As beautiful as figure skating is, and as grueling and demanding physically as it is, there is one major problem with the sport: IT IS SUBJECTIVE. One man’s great performance is another’s mediocre one. And the sport has been plagued over the years with proven and alleged impropriety, so it should be no surprise that the women’s final has cause a stink.
Seventeen-year-old Adelina Sotnikova from Olympic host Russia won the free skate denying South Korea’s Yuna Kim from defending her title and confirmed Russian command of the sport once more. Ms. Sotnikova finished with a total score of 224.59, beating Kim’s score of 219.11 by 5.48 points after the free skate program. Sotnikova, 17, became the first female Russian skater to win in the category.
But people, a lot more knowledgeable than I complained that Ms. Sotnikova she had stepped out after landing a triple combination and others raised questions about the anonymous judging system. No greater authority to me is the venerable ABC Olympic figure skating announcer Dick Button (glad to know he’s still alive – wish he was still announcing figure skating, he was the best), who said that he didn’t think Sotnikova was the whole package. “Sotnikova was energetic, strong, commendable, but not a complete skater. I fear I will never be allowed back in Russia again,” Button tweeted.
It wasn’t just the medalists where there was controversy either. American Ashley Wagner also slammed the judging. She skated without falling but finished seventh behind several skaters that had stumbled on the ice, even finished behind Russian skater Julia Lipnitskaia, who fell more than once. “I feel gypped,” Wagner said, according to Yahoo! Sports. “People don’t want to watch a sport where you see people fall down and somehow score above someone who goes clean.”
In addition, it has come out that one of the judges had in the past been suspended for a year for trying to fix an event at the Winter Olympics 16 years ago, and another is married to the head of the Russian figure skating federation. This is not to hold the rest of the world in high esteem either; there was a story earlier in the Games about American and Canadian judges possibly conspiring to fix an outcome.
I have long said that the best thing about other sports: football, baseball, basketball, hockey, even track and field and auto racing is that the finish is right there in front of you. There are no style points for goals, or touchdowns (and I have to say the use of instant replay in many sports makes this even better). Of course, the other sports’ cheating scandals happen chemically.
There is something about figure skating though: money, national pride, the clandestine and inbred nature of the various commissions that run the sport, and of course, the relative ease of throwing one’s opinion in an objective sport that makes it as dirty off the ice and it is beautiful on the ice.
Back in high school and college, we just to joke by pretending to be judges in some competition for an American athlete: scores 9.8, 9.4, 9.7, 4.2 – must be the Russian judge. It can work in reverse too, I guess.

I haven’t really taken sides in Olympic hockey this year: there are seven Blackhawks on the Canadian team; one of our stars, Patrick Kane is on the American team. To make it more personal, my wife is Canadian with dual citizenship and the Indignant Girls both have US and Canadian citizenship.
So, I tried to stay impartial, but after yesterday I couldn’t stay impartial for the semifinal between Canada and the US. Yesterday, the Canadian women were trailing 2-0 in the third period of the gold medal game to the US when the Canadians mounted a comeback, scoring once early in the period, then pulling their goaltender. Apparently, a US woman missed an empty net shot that would have clinched the game, but instead, just 55 seconds before time would have expired, the Canadians tied in and won it in overtime. It was a bit of a choke by the Americans, but the Candians I ran into (not the Indignant Family it should be noted) were just so smug, just like the Russians used to be back in the day.
All of that, and the billboard that said that the losing country of today’s men’s semifinal had to keep Justin Bieber, made me want to beat the damn Canucks. Unfortunately, they fell short, losing 1-0 to the Canadians which means that Canada will be playing Sweden in the gold medal game.
Is it too late to pick up a Swedish jersey before Sunday?

