In a clever bit of PR, the folks at Edmonton’s water utility, EPCOR, released this chart showing city water consumption during the gold medal hockey game last weekend (click for a slightly larger version):
I wonder if there will be any impact on other parts of our lives? Will there be a small blip in the number of babies born nine months from now?
Small, related marketing lesson: I originally found this graphic on a coupleof blogs. I genuinely tried to find its original source on EPCOR’s website, but couldn’t. Google was no help either. When you’ve got a clever idea that gets some legs like this, make sure that people can discover and link to its original context easily.
If you’re suffering from Olympics withdrawal (as opposed to me, who’s suffering from a bit of a Olympic hangover), this might please you. It’s a video of False Creek shot while Sidney Crosby scored the overtime winner last Sunday. It’s the audio you’re interested in–you can safely fast-forward to the one-minute mark:
As you may have noticed, I haven’t had a lot to say about the Olympics. I went to a few hockey games (including one courtesy of Tourism BC–thanks, guys) and a biathlon event (where Jamessnapped a bunch of photos). I’ve generally enjoyed the Games (though I’ve got enough friends opposed to them to understand their downside), but I’m happy to see them completed.
I’ve watched more hockey than anything else, much of it with friends and family. In doing so, I’ve discussed the same two topics a number of times:
Is it appropriate to run up the score, as the Canadian women’s hockey team did in a 18-0 thumping of the Slovakian team in their opener?
Given the constant dominance of Canada and the USA, should women’s hockey be in the Olympics?
As it happens, I’ve summarized both arguments in the comments on this post by Rebecca. I thought I’d reproduce them here, with some minor tweaks.
Running Up the Score
This is a common complaint leveled at international tournaments of all sorts–it’s not unique to hockey (I’m reminded of a certain 31-0 victory by Australia over American Samoa in World Cup qualifying). The optics aren’t good.
Here’s why teams do it: the number of goals you score (your ‘goals for’ number) is usually the tie-breaking statistics when you have the same number of points as another team. This is obviously hugely important if that tiebreaker determines, say, who advances to the next round. It may have lesser importance, too. For example, it can determine who gets home field (or ice) advantage.
Also, from a sports psychology perspective, if a team ‘goes easy’ on a lesser team, they risk carrying that behaviour into the subsequent games against tougher opponents. As coaches say, “you have to play your own game, not your opponents”. As such, ‘taking your foot off the gas’ can be risky.
The Future of Women’s Hockey in the Olympics
Last Friday, IOC President Jack Rogge (who feels a little fascist, doesn’t he?) remarked on the lopsided results in women’s hockey:
Hours before the gold medal final between the United States and Canada, dominant powers in a tournament where they routed outmatched rivals, Rogge said the Olympics can bear the lopsidedness for only so long.
“There is a discrepancy. Everyone agrees with that,” Rogge said. “This may be the investment period for women’s ice hockey. I would personally give them more time to grow but there must be a period of improvement. “We cannot continue without improvement.”
Accusations of sexism were leveled at Rogge, more because of his comments on the Canadian women’s celebration (which almost certainly were sexist) than the sports future in the Olympics. Shelley Fralic’s poorly-argued–she ignores the question of parity altogether–piece is a good example of the response Rogge’s remarks received.
To separate gender politics from sport, imagine the following scenario. Let’s pretend that snowball fights are an Olympic event:
For four Olympic Games in a row, you know with near certainty that the US and Canada Snowball Fighting teams will meet in the final. They’ve met in three of four gold-medal games. They have almost never lost to any other team in the tournament (Canada has once and the USA twice, I think), and they’ve outplayed all other opponents by a considerable margin. The final is exciting, but every snowball fight up to that point is pretty much a foregone conclusion. It’s a sure bet that at the Snowball Fighting finals in 2014, it’ll be USA and Canada again.
The mistake the IOC made was permitting women’s hockey to join when they did. I assume that they expected other nations to catch up to the USA and Canadian women, but that simply hasn’t happened over the last 14 years. It’s not all that surprising, considering that the much more popular men’s game only has, at best, eight or ten competitive teams.
If they decided to remove women’s hockey, the decision wouldn’t be without precedent. Softball was recently removed from the Summer Olympics because of America’s dominance of the sport through four consecutive Games.
The common counter-argument I’ve heard is “what better way to motivate other countries than with the promise of an Olympic medal?” This seems pretty specious, as it could be applied to any sport–no matter how niche or regionally lopsided–as a reason for inclusion in the Olympics.
I’ve always enjoyed watching Canada/USA games. And the increase in talent among those two teams in the past 14 years has been remarkable.
I don’t know what the right decision is for the future of the sport, but if you’re a fan of parity and unpredictability, you’re not a fan of having women’s hockey in the Olympics.
The subtitled Hitler trope is a gift that keeps on giving. I don’t know why I find them so entertaining, but whether it’s the Sundin trade or problems with Windows Vista, they always amuse me. Maybe it’s because I saw the original film, and each send-up reminds me of the original’s super-serious tone?
In any case, Graeme McRanor has produced this latest example, on the Winter Olympics. Rated PG for frequent cursing:
Watching and reading coverage of the Olympics, I’ve observed a lot of projections and comparisons involving Canada’s medal haul for 2010 and previous years (the latest example was in a Slate piece by Dahlia Lithwick). I’ve a lot of graphics showing medal totals for the previous Olympics held in Canada.
It’s a rich vein for the media, and a natural one. After all, it’s a sports competitions, where achievements are measured empirically.
