Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Time To Brag a bit:

Living in Chicago, the Olympics were a time to mourn and a time to celebrate. We mourned the loss of the Summer Olympics awarded to Brazil, we mourned the NBC coverage of the Olympics, but we celebrated all the great Olympians from Chicago.



Now, it is amazing to me that NBC chose to show some sports in time delay versus other sports live and in HD. The one a major flaw in their programming was the preliminary USA Versus USA Canada Men’s Hockey game… why was this on MSNBC, not in HD? Every broadcaster seemed to think this was “the game to see”, yet the brass at NBC chose to air ice dancing in the prime time spot. Now, I admit, I am a hockey fan, so my opinion is biased, but I did an unscientific poll with friends, families and acquaintances and found that 80% were looking forward to watching ice hockey, not ice dancing. Even those that are not hockey fans said “the hype” about the game made them want to tune in. So I ask you NBC, what were you thinking?



What makes this even more perplexing, is that when they did show the USA vs. Canada gold medal game, 27.6 million viewers tuned in (it peaked at 34.8 million in overtime). (Nielsen rating) Did NBC think this was a fluke? Even if half the viewers watched the preliminary game, that would still be 13.8 Million viewers, which is on par with total viewership for the NBA finals (14.3 million).



But enough about NBC, it’s time to brag about our Chicago Olympians. Congratulations to all of you!

Our Chicago Black Hawks were well represented:

• Patrick Kane- USA~ Silver

• Jonathan Toews- Canada ~ Gold

• Duncan Keith- Canada ~ Gold

• Brent Seabrook- Canada~ Gold

• Tomas Kopecky– Slovakia – 4th

• Marian Hossa – Slovakia – 4th

As were others that trained and or lived in the Chicagoland area:

• Evan Lysacek, Figure Skating ~ Gold

• Lisa Chesson, Ice Hockey ~ Silver

• Jinelle Zaugg-Siergiej, Ice Hockey~ Silver

• Jonathan Kuck, Speedskating ~ Silver

• Brian Hansen, Speedskating ~Silver

• Shani Davis, Speedskating ~ Gold

• Katherine Reutter, Speedskating ~ Silver

• Lana Gehring, Speedskating ~Bronz

• Jamie Moriarty, Bobsled

• Ben Agosto, Figure Skating

• Nancy Swider-Peltz, Jr., Speedskating