Winter Games

Sakamoto Kaori at the team event

When we lived in Ottawa, we discovered the Olympic Winter Games. When it's -26 degrees outside and pitch dark at 4 pm, anything would do. Plus, there's hockey.

Despite the excitement, Olympic hockey isn't as good as NHL hockey, and when I watch the winter olympics I opt mostly for the more creative stuff: figure skating (although I can't connect to ice dancing, however hard I tried), big air (jumping with a snowboard), slopestyle (jumping with skis), that sort of thing. Like with the summer games, I prefer these to the "let's see who goes faster" events. The drama and emotionality of the skating team event have captured us over the weekend. Generally, the athletes are quite a bit more emotional than I remember from my previous experiences. I have no doubt that professional athletes had emotions in the 1990s. What's different is probably that it's becoming more acceptable for them to show these emotions.