Monday's Post Olympic Musings

Hey Peeps and anyone else checking in. A special "Hey" goes out to Hazel Mae.

So the day started with plenty of talk about Canada's Olympic Team - more to the point, the performances of Canadian women at the games in Torino - Canadians were basking in the glow of Canada's best ever performance at the Winter Games. In the wake of the Torino 2006 Olympic Games - this week's Hazies will be handed out to Canada's Olympians (yes, even the men's hockey team), they did the country proud...even if we don't really pay attention to the sports they dedicate themselves to. Special mention goes out to Canada's medal winners.

By the lunch hour - sports fans had pretty much moved on from the Olympics and right back to the NHL. One of the stories that caught the attention of Canadian sports radio listeners involved members of the gold medal winning Swedish national team potentially being docked pay if they don't report to their NHL teams by Tuesday at midnight. The Red Wings are going to be missing five players for their game in San Jose on Tuesday - Forsberg and Sundin are already on record as saying the will probably miss Tuesday's game. I don't blame them for going home to celebrate - I know this flies in the face of Erin Nicks' logic, but most of these guys would take the Olympic gold over the Stanley Cup.

The Olympic hockey tournament brought up an interesting question - one that can and should be posed to hardcore baseball fans...like the fans Hazel speaks to every night, I'm speaking of Red Sox Nation.

Most Canadian hockey fans put aside their NHL team allegiances and rooted for Team Canada. I say most Canadian hockey fans, because Ms. Erin Nicks of the Ottawa Sun (Sunday edition) in her never ending quest to be seen as interesting and legit, wrote a rather provocative article about "her priorities" when it came to hockey. In Erin's world, a gold medal would be nice - but it comes second AFTER a Stanley Cup for the SenaTards - and in Erin's opinion, every single NHLer should feel the same way. Erin went on to say that she couldn't get into watching Team Canada, or even rooting for them, because many of those guys are players the Tards will be competing against for the Cup.

On the yahoo site the question I posed went like this:

So I put this to you "Dumbo" and Red Sox Nation - you may not care about the WBC...but in a
final game vs.  the Dominican - would it capture your interest? would you be rooting against
Big Papi?

I wonder if the general lack of interest in the WBC is that fans don't want to see their favourite
players in a jersey other than their home team and on the other side of the coin - they don't
want to see players from other teams carrying their jerseys...so to speak.

Are baseball fans so attached to their MLB teams that they can't appreciate or get behind a
World Championship?  (I am just posing the question - not really making a judgement).

I know when the World Cup or Euro soccer tournments come around...it consumes my month;
when I see those guys playing in Maroon and Green..well, I'm right there with them, and
totally caught up in the moment - no matter who they play for. 

Why do sports fans, who are always so quick to complain that athletes are all about the money, complain so bitterly when
one of these athletes puts his country first?  When Hasek went down up here - the Tards Nation was up in arms, complaining
bitterly about how this guy could risk his health and jeopardize Ottawa's chances at winning a Cup - after all, "we are
paying his salary...not the Czechs."  For the record, I have no problem with athletes who want to compete for their countries,
most athletes say there is no greater honour than competing for their country - why do fans want to take that away from them?

How can a sports fan say - I can't get into the tournament, because a player that I don't like is playing for my country?  Is our
love of our national professional league teams so deep rooted that we turn our backs on players representing our country?
Does that make sense?  I don't get it...but its probably because I'm exhausted tonight...

I'll leave you with these questions...have a great one peeps - by the way, a special welcome back to hazelspeeps goes out to
my man DJames.

Hazel I hope things are groovy in your world...enjoy the Whineys tomorrow. 

Song of the night on Hazelspeeps - for all of the crazy sports fans who don't want to watch to see "their" players play for their
home countries....or see players they don't like playing in their country's jersey.

O Canada and The Star Spangled Banner

Peesth Out!