You’ve no doubt heard by now about the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili during a practice run – I watched video of the accident, and watched some luge over the weekend – but I couldn’t watch much. The track, even with reduced speeds (due to starting further down the hill), is still extremely treacherous. My issue isn’t with the track itself – luge is by its very nature a fast, edge-of-control sport – but with the lack of ‘runoff’ areas around the track, especially near the end of the run. The death occurred because engineers saw fit to place several concrete pillars within a few feet of the track – what were they thinking?
In ANY speed sport, care is usually taken to allow for runoff areas – or if that is not practical, at least padding areas that might be ‘in play’. I know that there’s always some danger involved, but it’s incumbent upon the organizers and engineers to mitigate that danger as much as possible. Those concrete pillars show no respect for the possibility of a crash, and as usual the needed safety improvements came only after a tragedy. I can only hope further tragedy will be avoided this week during the on-track events, and that in the future designers will weigh the need for a covered track (the reason for the pillars) versus the need for athlete safety.
Quickly, we’ll review the Super Bowl – after the first half, I felt confident that my Colts pick was a winner – but in the second half the Saints showed boldness and imagination, and frankly outcoached the Colts badly. The Saints improbably DID win the turnover battle, and as it has been for them all season it was a turnover that won the game – up until that interception return I still felt that the Colts would pull out a close one. One cannot blame Manning – yes, it was a bad throw, but his defense didn’t get ONE STOP the entire second half, his receivers failed to make big plays for him, and his line was out played for long stretches by the Saints’ D-line.
On the other hand, one has to give New Orleans a TON of credit – they executed their game plan very well, and as mentioned made all the adjustments needed in the second half. Unsung hero for the Saints: special teams. I didn’t think they would make that much of a difference, but they outkicked the Colts all game long, and made the big play on the onside kick (people forget that a Colt actually was in position and muffed that kick – had the Colts recovered, I suspect reaction would be different). Like the Rams a decade ago, the Saints have the skill players to be a factor for several years – the big questions will be their defense and the continued health of Drew Brees. That division has been the most unpredictable over the past five years or so, but I think the Saints are an excellent bet to stay atop it for a few seasons.
Finally, let’s take a quick look at the Olympics – particularly the hockey. Obviously the Canadian team will be favored on home ice, but they will face TERMENDOUS pressure to come through. The Canadians are so deep they could probably field three teams that would contend for a medal – this works against them in some ways, though, because the team generally ends up with extra skill and lacking in grinders. Canada is also suffering some injury concerns going into the tournament – Ryan Getzlaf is hobbled, and Sunday Sidney Crosby took a beating in his last pre-Olympic NHL game.
Among other teams, Russia, the US, and Sweden are medal favorites with the Czech Republic and Slovakia as dark horses. I actually like the US’ chances here – I like the makeup of the team, they have a great mix of scoring and grit; their goaltending should be among the best in the tournament if Ryan Miller plays as he has all season; and they have far less pressure on them than Canada or the all-star Russian team. We’ll get a very interesting preview this week, as the US and Canada are in the same pool and will play each other next Sunday at 7 – don’t miss that one!
Dave Glass can be reached at buggyracer@verizon.net.