12-1, Renee: USA! USA! USA!

The back to back world champion and number one ranked Team USA played their first game in this 2010 women's Olympic hockey tournament versus China.

Team USA unleashed 61 shots on goal and took a 5-0 lead after the first period concluded enroute to tying an American Olympic record with their 12-1 victory.

The game was played in front of a flag waving crowd that included Vice President Joe Biden and his wife and 1980 USA Olympic hockey captain Mike Eruzione.

Jenny Potter scored three goals in only 22 minutes to become the all time leading scorer in US Olympic history male or female.

“You don’t ever like to beat a team, 12-1,” Natalie Darwitz, the American captain, said, adding, “I think we got a little sloppy there in the middle and the end. It’s kind of a tough game when you’re controlling the play and it gets to be about goals and points. You get away from doing the little things.”

Team USA's next Group B game will take place on Tuesday against the Russians, who lost to Finland 5-1 in their opener.

One down, four to go

The Vancouver Games Begin

They got off to a sad start with the unfortunate death of a Georgian luger during a practice run at the Whistler Sliding Centre Friday morning, but the XXI Winter Olympic Games are underway.

So is the athletic competition that we'll be enjoying for the next two weeks. As a matter of fact, the ski jumping prelims took place before the opening ceremony.

With the start of these games, Vancouver with a population of 2 million now has the distinction of being the largest city to ever host a Winter Olympic games. This is also the first time that an opening ceremony was held indoors as well.

Governor General Michaelle Jean declared the games opened as the honor of the lighting the cauldron fell to hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, NBA baller Steve Nash, and Olympians Catriona Le May Doan and Nancy Greene Raine.

The ceremony went flawlessly until it was time to light the indoor cauldron, and one of the four arms failed to lift, leaving Catriona Le May Doan holding her torch as the other three pillars were lit.

Today was a drama filled day, but let's hope that the only drama from now until the February 28 closing ceremony is focused on the competition.

Can Vancouver Top Beijing's Olympic Opener?

The Winter Olympics opening ceremonies will take place later tonight. The question that people around the world are asking is what will Vancouver do to top the awesome spectacle Beijing put on to open the 2008 Games.

It seems since 1992 the torch lighting ceremonies have gotten more spectacular from an archer being used to light the Olympic flame cauldron in Barcelona to Li Ning sky walking his way to the Beijing one.



That's the gold standard so far. Here's the one for Torino 2006.



So the big questions being asked are not only who will be the person or persons from Canadian Olympic history be who will light the Olympic flame, but how will they do it?

Chicago’s Olympic Disappointment

My latest piece for Global Comment

As a sports fan, I absolutely love watching the Olympic Games and have done so since the Grenoble Winter and Mexico City Summer Games. I love the fact that when the Games are happening, we are reminded that, despite competing on national teams for the ultimate prize of an Olympic gold medal, we are one species and one planet.

To me, the Olympics are an enjoyable, drama-packed microcosm of life in many ways. You can train for years to be an elite athlete in your sport, but your best may not be good enough to win an Olympic medal on that particular day. You can be sailing along and headed to ultimate victory, but a small mistake, badly timed injury or failure to execute at a critical juncture ends up costing you a spot in the medal round.

On the other hand, there are athletes who show up completely unheralded, but step up their athletic performances to defeat the odds and become Olympic champions. And, unfortunately, there are also those will stoop to cheating and other underhanded measures to win at all costs.

It was announced that Rio de Janeiro will be the host city for the 2016 Olympics, and I have to say that it is disappointing that Chicago didn’t get it.

The pre-meeting buzz was that the intense competition for the 2016 Games was between Chicago and Rio. Then, we were eliminated in the first round.

I think Chicago had an uphill battle for several reasons. There’s still some anti-American sentiment on the planet, even though President Obama in his ten months in office has done much to rehabilitate our tattered image. The result makes it clear that the eight years of animosity the Bush administration’s ‘screw the world’ foreign policy stirred up hasn’t subsided yet. I suspect some IOC members saw a golden opportunity to stick it to the United States in a painfully public way.

American right-wingers playing politics with the bid in order to “embarrass President Obama” and score political points with their base didn’t help either. I was particularly incensed about the open gloating from Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other conservative propagandists cheering the loss as a “defeat for Obama.”

