Splitting the rocks of ignorance that obscure the light of knowledge and truth. Now let's all get drunk and play ping pong.

e-mail me at dry_coldAThotmail.com

 
Brave New World

Saw this quote in this Edmonton Journal:

The Renegades plan to follow the example of the Saskatchewan Roughriders...

Have I been transported into some kind of alternate universe? Sure, many teams have followed the example of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, but nobody's ever bragged about it before.
posted by Austin at 4:32 PM

 
More Mess

Following the usual rumour chain (which goes non-local tabloid, local tabloid, local broadsheet), the Edmonton Journal jumps in on the Messier-to-Edmonton story. Jim Matheson has the just-the-facts piece, which unfortunately veers off into a rather starry-eyed list of all the reasons Messier would be great here. Matheson's usually pretty good, but this article makes him sound like a 15-year old girl waiting for the latest boy band to come to town. Unfortunately, Dan Barnes' more sceptical column isn't on line yet -- I'll link to it when and if it's posted.

Matheson reports some interesting facts, including: Kevin Lowe has approached Doug Messier, Mark's dad and agent; Messier hasn't been contacted himself, and sounds pretty non-committal; and that Brian Leetch signing (which happened today) with the Rangers would increase Messier's chances of signing there as well.
posted by Austin at 4:30 PM

 
Getting Messy

Oh, dear. Looks like the Messier-to-Edmonton rumour is gaining a little currency, as demonstrated by this Edmonton Sun article. Robin Brownlee nicely articulates more reasons why the Oilers should run and hide from this affair:

- If Lowe shudders at the possibility arbitrator Elizabeth Neumeier will rule in a salary arbitration hearing Aug. 14 the Oilers must pay Ryan Smyth $4 million next season, and Lowe does, how can he justify paying Messier anything near $3 million? He can't. Mess is a 45-point player now.

- If Lowe and MacTavish want leadership, former captain Kelly Buchberger makes more sense. Bucky has a Stanley Cup ring or three and he'll play for $600,000. He's on his way here as coach of player development when he hangs 'em up, anyway.

- Messier's influence on Ales Hemsky, Mike Comrie and Jason Chimera might not be what MacTavish envisions. The bottom line is results, and if Messier can't deliver out on the ice, he's just an old man flapping his gums. Players will tune him out.

- What happens to captain Jason Smith? Does he peel off the "C" and hand it over? I think not. If Smith keeps it and Messier is supposed to be the man, it divides the dressing room.

- Playing Messier would mean taking a young player out of the lineup and retarding his development. Shawn Horcoff is blossoming. Does Jarret Stoll wait another year? Bad plan.

If Lowe is thinking about spending even $1-2 million on Messier, he's got more money than he needs. Better to use the same cash to either sign someone young and useful or use it to grab someone at the trade deadline. Or he should have used it to sign Todd Marchant for another year. Anyway, it's the Rangers that are supposed to take on everyone else's retreads and pay them too much, not the other way around. When they think a player is too old and/or too expensive, it's probably best to avoid said player at all costs.

There's obviously a strong nostalgia component to this rumour, and to Lowe's interest as well. It's hard to deny Lowe those feelings -- it's the biggest reason why he and MacTavish have jobs here. And usually I tolerate it because those are pretty good memories. But it's time to live in the present, folks. If Messier can't legitimately help the team, and I don't think he can, then he shouldn't be on it, memories be damned.
posted by Austin at 4:46 PM

 
Mess to Edmonton?

Larry Brooks is writing that Mark Messier is done in New York, and a good place for him to find a home would be in Edmonton. (Link via the Hockey Rodent)

Three or four years ago this might have been a decent idea, but Messier's good years, nevermind his best ones, are now long past. From what I read on the Hockey Rodent, it sounds like Messier isn't exactly aging gracefully:

1) Moose is no longer an inspirational force. Instead, he polarizes the team and creates a fractious locker room environment.

2) He can no longer play hard through an 82-game season. While it might be argued that he sacrificed his body to help the team through the disasterous injuries of December, the fact is that he went minus-14 in that stretch from November 28 through January 6; a statistic that suggests he was not the solution... certainly not a $4M per year solution... particularly when no other active Ranger was worse than minus-5 over that period.

Remember that despite his quick start one year ago, Messier scored a mere 8 goals after Thanksgiving.

3) His backchecking is atrocious, particularly in the third period. And it stems not just from physical attrition, but from mental lapses (as he confessed to after an overtime loss in Ottawa on March 13).

