I'VE GOT OLYMPIC FEVER!

That's right, it's that time again! Well, it's not so much a fever, but I feel a little under the weather and I coughed up some phlegm first thing in the morning, so that can only mean the WINTER OLYMPICS ARE HERE! Tonight's opening ceremonies in Turin/Torino should be a treat, since I heard that the Americans aren't wearing cowboy hats, and Luciano Pavarotti and Yoko Ono are going to be there (actually, I'm not sure of that second one, it's only a rumor). Personally, I've never been a fan of the summer games, it seems like it's really just a lot of running. However, the winter sports, like hockey, skiing, ski jumping, speed skating and luge, among others, are infinitely more interesting to me. I can see people run all the time; I can't always see people slide a giant stone across an ice rink and run in front of it with brooms, or see skiers shooting a rifle in the woods. Now that's entertainment!

Viewing the events over here in the States is going to be tough because of the 6 hour time difference. In fact, I just found out that the gold medal hockey game is going to be at 8:00 AM on February 26th. Holy crap! Can't they make this a little more viewer friendly? I don't care if you have to play at midnight over there, dammit! Americans spend billions of dollars traveling over to Italy, spending ridiculous amounts of money under the Tuscan sun just to say hi to the Pope! Why can't Italy throw us a bone, here? Oh well, I guess it's too late to change the schedule. I'm going to need a whole lotta lattes to make it through this.

Fun things to look for:

*Bob Costas trying to appear "fun" and "hip" by using snowboarding slang, like "riding fakie to the frontside wall and sticking the 1080, that was sick!"
*Irritating fluff pieces about olympians having to "overcome adversity"
*A no-holds barred Michelle Kwan-a-thon!
*German Georg "The Speeding Sausage" Hackl, will be a luger for the 6th (and last) time this year (I didn't have a joke, I just wanted to type "Speeding Sausage")
*NJ native Danny Kass in the snowboarding half-pipe (you know it's a sport we invented just to get medals when we're sending skiers from New Jersey)
*Apolo Ono getting stabbed with a skate by an angry South Korean during a short-track speed skating event
*US skeleton luge team trashing the Olympic Village, as they fail to medal
*US Figure skater Johnny Weir loves Christina Aguilera songs, Moulin Rouge, and Margaret Cho
*If the French figure skating judge even LOOKS at us wrong, there's gonna be a donnybrook on the ice
*Did I mention some of the skiers carry rifles?

Naturally, I was looking forward to watching some events in HD (esp. hockey) on the NBC-HD and Universal-HD channels, but unfortunately all of the Universal HD stuff is live. This means that during the middle of the week we've got Canada vs. Czech hockey at 5:30 AM, ski jumping at 4 PM, USA vs. Russia hockey at 2 PM, and so on. Can't they postpone "Knight Rider" reruns for two weeks to replay some events in prime time? I read one disclaimer about HDNet's coverage: all broadcasts are postponed one day. Gee, thanks.

Hockey preview: Let's face it, it's going to be another tough road for the US men's hockey team. Just glancing at the men's ice hockey Olympic rosters (as of February 8) tells me that we got the short end of the goalie stick, so to speak. With the trio of Esche (persistent groin problems, spotty play as of late), DiPietro (struggling with Isles, near bottom of goalie stats with a 3.44 GAA/.890 SV) and Graham (probably the starter, but looked horrible getting pulled in 2/7 game @ NJ), it's going to be a tough road (where is the Sabres' Ryan Miller???). With a lot of old timers on the roster (Modano, Chelios, Weight, Tkachuk), I honestly don't know who's going to score goals for this squad, except maybe Knuble, Cole and Gionta, the only players with more than 25 goals in the NHL so far. That's right, we're depending on a Devil to score goals for us--not a good sign.

I see the favorites to win the gold are the Canadian team (3:2 odds, just ask Mrs. Gretzky!), who are stacked as usual. The Czech (Hasek, Jagr, Elias, Hejduk) and Swedish (hot Ranger rookie Lundqvist, a couple of Sedins, and 6 guys with names ending in -sson) teams also have a legitimate shot. The Russians, with flashy young goal scorers (Afinogenov, Ovechkin, Datsyuk) but little goaltending are a question mark, but could be scary. Long shots would be the USA, Slovakia, and Finnish squads. Look out for Gunther Hell, goalie for the Italian team. I also heard Piazza will be catching for them, or something.

All in all, it should be Olymp-tacular!