This blog began as a way to record my musings about preparations and travels to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada February 16-27, 2010. From that amazing experience came this ongoing story of becoming a sports fan. You can follow my tales of awe, agony, and all the emotions in between as well as view pics from seasons of Phillies baseball. Along the way is a little Eagles football thrown in for fun, and even some astronomy and weather related tales. I feel lucky to have witnessed some historic games, some heartbreaking losses, but all wonderful when told from this new fan's point of view.

Blog Archives postings:
Dec 2009-Feb 2010
Olympics
March 2010-Dec 2011
Baseball and more
2011 The Phillies do again, winning the Eastern Championship for the 5th straight year.
April 2012-Sept 27 2012 Not the best season for the Phillies
2013-We wait and see!

Friday, February 19, 2010

The men of skating ROCK

A late night and well worth staying up to see the men rise to their best.
 My friends don't have a television, so I walked down a few blocks to the local brewery/pub where they have a large screen tv. I had to convince the manager to turn on the sound after the women's snowboarding. I stayed there until 10:30 when they closed up shop.
Across the street was a real bar with pool tables and video games and lots of tvs showing everything from basketball to Sex in the City to the Olympics. I asked the bartender to turn up the volume , but since the whole place was filled with loud music that seeped into the bar area, that wasn't going to work. I plunked myself down at a table in front of the largest darn screen in the quieter room and watched with great joy the last 6 men skate their hearts out to hard  rock music! It wasn't bad, actually. Produced an edgy feeling that was Much better than  the sappy music some of them choose for the short program.
The captioning was on, so I did get some of the insipid commentary
The bartender kept tabs on me, high fiving after Evan Lysacek skated a great program. " I don't want that Russian to win" he said.Another women said, " I don't want that blonde guy to win"  Frankly, neither did I.I was rooting for Daisake who eventually won the bronze I think he had the most exhuberant short program and all his motions flowed directly from his center and radiated out with flair and grace

But it was true. Evan made it happen. Skill artistry, difficulty, no mistakes.

When Pleshenko's scores came up and it was certain that Evan Lysacek had won gold, I cheered and clapped, the bartender high fived me again, and a big tip went into his tip bowl.
I left the bar smiling It was well worth having to walk back at midnight in the cool air, even knowing that I get up at 5:30 am tomorrow to catch my 7:40 train to Vancouver.
Yes finally, I will be in Vancouver tomorrow for the  Ice Dancing compulsory skate, so stay tuned.