I got to thinking about whether those were fair comparisons to make. Surely the number of medals has grown over the past, say, 35 years. And surely the number of participating nations and athletes has grown as well. So, I did what I always do when I wonder about something. I made a chart (click for gold medal bigness):
It shows the number of medals up for grabs at each Olympics, and also the number of nations participating. Interestingly, since 1976, the number of available medals and nations attending have grown at similar rates–they’re at 175% what they were. As you can see, the rate of medals has, recent years, exceeded the growth of participating nations.
And then there’s the number of athletes participating. In 1976, there were roughly 30 athletes per event. In 2010, that’s still the case.
My analysis is pretty rudimentary, but it seems like the amount of competition has stayed consistent over the past 35 years. It’s no more or less difficult to win a medal at the Olympics than it was when I was born.
What do you know? I wasn’t a Debbie Downer after all. Media folks, compare medal counts until your graphic designer cramps up.
One of the undervalued aspects of the Internet is its endless capacity to enable nostalgia. Whether you had a childhood love of My Little Pony, Dungeons & Dragons or a defunct hockey team, there’s a website (and probably an eBay auction) where you can revisit that pleasure of your youth.
I was reminded of this phenomenon over the weekend, when a friend and I were discussing a new Olympics-themed video game called Vancouver 2010. Like many Olympics computer games before it, it enables you to play a number of the sports from the Winter Games. Here’s a trailer:
It’s noteworthy that the Games’ three sports that are most popular among Canadians–ice hockey, figure skating and curling–don’t appear in this game. It’s not surprising–hockey has its own franchise games, figure skating would be tricky to program effectively (imagine the control scheme) and curling, well, is curling. That said, I think curling would make a great game for the Wii.
The Heady Days of Microsoft Decathlon
My friend reminded me of a slightly earlier sports mini-games-within-a-game for the PC. It was called Microsoft Decathlon, and, believe it or not, it was published in 1982. 1982! The first version of PC-DOS, on which is ran, was only released in August, 1981. I probably didn’t play the game until 1984 or 1985, but I played it a lot. When I watched this video, the sense of nostalgia was visceral:
The crazy midi theme, the four colour interface, the high jump mat labeled “FOAM PIT”–it all came back to me. The whole video is 10 minutes, so don’t bother watching the whole thing. I might draw your attention, however, to the awesome rendering of the shot-put event.
When you compare those two videos, it’s a little shocking how far games have come in 25 years. What will they look like in another 25 years? How much will innovation slow down, as has happened in television and film?
This is a little gross. If you don’t want to read about my sweat, you might want to skip this entry.
As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve reluctantly taken up running. I run 5 km three or four times a week. When I get home from my run, I often have the oddest ammonia smell in my nose. It’s not like you can smell me across the room or anything, but I’m definitely aware of it.
After noticing this two or three times, I was all ‘what gives, body? Why do you smell like Windex?” So, I asked the Internet. This seemed to be the most cogent explanation:
The smell of ammonia in sweat is common among runners. Ammonia comes from the breakdown of amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) within the body. It is made up of nitrogen and hydrogen. The hydrogen atoms are converted to glucose and used as fuel. The nitrogen is a waste product that needs to be excreted by the body, and is processed in the kidneys to form urea that is excreted in urine. If there is too much nitrogen for your kidneys to deal with, it will be excreted as ammonia in your sweat.
The key to avoiding that ammonia smell is to ingest sufficient carbohydrates. If you eat an ample amount of carbohydrate with every meal, then you should have plenty to fuel your exercise activity. Even people who work out on an empty stomach should have some glucose in their bloodstream upon rising - unless they subscribe to the myth that cutting out carbohydrates before bed helps you lose fat. If you find that the ammonia smell persists (even when you consume carbohydrate with every meal), try having a low glycemic carbohydrate before you workout.
A little oatmeal, a small apple, or even a piece of sprouted grain bread can provide the fuel that your body needs. Remember, your body requires fuel to burn fat! So don’t think that providing some carbs before cardio is going to eliminate the fat burning process.
And here I thought the only side effects from exercise would be looser-fitting clothes and smugness.
Somebody on Twitter mentioned that “the Canucks game just got way more interesting”, so I visited TEAM 1040’s website to listen to the end of the game (it’s a pay-per-view game, so there’s no regular TV broadcast. I’m happy to pay for a game occasionally, but not when it’s Phoenix.). TEAM 1040 is running a web poll at the moment, asking “Who is the hottest Canuck?”. Check out the results:
For those readers who are not hockey fans, Daniel and Henrik Sedin are identical twins. They look like this:
Though he looks about 15, I’d say Raymond deserves the lead. Here he is sandwiched between Rebecca and Alanah (the photo is by John):
These can pretty much be presented without comment. It’s really fate that’s cruel in this first one (courtesy of James Mirtle):
There’s no question as to who is cruel in this second video. Those are some serious anger management issues.
The player’s name is Elizabeth Lambert–here’s an ESPN report (auto-playing video ahead) about the match. They rightfully raise two questions about these incidents: why aren’t the teammates of the fouled player standing up to Lambert, and how did she make it through the whole game with only a yellow card?
UPDATE: Phillip sent along this New York Times article in which Ms. Lambert responds to the video. The reporter goes pretty easy on her.
Let’s end the week with a bit of hockey magic. Owen Nolan (the only player born in Northern Ireland playing in the NHL, as it happens) defied his 38 years last night and scored a top ten goal of the year:
Of course, those two mincing Tampa Bay defencemen made him look pretty good, but it’s still a fantastic goal.