I admit to having this naïve notion that 99.9% of the cheating at all levels of sport involves men. Women have a professional basketball league, but its life is precarious. There aren’t any million dollar female athletes outside of tennis and figure skating, right?
But then I look at the big money women’s college programs at Tennessee and UConn and a few other schools, and there’s certainly lots of money to be made in the women’s games, and where there’s money, there’s an impetus to do whatever you can to grab as much of that money as possible. And if you have to break a few rules, so be it.
Earlier this week, just hours before the Homewood-Flossmoor girls basketball team was to take the floor to begin the playoffs, the Illinois high school athletic association suspended the entire team and its highly regarded coach for rules violations. The Homewood-Flossmoor team was the top ranked program in the state after posting a 20-2 regular season record.
The sanctions by the Illinois High School Association apparently were prompted by a lawsuit was filed, accusing Head Coach Anthony Smith of improperly recruiting star players from other school districts in his first season at H-F. The school district conducted an internal investigation that showed that the program had violated rules but not for improper recruiting.
Well, the school might say that these were not serious rules violations, the IHSA apparently thought so, and had negotiated an agreement with the district to suspend Smith and 11 of the team’s 17 players but still allow the others to play in the state tournament. But the district decided to appeal, and that’s when the association laid the lumber down on the school, suspending all of the players and, forcing the school to forfeit all of its 20 wins this season.
Now, I don’t know this Anthony Smith or where he came from, but coaches, especially at the high school level are supposed to be teaching athletes teamwork and ethics, not cheating and breaking the rules.
All I know is, Smith shouldn’t be a high school coach; he should be at the college level where the big cheatng and the big money is.

The two men charged with severely beating San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium in 2011, leaving him with brain damage, pleaded guilty to assault charges. Marvin Norwood, 30, and Louie Sanchez, 31, faced charges of mayhem, assault and battery, and inflicting great bodily injury in the beating of Stow, a 44-year-old father of two.
The attack left Stow, a Northern California paramedic, with serious head trauma and a permanent disability that means he will need care for the rest of his life. Norwood was sentenced to four years in prison after he pleaded guilty to assault causing great bodily injury in Los Angeles Superior Court. In exchange, the earlier mayhem charge was dropped.
Sanchez pleaded guilty to one count of mayhem in exchange for eight years in prison. He could have received 11 years in prison if convicted of the original charges.
The judge reportedly called the two cretins and morons as he pronounced his sentence. Yeah that just about covers it.

You may have noticed fewer posts over the past few days, and it’s mostly because of the Winter Olympics. Yes, there are lots of events going on, but I have paid very little attention to most of it. The Indignant wife and children have been watching the figure skating since they take figure skating lessons. I see the blurbs about what is happening, but I have watched very little. This is despite the fact that I grew up watching skiing, and bobsledding (and all related winter track events) on the old Wide World of Sports and of course, the Olympics.
I began to wonder why I didn’t watch all that much and, it appears a lot of the American television viewing audience has done likewise. I think I have the reason – the time zone difference. Since Sochi, Russia is 9 hours before New York, 10 before Chicago, the events are happening in the early morning to early afternoon here, and even though NBC has strict rules around what can be shown by other stations and when, the news of who wins comes out fairly quickly. Once I know who’s won, I’m less interested in watching how they did it. Unless there was a special game, I’m less likely to watch tape delayed footage.
That attitude changed today as the men’s hockey quarterfinals were played. First, the home Russians lost to Finland (the Finland song by Monty Python keeps coming into my head every time I think about this game), which is only a mild surprise since the Russians were relying on Alexander Ovechkin, the most one-sided, purely offensive (and childish) player in the game. Sure, he can score, but he can’t lead and he plays no defense.
Then we had the US versus the Czech Republic, and the USA team won 5-2 to go to the semifinals. The game started 1-1, but then the Americans took over the rest of the game. The other game was the heavily favored Canadians versus Latvia. I was teasing people at work this morning that I was taking Latvia, but wanted seven goal margin. On paper, this was a classic mismatch – the NHL superstar filled Canadians against Latvia.
Of course, as the old joke goes, they don’t play on paper, and while I didn’t see any of it, the Latvian goalie must have stood on his head, stopping 52 of 54 Canadian shots, and only a power play goal with 6:54 left in the third period by Shea Weber after Georgijs Pujacs was sent off for slashing ended the affair. Definite nail biting time for the Canucks.
So, on Friday morning, we have Sweden, the number 1 seed through the preliminaries, facing Finland, and the USA vs. Canada in a rematch of the 2010 Gold Medal Game. On Saturday, we have the bronze medal game then the gold medal game on Sunday.
I’m all over it.

