Just got to see my first actual Olympic event of the Games, the U.S.’s 5-0 win over Germany in hockey. My bus driver over there was a nice older Polish woman who talked about how great it was to come to the U.S. and join the Mormon church. “In Poland, women had many very important jobs,” she said. “Sixty percent of the doctors were women. But I came here and went to a meeting of Mormon women. They were all protected by their husbands. They knew their place. That’s the way it should be.” To each her own, I suppose.

I almost felt guilty being there in my media seat — I wasn’t covering the game, after all. (Which is fortunate for Dallas readers, since I know about as much about hockey as I do about the native games of Papua New Guinea. Which is to say, not much. Growing up in south Louisiana’ll do that to you.) I was about three rows up from center ice — if you watched the game on TV, you saw the back of my head quite a bit, in the lower left portion of your screen.

Unfortunately, the arena (which normally hosts the minor league Utah Grizzlies) acted as if this was just another minor league game, not the Olympics. So it had all the typical sensory barrage of modern marketed sport: blaring AC/DC before face-offs, the constant “Make some noise!” signals on the big screen, and more “Who Let the Dogs Out?” than I’d care to remember. Come on, this is the Olympics. Have we no dignity?

Speaking of dignity, way to go, U.S. Coach Herb Brooks, whose pregame comments about the Germans being eager to battle the Americans: “Maybe that’s why they lost the Second World War, guys.” Classy.

I’m back at the press center, about to run over for Olympic Event #2, Apolo Anton Ohno hopefully rocking to a gold in short track. Screw all this journalism — I’m going to see some games.

20 February 2002

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