USA Women's team game alert and a few thoughts on Canada

Just a quick heads up that the U.S. Women's team plays at 3 p.m. Pacific time in the semifinals of the Canada Cup against Finland. The squad triumphed over Canada by a 4 to 2 margin on Thursday, bringing great joy to my heart because it's always fun to see the Canuckians get clobbered at their own game. You can watch the U.S.-Finland tilt online at fasthockey.com.

Oh, and while I'm on the subject, I just wanted to send this heartfelt message out to the Great White North: Fuck You!

Why the enmity, you ask?

Both The Girlfriend and I have been trying to get jobs at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. I'll take any gig just to be there -- I don't care if it's washing pucks with a toothbrush or using a pocket comb to groom the snow for the ski events. NBC's coverage, as it has in the past, is pretty much guaranteed to suck -- unless you really like spanking the monster to Bob Costas' warm anecdotes -- and I've concluded the only way to actually see the games is to be present.

But good luck with the online job application process with the Vancouver Organizing Committee and their poorly designed website. I applied for a sportswriting job with the media department and when I recently went online to check my application status I received a "No Results Found," message. Same thing happened to The Girlfriend.

Yes, we both followed directions and yes we're both qualified, having worked in journalism for many, many, many years.

The jobs, obviously, are going to Canadians. Okay, fair enough. They're the home team. But if the Committee is going to invite non-Canadians to apply, they should at least be decent about it. And having your website consume job applications and burp out the equivalent of a "you've-been-deleted-now-go-piss-off" is not being decent about it. 


One more thought: The three mascots for the Vancouver Games are really bizarre, even by Olympic game standards -- that's them in the photo above. They are, from left: Sumi, a Guardian Spirit/Environmentalist (seriously); a  Miga, a killer whale/sea bear (seriously), and; Quatchi, a mythical Sasquatch (seriously).

BTW, I highly suggest that Sumi spend some time reading this NRDC report on how Canada's shoddy oil and gas industry "is destroying Canadian air, water and land resources." That's the spirit!


--Steve Hymon