Tag Archives: Olympic Games

A Week’s Worth of Stuff.

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

After eight days of Olympic watching (and yes, I’m still watching most of it with the mute button on), Ohio State basketball watching, Cleveland Cavaliers watching and Tiger Woods watching, here are some thoughts on well, stuff.

1) New Blue Bombers head coach Paul LaPolice told the Winnipeg Sun this week that he’s going to take telephone calls on his radio show again.

He’d better go 18-0 or he’ll regret that decision.

2) Here is the typical response I’ve received from e-mailers on Canada’s Own the Podium program.

Scottie

Own the podium my expletive!  I am not your typical apathetic Canadian….I’M EXPLETIVE PISSED OFF. Just watched the Koreans sweep the short track speed skating. GIVE ME AN EXPLETIVE BREAK…KOREA?

Outside of Nesbitt…the entire speed skating program long and short…along with the alpine skiing program has been a total joke and a disgrace. Especially on Canadian soil. What the expletive have they been doing for the past four years? Smoking dope?Are these people not in shape? Do they not train properly? Or is it just the laid back attitude of accepting LOSING IN CANADA. Or maybe it is just Canadian genetics? I don’t know!

Well, I won’t accept it. NO OTHER NATION ON EARTH SHOULD BEAT US ON ICE…we should be the expletive ICE KINGS OF EARTH.

These programs have to be revalued and heads must roll. I don’t mind my tax dollar going to support our athletes….BUT YOU BETTER START SHOWING SOME RESULTS.

Korea…GIVE ME A BREAK…!

And If I hear that ‘I Believe’ song one more time….my expletive head is going to explode….or I’m going to kill somebody!  So I guess I will be using the mute button on a regular basis from now on….as you can’t turn on your TV or change the channel without it bellowing from the speakers.

I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this expletive any longer.

Ted Arichteff

Winnipeg.

For a lot of Canadians that pre-Olympic TV hype combined with the $118 million Own the Podium program was just a little too much to take.

We should win four medals in hockey and curling so we’ll easily get into double figures in medals, and for me, that’s about as much as could have hoped for. I think Canada will look back on this experience as a good one, but we over-promised and that’s never good.

3) Tiger Woods didn’t owe me an apology. I don’t care what he does with his own life. None of my business.

I just want to know when he’s going to play golf again because the overwhelming boredom that is today’s PGA Tour is for mavens only. Ian Poulter vs. Paul Casey in the Match Play final? Zzzzzzzzzz.

4) Why are VANOC officials making excuses for bus troubles at the 21st Winter Olympic Games? The buses never, ever run smoothly at the Olympics. Ever.

Of the nine Olympics I’ve covered, the only one I enjoyed was Salt Lake City because I had a rental car and there were places to park at the events. If you expect the buses to run properly, you have no idea what you’re involved with and you’re whining about something that will never change.

5) Just in case you’ve forgotten, hockey fans, the NHL trade deadline is March 3.

Maybe the Leafs will make enough deals to finish .500. Or not

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No Need To Worry About Getzlaf. He’s Ready to Play.

Posted on February 15, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Evidently Ryan Getzlaf is ready to play in the Olympic Games. Jeff Carter can stay home.

When Canada opens the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Hockey Tournament, Getzlaf will be in the lineup after a remarkable performance on Sunday night.

Now, in case you missed it, Getzlaf injured his ankle last Monday, didn’t play on Saturday in Calgary and there was a real concern that he might not be ready for the Games. Team Canada GM Steve Yzerman even called Philadelphia Flyers forward Jeff Carter and told him to be ready to play.

But on Sunday night in Edmonton, Getzlaf left no doubt he’d be ready to go. The big Anaheim Ducks rightwinger scored two third-period goals and dished out a pair of assists as his four-point night led the Ducks to a 7-3 road win over the lowly Oilers.

“In my mind, it’s pretty made up,” Getzlaf told nhl.com. “Obviously I would like to be there.”

As he showed on Sunday night, if he’s not there, there are bigger problems than a sore ankle.

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Tkachuk notches his 1000th point. The next Jets Hall of Famer.

Posted on December 1, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Sunday afternoon in Atlanta, St. Louis Blues assistant captain Keith Tkachuk tied the game at 2-2 with a goal late in the second period. It was the 1,000th point of his career. 

Tkachuk, who was a first-round draft pick (19th overall) of the Winnipeg Jets in 1990, scored 196 goals and dished out 179 assists in 389 games over nearly five seasons in Winnipeg. 

 

He also played in four Olympic Games for the United States. 

 

It has been a Hall of Fame career, and when he hangs ‘em up, he’ll become the second legitimate Jet, joining Dale Hawerchuk, among the game’s honoured members.

 

A father of two and a guy who has matured — and truly become a leader — since his days in Winnipeg, Tkachuk deserves a lot of credit for a career that has been consistently good. 

 

And the fact that he has 11 goals in 22 games this season is proof that at 36, he’s as good now as he’s ever been. 

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Two Olympians? What happened to the Pan Am Games Legacy?

Posted on July 18, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

It’s official. An announcement this week by the High Performance Centre for Sport — Manitoba confirmed that the 1999 Pan Am Games not only hurt sport in our province, but just might have destroyed it.

 

This week, the head of the Centre, Randy Anderson announced that only two Manitobans, rower Janine Hanson and archer Jason Lyon had qualified for the 2008 Canadian Olympic team. That’s the fewest number of Manitoba Olympians heading to a single Games in the modern era.

 

So what ever happened to the 1999 Pan Am Games legacy?

 

Oh, let me tell you, I heard a boatload of that insanity from the moment Winnipeg was awarded the Games in the early 90s until the biggest mistake in the province’s history was shut down in ’99. 

 

“It will be the greatest sports legacy in the history of the province,” proclaimed the organizers, as they chased down millions in public funds in order to put on their little summer soiree.

 

It was a crock. And I can tell you, I took a load of abuse for arguing that it was a crock and that those Games would be the biggest waste of $130 million-plus in the history of sport of Manitoba.

 

My own editor at the newspaper where I worked back then called me down — he had invitations to most of the parties — and he and his deputy editor spiked more than a dozen of my reports on Games spending.

 

Well, sports fans, here we are 10 years later and the Pan Am Games turned out to be nothing more than a party for the richest and most influential Manitobans. As a sporting event, it was B-list, and as a legacy, it was a lie.

 

Here’s the legacy in totality:

 

1. Seats at Canad Inns Stadium (back then it was still Winnipeg Stadium) are now two small to be comfortable and a football park that should have been torn down at the time should now be condemned.

 

2. Upgrades at Winnipeg Arena were worthless and the building was destroyed six years after the Games left town.

 

3. The destruction of the Velodrome (remember, the organizers used a portable Velodrome that was sold to the Dutch after the Games) left us without a cycling venue and as you can see, a sport once dominated by Manitobans no longer exists here.

 

That’s it. That’s the legacy. Nothing! No outstanding sports facilities and three Olympics later, we have virtually no Olympians.

 

At a cost of more than $130 million in public funds, we could have built a state of the art hockey arena and saved the Winnipeg Jets, but instead we let Mayor Susan Thompson and some of her wealthy pals convince us that the 1999 Pan Am Games was a good investment. 

 

As we prepare for an Olympic Games a decade later, a Games that involves only two Manitoba athletes, we are reminded that the Pan Am Games was nothing more than a waste of public funds and a party for those who had enough connections to get invited.

 

History now shows, it was the greatest waste of money and effort in Manitoba sport.     

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