 |
 |
 |
| 2:13 | 1:03 | 0:14 |
| Events | Ads | Fluff |
* Coming up tonight, the ladies' figure skating long program, but first let's try some men's ski cross on for size. Wow! The first race ends with three of the four skiers crashing right at the finish line. It's a photo-finish with three of the racers on their bellies. Awesome! What a way to start the night!
* There aren't any Americans in these quarterfinals. What happened? Isn't Ted Ligety available? I'd say Bode Miller should give this a shot, but he injured his knee yesterday. But this event is crazy; that would be right up his alley.
* To women's hockey, where the USA versus Canada gold medal game was this afternoon. I watched this live. It's just as painful watching the replays. The US blew a 2-0 lead with just under four minutes left and lost in overtime. Stupid Canadians!
* But tomorrow, says NBC, warn your boss that you have plans at lunch. I love that the Peacock network is trying to get us to play hooky for hockey. It's the US and Canadian men playing in the quarterfinals. Avenge me! Aveennngge meeee!
* The finals of the ski cross features one Canadian and three Frenchmen. After I just ranted about wanting to beat Canada, now I have to root for them? What's that all aboot?
* Canadian Brady Leman crashes two turns from the end and France ends up sweeping the medal stand. Canada's ski cross uniforms look like red plaid shirts. Leman is uninjured in his crash, so even though he looks like a lumberjack, he's okay.
* Cris Collinsworth is in the studio tonight with a tearjerking story. Sarah Burke helped get the women's skiing halfpipe event into the Olympics. Sadly, in 2012, she was practicing and hit her head, dying from the injury nine days later. Cris talks to her parents and husband, and shows highlights from her career. This is all very sad, and given that she was a driving force in getting the women's halfpipe in the Olympics, actually appropriate. But Cris is terrible as the reporter here. Whereas everyone else in this story is rejecting mourning and instead celebrating Sarah's life, Cris seems to think he'll seem more respectable if he tries to look depressed at every turn. He is incorrect.
* To the women's halfpipe! Sarah's mom is there, and the volunteers ski down the halfpipe in a heart-shaped formation in tribute to her. That's very nice. Cris Collinsworth is probably looking extra depressed right now.
* Aauuuuggghh! More fluff promoting fluff! Twenty years ago, begins Bob, blah blah blah... we get more on the Harding-Kerrigan story. Is it not enough that we're going to have to watch this for a half hour or more this coming Sunday? I guess not.
* To the Iceberg where we get... not skating. No, Tom Hammond is going to talk about the skating that's coming up, along with Sandra Bezic and Scott Hamilton. What do you think skating fans would rather watch, Tom Hammond talking about skating or skaters? I don't understand why this concept is so hard for the NBC programmers. Back-to-back fluff. Blech!
* With one skier to go, American Maddie Bowman is leading in the women's ski halfpipe. Can France's Marie Martinod beat her out for the gold? No! Maddie wins and her post-race interview has the obligatory Sarah Burke question in it. I'm not going to repeat it here because you already have a pretty good idea of what it was and how it was answered, so there's no point. I don't want to encourage such things in the future.
* It's time to pay some bills! To the Iceberg for women's figure skating. First up, Mao Asada of Japan, already out of the medal picture, but still beloved by Sandra Bezic. Of course, everyone is beloved by Sandra Bezic. Every time she speaks I just picture her breathlessly heaping praise on whoever's skating, with one hand over her heart and the other hand dabbing away tears of joy. Marvelous!
* Akiko Suzuki of Japan is next. Using my own personal scoring system, fall: bad. Really, it's amazing that at the Olympic level all of these skaters cannot make all of these jumps. That just goes to show you how tough these moves actually are.
* America's Polina Edmunds takes the ice in seventh place. Sandra says her sensitivity of the music is beyond her years. Dab a tissue when you say that, Sandra. Whoops! Fall: bad. Sandra says her whole program was exquisite and gorgeous. But it wasn't exquisite enough to move her ahead of the two women who skated before her.
* After a commercial, we get a couple of minutes of pre-final fluff. You know, as opposed to actually showing skaters, because why would we want to see that?
* Sandra describes various skaters as vicious, fighters, and superhuman. Are we still talking about figure skaters or are we talking about the next Marvel superhero movie?
* Tracy Wilson delivers the first substantive information in the figure skating coverage by telling us how many points each skater has and what they need to do to win. I guess somebody at NBC misplace one of their fluff pieces.
* First up in the last group, Russian Yulia Lipnitskaya, the pre-Olympic favorite who fell last night. Whoops! Two falls: bad. Sandra tells us that she casts a spell and is mesmerizing. No matter the spell, two falls means no medal.
* Carolina Kostner of Italy will be skating to "Bolero" tonight, which reminds Sandra of Torvill and Dean, but reminds me of this cartoon. I guess that shows you the differences in the way we think. No falls: good. As the first of the top three to skate, that performance is really going to put the pressure on everyone else. I'd be shocked if she didn't medal.
* Scott will "never forget," he'll "never forget this performance." "She dug down deep and fought for it." Do you think Sandra and Scott are consulting the Big Book Of Cliches in the announce booth?
* Next up for the Russians, Adelina Sotnikova. Given the disappointment in the Big Red hockey team and the letdown in Lipnitskaya's routine, Adelina might be the last chance at Russian glory this Olympics. Oops! No fall, but a stumble: bad. She'll probably still medal, but I'd say she probably won't beat Carolina now.
* Well, shows what I know. Sotnikova beats Kostner by almost eight points. Gracie Gold is next. Can she get the medal her name so rightly deserves? Probably not, but a strong performance could still get her a medal. Eek. Fall: bad.
* Gracie moves into third with two skaters remaining. Unfortunately, one of those skaters is Yuna Kim, who was the leader after last night. Probably no medal tonight for Gracie.
* Ashley Wagner hits the ice next. Will there be more Pink Floyd tonight? Nope. Scott says "she is just per-FORM-ing." Is that the best he can do? He should go back to the Big Book Of Cliches. A little stumble, but nothing bad. Can she make it into third? Nope. In fact, sixth place. That's a little harsh. I would have predicted better than that. Of course, we've already seen how little I know about figure skating scoring.
* Last to skate tonight, the leader and defending gold medalist, Yuna Kim. Gracie can medal if Yuna falls repeatedly. That seems unlikely. "A performance for the ages," gushes Sandra. "This is spectacular!" "Breathtaking!" she adds. Well, you know my scoring: no falls, good. I'm going to say she wins. That might be bad news for her. Maybe she'd prefer for me to say she finishes second. The results: nope. Second place. Did I get anything right tonight?
* When Adelina hears the news, she's so excited she runs through the bowels of the arena looking for her coaches. She finds them in a remote hallway near bags of trash. What is going on in this arena?
* Back at the studio, Bob tells us that NBC's "The Voice" starts next week, so now we're going to see Blake Shelton, Shakira, Usher, and Adam Levine all performing each other's hits. Is this fluff or an ad? It doesn't have anything to do with the Olympics, so I'm calling it an ad.
* Finally, it's Ted Ligety's medal ceremony for his win yesterday. Ted is all smiles on the podium, but will he sing? No, but he's clearly a little choked up. I'll let that go.
We're in the home stretch now. Only three days to go, but the fluff is starting to pile up. Half of tonight's fluff was just promoting other fluff. I have a bad feeling about this. Maybe a US hockey win over Canada tomorrow will make me feel better. U-S-A! U-S-A! See you tomorrow!
