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Olympics: Past and Passed-On (Turin Flashback Alert!)

As I mentioned, I find myself about 70,000 long slapshots from the Winter Olympics in Russia, which isn’t much farther than I’d be if I was home in Ottawa. I’m between ocean and hilly jungle on an island off southern Thailand, trying to summon greater interest in skates and skis and snow; the medal list, at least, is rewarding for a Canadian chauvinist, as we’ve been top 3 pretty much from the start. Television isn’t an option here, though. (I miss Ron McLean. I miss Bob Costas, even though NBC’s coverage of past Olympics has always been a source of perverse Canadian pride and sniggers, as the Canadian Corp does a much better job overall, and less slickly.)

I went looking for what I’d written about Vancouver 2010. Surely I’d had something to say about Super Sidney’s gold-winning goal to beat the Americans! Nope. Or that avalanche of medals, our best result ever, and by far, on home ice? I just read about ’em. The opening and closing ceremonies were great, though I can’t remember how we saw them; I think we were in Thailand then, too, courtesy of the Chinese spring festival holiday, or maybe we saw the ceremonies on CCTV 5, their sports channel, and went to

Remember her? What does Jennifer do now? Gold medals are forever, I guess, but here’s hoping life hasn’t been downhill since this youthful glory.

Thailand in between. (Plausible.) Our sojourn in the Middle Kingdom, now approaching five years, has forestalled my rabid consumption of college hoops (American and local) and of Olympics (icy style). My goodness: the last significant blathering I did on snow-sport was for Turin 2006. There’s lots to read in the February 2006 archives (see below and right), but here’s a brief blast from the Howdy past. Does anybody remember Jennifer Heil?

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