Let The Games Begin

This is a cool year in sports where we get to experience some events that don't come along every year: The World Cup, the Ryder Cup, the Inaugural World Baseball Classic, and the Winter Olympics. I'm not a big winter sports fan, but I do enjoy among others: hockey, bobsled/luge, skiing, and speed skating. By the way, one perk of living in Detroit is getting the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company, Canada's version of NBC). The CBC has Hockey Night in Canada and will show some of the big events live. So if I wanted to, I could get up at 4am and watch the men's downhill, which is kind of neat, but I'm not enough of a fan that I'll do it.

Anyway, here are some of my observations from the Opening Ceremonies:

• #1 sign your country won't win a gold medal: You have more committee members than athletes.
• #2 sign your country won't win a gold medal: The coach is your flag bearer.
• Some of the countries that have participants surprised me: Senegal, Kenya, Thailand, and Brazil among others. And some of these people are 50 years old. The qualifying standards must be pretty low for some sports.
• What was with the disco music during the Parade of Nations??? I'm not complaining, but pretty surprising. I'm half-Italian, is that why I like disco/70s music that much, because it's in my blood??? I mean, nothing says Olympic Games like "YMCA", does it????
• How did Susan Sarandon get chosen to carry the Olympic Flag????

Here's what basketball games I'm going to be paying close attention to:

• Iowa at Indiana. Can Iowa win on the road??? Can Indiana get their confidence back. Iowa blew a sizable lead at Northwestern; Indiana got it handed to them by an outmanned Wisconsin team. I don't know if the Big 10 is that great, they're all good teams at the top.
• LSU at Florida. Florida is struggling to be consistent, LSU is young, but good. Honestly, they could be undefeated. All of their losses have been close and come in games where they've led late in the 2nd half.
• Duke at Maryland. As bad as Maryland plays sometimes, they play like world-beaters against Duke. Does Duke have enough in the emotional tank after almost blowing it at UNC Tues. night? Shelden Williams will take Duke as far as they go this year.
• Southern Illinois at Creighton. A game that should be televised, what will happen next in the Valley??? Tickets I'd want: 1. NCAA Tournament (got em today by the way, 1st and 2nd round at the Palace). 2. Big East Tourney. 3. Missouri Valley Tourney.
• UCLA at Washington. I haven't gotten to see UCLA play much. I like what they have on paper. Washington doesn't have the offensive punch to make a run in the postsesaon like they did last year.
• UConn at Seton Hall. Seton Hall and Marquette are two of my biggest surprises of the year. Seton Hall didn't have much coming back, but Louis Orr has done the job. How can they talk about firing him??? A win over UConn would be huge for their NCAA hopes. I think if UConn doesn't get upset early in the NCAAs like last year, they'll win it all. They'll get up for the big games, maybe not for the early round games.

And obviously I'll be watching the others that will be televised, but those are the big ones tomorrow in my opinion. March Madness is sneaking up on us, just a month away.

My fingers are doing better, I'm typing some with the right hand now. Stitches come out on Tuesday, that'll be good.

Drive time was 55 minutes this morning due to an inch of snow. It's unbelievable how many accidents there were in the area, but luckily I only encountered one on my way in, and that was just a car dying at the Gratiot/75/375 split (right by Comerica Park and Ford Field by the way).

And I can't believe the story about Wayne Gretzky, his wife and the gambling ring. Gretzky, Michael Jordan, and Pete Rose, all arugably the best in their respective games, all tied to some gambling ring at one point in time. Honestly, Wayne Gretzky would be the last person I would think of to be involved in this type of thing.

That's all I've got, have a good night.