To sum up, a 42-year old that can't adjust to a diminished role, doesn't play defense, and is injury-prone. Yep, just what a team that has no margin for error needs. Luckily, Kevin Lowe's too busy griping about his ability to sign his young players to open the vault for an old one. Messier costs too much, and gives little in return. The only way Messier puts on an Oiler jersey this year is if he retires and plays in the Heritage Classic Legends game against the Canadiens.
posted by Austin at 1:51 PM

 
Blogroll News

Added The Hockey Rodent to the blogroll. It's a pretty good site. If you're interested in hockey generally or the New York Rangers specifically, you'll enjoy it.
posted by Austin at 1:39 PM

 
Welcome, Henry

As I alluded to below, Henry Burris is confirmed to have signed with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, thus ending one of the longest running items in the history of this site.

You can never have too many QBs, especially when your current starter has a history of inconsistency and injuries. I'm not sure when or how Henry will see action. Despite what the columnists might say, Nealon has not played great in the past two games, though he has played good enough. Henry will need some time to shake off the rust and learn the offense. The Riders will also have to adjust their offense to fit Henry. He's got a much better arm, so the near-total reliance on the short-passing game will have to be reworked to some degree to take advantage of that.

As it happens, the Riders have two weeks on the road before heading back home again. I don't think we'll see Henry on the field before that, unless Nealon gets hurt. However, I implore Danny not to institute some kind of two-quarterback system. Find a guy, and stick with him.

This is unquestionably a good thing for the Riders, which can only worry me. The nature of being a Roughrider fan is to see your hopes dashed time after time. Years of sustained losing have built up a thick coat of pessimism. There's a dark lining to this silver cloud -- I just haven't found it yet.
posted by Austin at 7:32 AM

 
Riders 34, Eskimos 12!

It's always a good day when the Riders trounce the hated Eskimos. For one thing, it makes it easier for me to go to work on Monday (attention co-workers: you will be taunted).

The Riders did reasonably well in all aspects of the game. QB Nealon Greene had a so-so game passing, but a fine game running, with 7 carries for 89 yards. The defense was the story of the game, holding the Eskimo offense to only 175 yards and no touchdowns. This was a major league effort against a good offensive team.

For those Eskimo fans already complaining about Coach Tom Higgins, you'll get a lot more material from this game. Higgins insists on deploying a two-quarterback system, a system that has been so successful that no one else uses it. As a result, he put in second-stringer Bart Hendricks in with about three minutes left in the game and the Esks down by 9. This is his last chance, and he's putting in the backup? Hendricks took the opportunity to throw a quacking ball that was intercepted by Davin Bush and returned for a touchdown.

The Riders are now 4-2, and tied for first in the West. They've got three winnable games coming up, which would put them at 7-2 at the halfway mark. That would be outstanding, and would probably get them a playoff spot, barring total collapse. And if two field goals go the other way, the Riders are 6-0. This is a very good team, folks. With Henry Burris finally in town (yes!), things can only get better.
posted by Austin at 7:17 AM

 
Oh, Crap

From an Edmonton Sun story on Ryan Smyth's contract negotiations:(Link via HockeyPundits)

Despite Smyth's distinguished tenure in Edmonton and his popularity with fans, the timing for extracting a long-term deal from Lowe couldn't be worse.

Framed by a backdrop in which the NHL average salary has surpassed $1.7 million, at a time when several teams, like the Oilers, are bleeding red ink and just trying to survive until the expiry of the current collective bargaining agreement with the NHLPA, Lowe isn't inclined to wait 13 months for economic sanity to prevail.

His market has already changed.

"I don't even want to talk about today's market anymore because nobody can make sense of what the market is," Lowe said. "It's all over the map. There's a bunch of lunatics out there throwing money away. I'm sick and tired of it. It's lunacy.

"Punch me in the head and tell me I'm stupid, but that's the way I feel. There's no sense to it any more."

It's pretty depressing to see a story like this. Hockey observers are calling this the most responsible free agent signing period in years. Collusion has even been mentioned. If Kevin Lowe is throwing around words like "lunacy" when referring to the current market, the Oilers are in big trouble, and a salary cap won't help them, either.
posted by Austin at 7:28 PM

 
Chemistry -- Who Cares?

