitutes unsportsmanlike conduct, she suggested that the classier comment would be something like, “I’ve got your back, buddy.”

Which is why she’s a cut above me in the realm of hockey fandom.

The discussion was moot in any case. Luongo is out with an ankle injury for 1 to 2 weeks, so Price’s chances are looking good. I hope he crashes and burns tonight, though – les Habs are in Philadelphia and the Flyers are on a roll. They beat New Jersey last night, 3 - 1 in regulation.

In other news, I’m on pace to finish the first draft of Shade’s story before I go back to work in five days. I have a few significant scenes and the ending left to do. I’m hoping the former will lead the latter into writing itself, as it’s not immediately clear to me how this story will be resolved. It’s taken me months to get this far, so obviously patience is the key. Patience, and me trusting the muse. I don’t even know what to call it – a romance, a mystery, a fantasy, or what. No title yet, either. Tiny details designed to distract me from the greater work, so before I get hung up on the trivial, I’d better focus on the main event.

Kind of like Team Canada will have to do for the Olympics.