Five Crazy Things About the Winter Olympics

Huge ratings! Luge-video blackout! Céline Dion M.I.A.!

By Joal Ryan Feb 16, 2010 10:05 PMTags
Joanna Sulej, Mateusz Chruscinski, Celine DionYURI KADOBNOV/AFP/Getty Images; Christopher Polk/Getty Images

A night of artistry—and splats. A much-watched video that NBC won't let you watch anymore (at least not on its air). A Canadian salute to Canada minus über-Canadian Céline Dion

The Winter Olympics, given their size, scope and overall Olympic-ness, are always crazy-weird. But this year's games? Off-the-charts crazy-weird and of course, sadly, deadly. Five observations on the oddness so far:

1. Everybody hates the coverage, but nobody's tuning out.

The verdict from Deadspin was, and we quote, "This Olympics sucks." But you know what? Everything about the games is bigger than the previous edition, including Friday's opening ceremony that bled into Saturday morning. (Thanks for the bleary eyes, NBC, Canada and Mr. YouTube Poetry Man. Thanks a lot.)

In all, an estimated 117 million watched the Olympics on one of NBC's networks during the games' first three nights—and then, of course, probably complained about the time-delayed coverage or about how it's weird Bob Costas never ages, much less acknowledges it's not 1976 anymore and that he's not the gatekeeper.

2. The luge video blackout isn't working. 

You know very well which luge video we're talking about—unless by chance Bob Costas is your gatekeeper and you tuned him in starting Saturday, when he announced NBC wouldn't show you-know-which luge video anymore. It's not that NBC's wrong. It's not that you're wrong for Googling "Olympic luger who died." It's just weird that the games' signature moment has disappeared from the games themselves—when it's being watched just about everywhere else.

3. You can win stuff for falling down.

Seriously, who knew? Start practicing now for the 2014 games, kids.

4. Guys hate falling down figure skating so much, they'll turn to The Bachelor for comfort. 

Opposite the Olympics from 8 to 10 p.m. last night, ABC's white-hot dating competition cooled slightly from last week but beefed up among young men.

5. Canada can carry on without Céline Dion, thankyouverymuch

Seriously, who knew? So in the opening ceremonies, when you were overrun by maple leaf-aligned stars—Bryan Adams, Nelly Furtado and Sarah McLachlan, among them—you figured Robin Sparkles wasn't far off from taking the stage and that, heck, Dion, the Canadian superstar, was a lock. Except she, Dion, never showed. For the record, Dion was asked, but she respectfully declined. And no, we have no idea where William Shatner was, either.

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They may not be world-class figure skaters, but they do look good in scarves. Check out Our Winter Olympians.