King Kaufman takes a mighty shot at the fabled idea of chemistry:

The argument for boot-camp style training camps is that they build team chemistry. "As a player," says Titans coach Jeff Fisher, an advocate of the newer approach, "I never understood how, when you loaded the car up with the quilt your grandmother made and the box of cookies and the boom box and the TV and drove three hours to camp and moved into a dormitory and shared a bathroom facility with 12 other players and roomed with another player for a month, how that translated into chemistry."

I'll take that a step further and say that team chemistry is a lot of hogwash in sports. It's something like a superstition. It's a handy explanation when a team performs better or worse than you thought they were going to: Well, they had great/lousy chemistry. It's bunk.

posted by Austin at 6:49 PM

 
Burris Watch...Again

If I had more faith in their competence, I would swear this whole Henry Burris thing is a conspiracy between the CFL and the Canadian sports media to drive me slowly insane. Two websites are reporting that Henry has indeed signed with the Riders, yet one of my local sports radio shows reports that the Riders are denying any such deal. My guess is that an agreement has been reached, but the lawyers are putting the final touches on the contract. Who knows why the Riders would want to delay the news otherwise? But the CFL does work in mysterious ways.
posted by Austin at 6:37 PM

 
Glen Suitor's Rough Guide to Europe

Heard this line on TSN's Saskatchewan-Hamilton telecast on Sunday. I swear I'm not making this up.

blah blah blah the Leaning Tower of Pizza blah blah blah

Hmmmm...where would that be, exactly? Sounds like a misguided effort from the Kenosha, Wisconsin Rotary Club to get into the Guinness Book of Records.
posted by Austin at 9:55 PM

 
Burris Watch

Alas, no news on the signing of Henry Burris. Numerous people have said he could be a Rider by tonight, but no word as of yet. The only other public suitor, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, just signed their backup from last year, Pat Barnes. So it would appear that they're out of the running. (Barnes had been hanging out down South until now. Perhaps the Bombers' offer to Henry was meant to leverage Barnes into signing more than anything else.)

Meanwhile, Calgary lost their starter, Marcus Crandell, to a hamstring injury, and Hamilton might be in the running following another cover-your-eyes-awful performance by Danny McManus. So there are other places for Henry to show up, but no one seems to be making any noises. Is this just a slam dunk for the Riders? One would think so, but the longer it goes on, it seems the less likely that Smilin' Hank will be wearing the Green and White.
posted by Austin at 9:50 PM

 
Burris Watch

No news from the Riders on the Burris front. It's a wee bit stressful, what with all the anticipation, and the LeaderPost isn't helping much, either. Opened up the Rider News site this morning to see the headline "Burris expected to join Riders", only to discover its just Hamilton coach Ron Lancaster opining that he thinks Burris will end up in Saskatchewan. Work with me here, people.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have entered the sweepstakes, which is a little surprising at first glance. It makes good sense, though. At a minimum, they light a fire under all-star QB Khari Jones, who has been average at best this year, and has just come off a game in which he threw 5 INTs. They also raise the price for the Riders, an important thing when faced with limited resources, and may just keep a good QB away from a major competitor.
posted by Austin at 5:41 PM

 
Hey, Lama, how about a little something, you know, for the effort?

The best line I read today, in David Vecsey's column on SI.com:

It's every American male's God-given right to quote Caddyshack wherever and whenever applicable.

Absolutely correct. Yet another addition to my list of constitutional amendments that will be added should I ever become Prime Minister. (Oh yeah, you might want to read the column to get the context. It's a funny story.)



posted by Austin at 5:29 PM

 
The Professor of Baseball

Great read in the New Yorker about baseball stats guru Bill James, now performing his wizardry for the Boston Red Sox. It's chock full of interesting details, but here's my favourite paragraph:

Theo Epstein, the new Red Sox G.M., was a fourth grader at Brookline Elementary School in Brookline, Massachusetts, when he discovered James, in 1984. “I remember reading the Abstract and thinking, God, after reading one book I’ve changed the way I look at the game on the field,” he said the other day, while watching batting practice at Fenway Park. “I never thought that could happen from reading a book.” Epstein was twenty-eight when he was appointed to his post last year, making him the youngest G.M. in baseball history.

I'm the same age as Epstein, but I only discovered Bill James at the age of 13, in 1988 (for a time, I actually wanted to be a sabermetrician). Sigh -- four years earlier and maybe I'm the GM of the Red Sox.
posted by Austin at 5:18 PM

 
All Hope is Lost!

