Notes on a Friday

The Olympic Winter Games will wrap up this weekend, and loads of highs and lows to be found throughout. A memorable two weeks no matter how you slice it.

The games hadn't yet begun, when tragedy struck. Georgia luger Nodar Kumaritashvili crashed during a practice run, and was killed after his body struck a metal pole. The Games honored the fallen competitor by dedicating the Opening Ceremonies to him.

So many great performances, it's hard to document them all in one blog post, but suffice to say, viewers were treated to plenty of magic in these games. There were disappointments as well-that's to be expected, yet, in the end, the events seemed to all live up to their billing.

There was just one problem I had with these games.

NBC.

When the Olympics are half-a-world away, I completely understand the nature of tape-delaying things. When the games are in a U-S time zone, tape delays are just dumb. I applaud the cable networks for their coverage. Before these Olympics began, I couldn't have told you what channel assignment CNBC or MSNBC had. Now I know, thanks to the coverage of the hockey tournament, and the curling.

The tape-delay factor was rendered useless the day that Twitter went on line. I had to laugh on Thursday when American skier Lindsay Vonn tweeted "Olympic Spoiler Alert", congratulating a pair of American medal winners in nordic combined. Plenty of folks in my Twitter feed were posting results of the days action, which meant that NBC was reduced to being, as my colleague Tim Baier put it, "The Olympic Sportscenter." A highlight show. Of course, that changed with the figure skating, but for the most part, it was a highlight show. The one thing we can all count on is the post-Olympic quotes from the network proclaiming the "huge rating success," the Games were.

4 years away, the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Maybe NBC will figure out how to tape delay those games as well.

One other thing about the Olympics. Can we put away the false rage over Team Canada's women's hockey team celebrating their gold medal win over the U-S? I understand the whole "represent the image of the Olympics," or whatever, bit. You can't tell me, with a straight face, that none of the people within the IOC ever had a beer before legal drinking age. You just can't. These hockey players worked as hard as any athletes in the games, and they won gold. After all that training and effort, it was Miller Time. Or in Canada, Molson Time. Relax people, let these athletes enjoy the fruits of their labor, if only for a couple of hours.

Mike Solarte