The Dawn of Winter...Olympics

For twenty brief minutes, I became palpably excited about the Winter Olympics. Reading the Herald Sun's articles about snowboarding medal hope Torah Bright and Alisa Camplin's struggle to make it to the Games again piqued my interest and alerted me that the action is upon us! With Melbourne's Commonwealth Games beckoning, it appears that the Winter Olympics (or at least the build up) have been neglected altogether.

The 2002 Jeux Olympique d'Hiver were a true spectacle. Riding high off the success of Sydney 2000 and Roy and HG's The Dream, Channel Seven provided complete coverage of all the excitement and Australian success that was to follow. Unlike its Summer counterpart, the Winter Olympics coverage has a balance between watching our Aussie hopes and seeing the best competition on offer. Bobsleigh, ski jumping, speed skating, luge and curling! Oh my!

I'm not so sure this time around. Schedules show that Seven will only show highlights coverage from maybe 9:30pm to 3:30am. Where's the live coverage of these foreign sports throughout the day? More importantly, where's the hockey? Usually we'll get the Gold Medal game (I still have the 2002 one on video, and watched it a few months ago) and several early matches before most sports get started, but those seem to have been left off. Sometimes I feel doomed never to see full hockey games, but to follow the sport vicariously through reports, highlights, stats and speculation. I want my once-every-four-years game to stay!

I remain hopeful of seeing the best on show and enjoying this great competition. Hopefully Channel Seven will do it the justice it deserves. Showing Cool Runnings, one of the greatest films of all-time tonight (with all due respect to Doug E. Doug's other work, such as That Darn Cat!), as a lead-up is a most promising start.