The Petra Zone

Just wondered how many other Petheads are also following the Games, and which ones you enjoy?

My favorites are women's hockey (I played when I was younger), men's and pairs figure skating, cross country skiing, snowboard cross, curling (yes, I do understand the game LOL!), and more, but I watch everything...

Jen

I haven't really been following the games, but I like the ice skating.

I am from Canada. Of course we follow winter olympics. It's the summer ones that are boring and stupid.

Figure skating is way too subjective, so I don't care for it in general. I like the sports where there is generally an obvious winner, though the trick stuff (both skiing and snowboarding) is cool.

One thing that annoys me is that Canada should totally have gold/gold every year in curling! Curling is all we do, dammit! Friggin rinks we send keep screwing it up-too bad we lost our best skip. The women's rink we sent last time were too busy being cute to bother playing. Bah.
< /rant >

We're the exact opposite... Noone here has a CLUE about curling! I'd love to try it one day, but the nearest place I know to play is nearly 2 hours away. You have to love a game that takes as much or more thinking as it does brawn...

My preference (as you probably noted) is more for the endurance events than the trick events, although I enjoy watching both types. My love of men's figure skating has more to do with enjoying nice looking guys who are graceful and not afraid of it than anything else. I like pairs skating because my former partner and I used to "borrow" tricks from the pairs skaters and ice dancers when we competed nationally and internationally in unicycling events. We did a lot of the same lifts!

Anyhow, enjoy the Games!
Jen

The Olympics ceased being relevant when Ali lit the torch for Atlanta 1996.

That was the "jump-the-shark" moment for me.

Could one of you guys please explain curling to me. I always catch it at the end, and don't understand it.

Some curling info, including the terminology you'll hear on the Olympic broadcasts can be found at:

http://www.torino2006.org/ENG/OlympicGa ... egole.html

Hope that helps!
Jen

curling is like big giant shuffleboard, with sweeping.

I alway threw the rocks too hard. It is definitely a finesse game.

js3971 wrote:Could one of you guys please explain curling to me. I always catch it at the end, and don't understand it.

Curling is when women with straight hair use a hot metal item to make their hair curly.

Hope that helps.

Oh and Jonathan: that was the summer olympics. They already sucked anyway.

har har, I failed to catch that event on this year's olympics. Do the women whose hair is already curly have an advantage over those with straight hair?

Do men participate in this?

Thanks for the website, Jen. That does help. Watching it, it did give me a sense of shuffleboard on ice, with some people sweeping for whatever reason. Now I understand it a little better.

The sweeping smooths the ice a little, making a path for the rock to follow. They sweep where they want the rock to go, or if it is going slow, to give it more momentum.

Gushue won Gold! Yay! We'll never be rid of Russ Howard now.

I didn't think we'd do so well in speed skating this time around either. Over all not so bad.