These are the same conservatives that “love” America? Yeah, right.

I must point out that Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had an extremely persuasive argument. He stated that it was unfair for North American, European and Asian cities to have repeatedly hosted the games while African and South American ones haven’t.

“It is a time to address this imbalance,” he said to the IOC delegates. “It is time to light the Olympic cauldron in a tropical country.” This argument surely resonated with people, combined with bloc voting.

Madrid, thanks to former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch’s impassioned speech, actually led the first round of voting with 28 votes compared to 26 for Rio and 22 for Tokyo. Chicago garnered just 18 votes. In the second round, Rio surged ahead with 46 votes to Madrid’s 29. Tokyo exited with 22. Rio secured the games in the third round voting with 66 votes while Madrid garnered 32.
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“We have sent out a message that we want to go global,” said IOC member Gerhard Heiberg of Norway.

Heiberg and other IOC members did say they were chagrined about the painfully public diss that was inflicted on Chicago. “I am very sad; I am very sorry. This should not have happened. This was, I can’t say a wrong decision, but it was not a right decision.”

IOC member Kevan Gosper of Australia stated, “The whole thing doesn’t make sense, other than there has been a stupid bloc vote.” Also factoring into this was feuding between the USOC and the International Olympic committee over the splits of lucrative Olympic television revenue from US TV networks, and, as Gosper mentioned, strategic bloc voting that sought to eliminate Chicago as a potential threat to Rio.

IOC President Jacques Rogge stated in a press conference that Chicago would have been a better financial choice for the Olympic Games in 2016, if the IOC were inclined to follow the money.

"It is clear that the IOC in its choice has not chosen, as it has been criticized many times, for the big money. Had we had big money as a consideration then we would have gone with Chicago. That’s what it shows. That proves that money is not the driving force in the choice of an Olympic city.”

I feel Chicago’s pain, especially in light of the fact that Rio’s bid had been consistently criticized by the IOC’s own evaluation commission. On paper, many of its elements would probably rank it weakest of the four shortlisted cities.

My hometown of Houston has been trying to land the Olympic Games since 1996. Despite being told by USOC officials that we’ve had superior bid plans, noting the enthusiastic political backing from citizens and city, county and state officials, we lost out in the final rounds to become the USOC bid city for the 2012 and 2016 games to New York and Chicago respectively, because of their perceived “better” international cachet.

Read the rest at Global Comment

Shut Up Fool! Awards-IOC Meeting Edition

We'll know in a few hours if the 2016 Games will be held in Chicago.

Chicago will be first up at 8:50 AM Copenhagen time in making its final 45 minute presentation to the IOC, followed by 15 minutes of questions and answer.

It will then be followed by Tokyo at 10:30 AM, then Rio at 12:10 PM and Madrid at 2:50 PM

The 106 IOC members will start voting by secret ballot at 5:10 PM. All IOC members with a candidate city in the running won't be allowed to vote until their city is eliminated. That's means the eight members from the US, Brazil, Japan and Spain won't vote in the first round. That means there will be 98 members voting in the first round.

First one to get 55 votes wins the bid. Voting should be completed by 5:40 PM with the live televised announcement ceremony scheduled from 6:30 to 7 PM

But while we wait for the vote and the final decision, let see what fool won the gold medal for stupidity.

As usual, there were many worthy candidates for our Shut Up Fool award. The perennial suspects in Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly and Hannity. Michelle Malkin was considered, along with Michael Steele and Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ)

But the runaway winner this week was Rep. Michele Bachmann. (R-MN)

In the latest attempt to kill health care reform, she took it to another ridiculous extreme by claiming the school based health clinics would begin offering abortions.



FYI, here's what Section 2511 of the health care bill referred to by Rep. Bachmann actually states.

(i) "SBHC services will be provides in accordance with Federal, State, and local laws governing-- (I) obtaining parental or guardian consent; and (II) patient privacy and student records, including section 264 of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and section 444 of the General Education Provision Act;

Stop the conservalies. This bill doesn't mention abortion, and she knows it.

Is it November 2010 yet?

All together gang, Rep. Michele Bachmann, shut up fool!