Marty York has weighed in on the Burris situation. He guarantees that Henry will be in a Rider uniform by Sunday's game against Hamilton. As long time York watchers know, this couldn't be worse news for Rider fans. Once Marty reports something, you can bet it isn't true. Why couldn't he have stayed out of this one? Won't someone please think of the Rider fans?
posted by Austin at 6:26 PM

 
Burris Watch

Big news in Riderville today. Ex-Rider QB Henry Burris was waived by the Chicago Bears yesterday, paving the way for his return to the CFL. There's lots of speculation having him go back to the Roughriders, fueled in part by Henry's stated desire to return, as well as Coach Barrett's saying that the Riders are interested in getting him back.

But should the Riders want him back? Rob Vanstone ably covers this territory in his column:

The decision would likely be easier a month from now -- but the Roughriders are not afforded the luxury of time.

Near midseason, the Roughriders would have a much better idea as to whether Greene, Glenn or Butler is THE answer.

Greene is clearly the best of the three right now. But he is also coming off another injury. And who knows if he can string together a series of performances which rival his last two?

Questions also surround Burris. He recently underwent knee surgery. He has received limited playing time since leaving the Roughriders for the NFL following the 2000 campaign. Not only that, he could end up costing twice as much as the moderately priced Greene.

From a financial and practical standpoint, it would be difficult for the Riders to retain Burris and Greene -- both of whom deserve to start in the CFL.

So, once again, what do you do?

Either way, it is a gamble.

If the Roughriders were to unload Greene, he could easily come back to haunt them. He is maturing into a quarterback -- as opposed to a glorified tailback -- while silencing his detractors.

If the Roughriders were to pass on reacquiring Burris, he could easily make them regret that decision (especially in August, when Saskatchewan has back-to-back games against Ottawa).

Burris has the potential to be a marquee player for the Roughriders -- and for the entire CFL.
When you combine his ability and personality, he could be a once-in-a-generation presence, a la Michael (Pinball) Clemons.

That is the most compelling argument in favour of signing Burris.

Burris took this province by storm three years ago. The phenomenally popular pivot's personality evoked comparisons to Glenn Dobbs.

On the field, Burris' productivity rivalled that of Dobbs, who threw 28 touchdown passes in 1951. Dobbs and Ron Lancaster shared the Roughriders' single-season record of 28 scoring tosses until Kent Austin came along.

Austin and Burris are the only quarterbacks in Roughriders history to throw 30 or more touchdown passes in a single season. Austin had three such seasons.

Burris is in esteemed company.

It should be noted that Burris has yet to equal the feats of Lancaster, Dobbs or Austin.

However, Burris has the potential to do so.

He is that kind of player.

And he wants to be here -- with a Regina-based Grey Cup looming.

How can the Roughriders say no?

I agree there's a risk in signing him, but as Vanstone points out, there's risks in not signing him too. The current QB situation is no sure thing. Nealon has played well, but he's only done it for two games, plus he's injury prone. While Burris has to be somewhat rusty, and would need sometime to adjust to the Rider offense, he would be an upgrade. Add in his immense popularity in the province, and I think the Riders have to get it done.
posted by Austin at 6:22 PM

 
Jesus 1, Body Shop Owners 0

As it turns out, Deion Sanders only has to pay the divine-sanctioned amount of $1,500, not the $4,267 the body shop owner was claiming. Note to Deion: next time, just say that you only paid $1,500 because that's all you authorized for repairs, not because it was all Jesus said you had to pay. Makes you look a little saner.
posted by Austin at 6:12 PM

 
Fun with Headlines

Seen on CNNSI.com:

Stars fill Hatcher hole with longtime Bruin Sweeney

Now, given the respective sizes of these gentlemen (6'5", 235 for Hatcher; 5'10", 186 for Sweeney ), never mind their playing abilities, I would humbly submit that you would probably need two or three Don Sweeneys to fill that hole.
posted by Austin at 4:59 PM

 
Sports and Religion, Take 2

Noted theologian Deion Sanders is in the headlines again:

A judge listened to testimony Monday and is expected to rule soon whether former Dallas Cowboy Deion Sanders owes money to a body shop for work done on his vintage 1961 Lincoln Continental convertible.


State District Judge Joe Cox took the case under advisement after the one-day trial, said court administrator Donna Bouthton.


The owner of the repair shop said Sanders wanted to pay only $1,500 of the $4,265.57 bill, saying that Jesus had informed him that was all he needed to pay.