New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter announced on Facebook yesterday that the upcoming 2014 season will be his last. Jeter has been the Yankees’ starting shortstop since 1996 and led them to five World Series titles.
Jeter will turn 40 in June and is coming off a 2013 season in which he played just 17 games because of a series of injuries to his legs and ankles, the latter related to the fractured ankle he suffered in the 2012 American League Championship Series. With Jeter out of the lineup, New York failed to reach the postseason for just the second time in his career.
No matter what anyone says, Jeter is a winner. He has played nearly an entire extra season of postseason games (158), hitting .308 with 20 home runs, 61 RBIs and 18 stolen bases, which is consistent with his regular season averages of .312 with 18 home runs, 79 RBIs and 22 steals. His 3,316 regular season hits are the most in Yankees history and the 10th-most in baseball history.
He never won an AL MVP award, but he finished in the top-10 in MVP voting eight times (including two third-place finishes and a runner-up in 2006) and was named MVP of the 2000 World Series and the 2000 All-Star Game. He has made 13 All-Star teams (winning the MVP award in 2000), won five Silver Slugger awards and five Gold Gloves for his defense at shortstop.
The Yankees drafted Jeter with the sixth overall pick in the 1992 draft, the same year they finished below .500 for the fourth straight season. Jeter arrived in New York for a 15-game cameo in 1995 then took over as the team’s starting shortstop in 1996 at just 21 years old. He batted .314 that year and led the Yankees to their first division title and pennant in 15 years, winning the 1996 AL Rookie of the Year Award
Not just a winner, Jeter appears to be a throwback in another way: stepping in to make new teammates and rookies how to behave as Yankees. Other than Alex Rodriguez who was probably a lost cause from the start, grandstanding was not allowed on the field. It was all about winning, and anything that detracted from that was not allowed. His former manager Joe Torre gushes in his book “The Yankees Years” about Jeter and his leadership qualities on and off the field.
Plus, while the handsome Jeter dated some of the world’s most beautiful and famous women, you never saw big headlines in the media. You might hear that he’s dating someone (the list includes Jessica Biel, Jessica Alba, Mariah Carey, numerous models and even a couple of Miss Universe winners) but very few if any pictures, and if he’s broken up with that woman, again, no headlines, just a line or two in the gossip columns.
In this age of social media, where a camera is always available to record your every discretion, Jeter never appears. Bob “Pink Eye” Costas was interviewed on the MLB Network last night and he said that he has interviewed Jeter a few times, but that to Costas, Jeter was always very thoughtful about his comments, very guarded. So, you never got a big story from Jeter, another way in which he is a throwback to a day when the press generally didn’t report on the dalliances of sports stars. Unlike then, however, Jeter kept himself under control.
The immediate reaction is that the scalper price of Yankee tickets for his last home game are skyrocketing, as are, curiously enough, tickets at Fenway Park for Jeter’s final appearance there. It is weird that scalpers are asking $1,500 for tickets the final appearance of the leader of their most hated enemy team.
But I guess that’s the level of respect Jeter has earned. You can hate the Yankees, but you can only respect Jeter. He can book a summer trip to Cooperstown in 2019, you can guarantee it.

There was an old joke that there are two sports in the South: football and spring football. Passions run deep for college football, and I guess that’s ok until you realize the fact that old alums are gaining their pride on the backs of kids (not to mention the billions of dollars of revenue generated by these young men).
These rabid fanatics (they aren’t fans – they’re nuts) forget two things: first, these are kids, 17, 18 years old, old enough to drive and join the military, but still basically kids; and second and most important, football and sports in general pail in comparison to the real life problems, and yes, positives in life.
Some don’t get this message and begin harassing players who don’t come to their school. The latest case involves Rashaan Evans, a “five-star” (top) linebacker recruit who decided to commit to Alabama on National Signing Day. Evans is an Auburn native and has family ties with the Tigers, but he decided to join Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide. Apparently, some people in Auburn don’t like the young man’s decision.
Evans told TideSports.com that several fans are taking out their frustrations on him (quoted on SI.com). “It’s getting worse,” Evans said. “Someone actually put out an article about my family’s business telling all Auburn fans not to go there. We are going to eventually start losing money. People are telling restaurants in the town not to serve us. It’s hard for me to go out and chill with my friends like I have always done because people keep coming up to me telling me I made a bad decision. It’s grown men. They are asking me why I did this to them. I told them I had to do what is best for me.”
Evans said that people are even trying to get him in trouble at school. Meanwhile, some Auburn fans are wishing the worst on his forthcoming career in Tuscaloosa via social media. “People on Instagram are telling me how they hope I tear my ACL in game one. They will laugh when I do. They are saying my family is horrible and how they didn’t raise me right. It’s just crazy.”
COME ON PEOPLE! This is a young man who plays football. I have no great love for any of the teams in the SEC, who are little more than minor leagues for the NFL, but it is this young man’s decision and people should respect it. Trying to boycott his family’s business? Wishing that he tears his ACL? THIS IS CROSSING THE LINE!
I know that passion for football is deep down there and rivalries are strong, but you people need to take an EXTREMELY deep breath and calm down!