I spent most of the weekend at DunDraCon which really deserves its own post but I don’t have the time or motivation to do the full write-up just now, partially due to the fact that I slept like poo last night and can barely focus on my keyboard enough to distinguish the “T” from the “R.”

However, I did manage to catch a few Olympic hockey games between sessions which got me amped for the quarterfinals coming up. So in response I did some surfing to find commentary about the tournament so far and found a few interesting tidbits. The first of them is Bryant Gumbel grumbling about the Winter Olympics and the second, partially related, is The Spin’s article about the impact of the Olympics on the NHL season.

First of all I have to say that I like the Winter Olympics, but then again I guess a big part of that is that I really like hockey. I’ve already expressed my disgust plenty of times with non-sports like Ice Dancing or anything where subjective artisitic merit is the sole deciding factor between contestants (who may very well be talented and athletic individuals, that’s not the point). This isn’t strictly limited to the Winter games though; witness those Summer Games’ “Floor Exercises” that involve ribbons and balls and prepubescent girls doing what I would normally expect to see prepubescent girls do in the school playground (“frollick,” I believe the term is) only here they earn very prestigious medals for doing so. Whatever.

I would grumble about the coverage of the Winter Olympics over their very existence since they seem to focus almost exclusively on those kinds of artistic competitions. In fact what kills me is events like Ski Jumping where there is a quantifiable way to determine the winner (“Hey look, you jumped farther than everyone else… you win!”) only they don’t use it (“‘Cept not, cause you wobbled your left ski so we’re gonna give the medal to Hans over here who went about ten feet shorter, but looked real good doing it.”).

But the whole racial factor is moronic to me because—and I could be wrong here—to my mind being a legitimately non-predjudicial person means that as hard as it may be to accept, there are going to be things that different people excel at, things that different people are interested in and things that different people can’t seem to bring themselves to care about. What I mean is that it would be ignorant to suggest that a white person couldn’t be good at basketball or boxing, the fact remains that generally speaking the best players and the most predominant examples of great participants have been black. Does that mean basketball and boxing are racist sports? I’d say no, but whether there are genetic tendencies or social constructs that result in black athletes being more predisposed to some sports than others doesn’t mean there is anything inherently evil about it, it’s just different people being different.

I think about it like this: Equality in terms of capability or potential or distinguishability is a farce. There simply is no such thing in a world where no two people are exactly alike as literal equality. Yes, this means women can’t do everything a man can do (don’t get me started on the warped logic that lead feminists to tag “…and better” to that already stupid catchphrase) but it also means the inverse is true as well, and on it goes. Equality in terms of opportunity and racial agnosticism is what should be striven for instead.

So the question is, are non-whites being actively excluded from the Winter Olympics? That I honestly can’t tell you but citing something as n-ist for not having some ludicrous notion of equal representation is not the smoke from the fire.

While certianly having less of a potential impact, though, the other issue brought up by today’s venture through the web’s hockey corners is one I actually think is more of a real concern to these Olympics. On one hand I like the idea that the Olympics represent the best of the best competing for international recognition, but the fact of the matter is that there is a discrepancy here for sports that have more of a consistent exposure level such as basketball, hockey and soccer than there is for events where in some cases their only exposure comes every four years during the Olympics. I’m talking about downhill skiing, track and field or swimming events. How often do you watch men’s 400m butterfly? Yeah, me either; except I watched even the qualifying rounds during the summer games two years ago.

In terms of the more popular (and often team-based) sports, the ideal of a true global competition to see which country hails the best and brightest is a decent idea but countries with the most followers of any such sport are going to have an inherent advantage: That’s why Canada is usually a heavy favorite in ice hockey, South American and European countries tend to excel over the United States in football/soccer and the US by all rights ought to own basketball every four years. If we want to see who is the best team in these sports, there is already an arena for that in the respective leagues for these sports where stronger markets attract the brightest stars. Sure the criteria isn’t national but the pool is larger and it becomes organizational (talent scouts, management, coaching) which means even places like Dallas and Phoenix who, without the aid of modern technology could probably never even engage in ice hockey due to climate limitations, can experience these types of sports. And they aren’t limited by something as unfortunate as national sentiment.

I think the problems that have been introduced by having professional players in the Olympics don’t outweigh the potential advantages or excitement of country-based pro tournaments. What I’m saying is that I’d rather see us go back to an amateur-only Olympics. As a matter of fact, what I’d rather see is the Olympics happen more often (once every two years would be a good start) and have there be a reverse salary cap so that players in minor leagues who make less than x dollars per year from playing their sport (I’m assuming here that minor leaguers still get some sort of paycheck) become eligible. In my estimation this would mean that tomorrow’s brightest stars have a chance to compete on an international and very public stage on a pretty regular basis which could serve as a phenomenal scouting event plus it would not put professional players in a position to turn down the Olympics (which is essentially making a judgement call about which championship means more) or put their jobs on the line for nothing more than prestige which, let’s face it, if you’re earning a million dollars per year you just don’t need. Imagine being able to see Alexander Ovechkin play a couple of years ago before his NHL debut in a tournament of note.

That’s what I’m talking about.