This brings several (vaguely blasphemous) questions to my mind. For example, who knew that Jesus was such an excellent estimator of repair bills? Does He have his own body shop? Are members of other faiths eligible for similar advice? And what about the atheists? No doubt the ACLU is filing a lawsuit as we speak.

Seriously though, I think Deion and the Man Upstairs need to get on the same page here. Now I'm not privy to Deion's conversations with God, and I suppose such a thing could have happened. But receiving a service and refusing to pay the asked price sounds a lot like theft to me, and I'm pretty sure God had something to say about that, too. Maybe that's next week's conversation.
posted by Austin at 4:52 PM

 
Football Update

Football, unlike baseball, is not made for radio. It's hard to get a sense of what's going on without seeing it live, or on a screen. Anyway, I laboured through the Riders-Blue Bombers game tonight. The system performed much better than expected, with only a few glitches. Alas, my prediction about the game was much better. Riders lost 29-27 -- the difference being a Winnipeg field goal by Troy Westwood, and once again, the game wasn't decided until the last play. But there was no stake through the heart like the game against Montreal. The Riders were extremely fortunate to be in any kind of position to win the game. They had no offense until the final drive that put them ahead, they got two touchdowns off turnovers, and blocked a field goal.

Still, it would've been nice to come out with a win. The Riders could be 4-0 if two field goal attempts had gone differently, but are 2-2 instead. That puts them right in the middle of a logjam in the CFL West. It's going to be a long (and stressful) season.
posted by Austin at 8:52 PM

 
Slate X 2

Another interesting column from Slate, this time from Josh Levin on the underachieving New York Mets. The following lines are some of the funniest I've read in a long time:

If rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for General Motors, then rooting for this year's Mets is like rooting for a used Oldsmobile with a persistent urine smell. Maybe it used to have flash and run well, but my God, what the hell happened in there?

posted by Austin at 8:43 PM

 
All-Star? Game

The fine columnist Allen Barra makes an appearance over at Slate, thrashing the All-Star lineups. It's a typical Barra column, extolling the virtues of the good old days in his usual contrarian fashion, but in an intelligent and well-written way. Let's hope this is the first of many appearances.

Read it all, as they say.
posted by Austin at 6:07 PM

 
There but for the Grace of God...

Folks, I know we've all felt the urge to take a Louisville Slugger and bash a mascot upside the head, especially when there are four (!) sausage mascots on the field. But we've got to resist those ugly impulses. Violence just radicalizes and polarizes people, and gives a bad name to us moderates, who just want to achieve the modest, and dare I say moral, goal of banning the whole mascot industry.

(you can also see the video of the incident here)
posted by Austin at 6:03 PM

 
I Hate TSN

So why, when having to choose between two games to televise, has TSN chosen a game between two mediocre Eastern teams instead of a battle between the two top teams in the West? Stupid larger TV markets. Though are the ratings really better for Ottawa and Toronto than for Winnipeg and Saskatchewan. Given that the CFL is way more popular in western Canada, you'd think the TV ratings would be higher too.

At least I can listen to the game, via the good folks at CJOB who're streaming the audio on the Internet. It's not exactly the perfect solution, though. I'm putting the odds on a complete system crash at about 2 to 1, with the over/under on system crashes at 10.

As for the game itself, I'm predicting a Winnipeg win -- too many injuries for the Riders, especially in the secondary. Not good when you're facing the #1 pass and catch duo (QB Khari Jones and WR Milt Stegall) in the league.
posted by Austin at 5:38 PM

 
#@*$!

Funny how things work. I was having a perfectly fine weekend out near the mountains with some friends, seeing some great scenery, playing some cards, and having a great time. I came back fully relaxed and ready to go back to work. Then I watch my tape of the Riders-Alouettes game (Alouettes 32, Riders 31) and suddenly, I feel like crap, totally stressed, and in dire need of a sick day. This is one of those days when I absolutely, positively, hate sports.

I won't go into the ugly details, but suffice it to say that the Riders should have won, and not only that, could have won it on the last play of the game. Meanwhile, the injury toll was pretty bad, with the Riders losing their starting running back, starting QB, and two safeties for various parts of the game. Did I mention that I hate sports?
posted by Austin at 7:51 PM

 
Brave New World? Hmmm, Not so Much

Remember all that talk about the quiet free-agent signing period in the NHL? I don't even think it lasted 24 hours before being proven false. Talk about a fast news cycle.

Lots of stuff today: Kariya and Selanne to the Avalanche in what might be the most shocking transaction, both in terms of pure "holy-f--k"-ness and in the oddity of the numbers, in a long, long time. Sounds like the two just wanted to play together. Kariya makes it happen by taking a huge paycut to $1.2 million, which also has the effect of making him an unrestricted free agent next year because he'll be 10 years in and below the league average salary. Also, a three-way trade between the Sabres, Flames and Avs which I think leaves the Flames in pretty good shape. Warrener and Reinprecht are quality players, though Drury is probably a better forward than Reinprecht right now. Almost forgot about Derian Hatcher signing with the Wings. And finally, Toddy Marchant heads south to the Columbus Blue Jackets for $15 million over 5 years. Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure the Jackets overpaid for Marchant. Sure, he'll fit in well as a second-line centre, but $3 million per? Only if he continues his 60-point performances, which seems unlikely for a player who'd never even hit 50 points before.
posted by Austin at 8:56 PM

 
Brave New World?

Lots of commentary on the unfolding NHL free agency situation (see, for example, Mark Spector, Mike Heika, and Ray Ratto). There's lots of talk about how we're in a new era and that it's a buyers marketplace, though I appreciated Ratto's comments about how it's easy to say no in July.

They have taken The Pledge. No more cash will be burned before its time, and its time will be in 2006.

Well, fine. It's your dough, boys, and if it's worth savaging the sport you all say you love so much, you go.

But maybe nobody noticed that the Wings just exercised their 2003-04 option on Dominik Hasek, who spent last season watching barnacles grow on his legs. Hasek's option for $8 million, which leads us to think that, even if they can find a taker for Curtis Joseph, who has been fingered for not being sufficiently Jiggy in the playoffs this past season, they still are going to burn a little cash this summer.

And if they are, you can bet that the other big spenders are going to start bargain-hunting as well.

Before you know it, there's a SALARY GAP, with a few haves and a lot of have nots, and the only way to make the game competitive for everyone is to destroy the system (i.e., crush the players union) and start again.

Well said. I'm not sure there won't be a few big buyers out there.

I find it a bit curious, though. If teams continue to stick with the no-spending pledge, doesn't the owners' case become a little weaker? Part of their argument on the need for a new economic structure for the sport is that costs are out of control and going higher, spurred on by some big spenders. But if NHL teams can take even a moderately hard line this summer and not give out too much, doesn't that imply that the owners can in fact control costs simply by behaving rationally? In this case, there's no need for a salary cap. If you're concerned about competitive balance, all you need is revenue sharing. Everyone has similar resources, and since everyone is behaving rationally, costs will remain under some kind of control.

I don't really buy this argument myself, at least not totally. The hockey business has some fundamentally non-rational things about it, like the drive to win championships, that force salaries upward. There is a need for some kind of external discipline (in connection with revenue sharing, of course) to counteract this. I think most people are instinctively siding with the owners, but there might be a bit of an opening for the NHLPA here, if they're smart enough to exploit it.
posted by Austin at 4:54 PM

 
Sports and Religion

If you're interested in sports and religion at all, read this excellent column by Gregg Easterbrook over at ESPN.
posted by Austin at 4:33 PM

 
Vancouver Gets the Olympics

Well, it was close, and the competition came from an unexpected source, but Vancouver has got the Winter Olympics, in a 56 to 53 vote. The big surprise was the first ballot -- Pyeongchang only 3 votes away from an outright victory, with Salzburg bringing up the rear with 14 votes. Looks like my predicted phenomenon of Europeans staying away from Salzburg because they want the 2012 Games in Europe (or more possibly, absolutely do not want the 2012 Games in New York) happened in a big way. Pyeongchang was the least technically sound bid, but partly because of its semi-bizarre plea that the Olympics would help unite North and South Korea, it had strong support. The IOC seems to be prone to the kind of woolly-headed thinking that overstates the importance of the Olympic Games as a political statement (e.g. Beijing). Luckily, pretty much everyone who voted for Salzburg came over to Vancouver on the second ballot, giving the victory to the most deserving city.

Lots of excitement already here in Canada. I think its great -- Toronto's even more expensive bid is torpedoed for at least another 20 years (yippee!!), plus Vancouver is close enough that I may just take in a competition or two. It'll take me the 7 years to save up for the hotel room.
posted by Austin at 4:31 PM