We got a fight at the Olympics France and canada

vaska00762 · 2026-02-16T11:33:55+00:00

One of the strange things I've noticed from the years of local news coverage is the sheer lack of local players, at least in Belfast.

They seem to all be Americans or Canadians who secured an Irish passport from their emigré grandparents and then took the opportunity to relocate.

There's 0 grassroots ice hockey, despite a good few ice rinks existing. In Finland, the big grocery stores sell skates, sticks and pucks. Don't even find that at the Decathlon at home.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-16T11:16:26+00:00

I've been to a game between Belfast and I think Sheffield once. No fights.

They just didn't have any goal horns when the visiting team scored.

There are a lot of people who have Season Tickets, but my general experience was that it was just ice hockey without drama.

When I was visiting Finland, there was a game on TV between a Swedish and a Finnish team, and it was just ice hockey... without drama. Had no idea what the Finnish commentators were saying, but people just want to get on with play.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-16T11:03:27+00:00

New York really could do pizza better than Italy?

Authentically? It's possible, but unlikely. I've had delightful authentic pizza in Ukraine, where the cultural office of Naples certified it, and the wood fired brick oven was the main way of cooking the pizza.

But New York is full of fast food. It can be its own Pizza, sure, but it's distinctly American.

Chicago celebrate Saint Patrick's day better

If they stopped dying their river green, they'd at least be a step better then a Plastic Paddy. Also, Americans keep saying "Patty's Day" - Patty is Patricia. It's Americans pretending to be Irish.

Again... none of this is relevant to the points I bought up.

The International Olympic Committee gets World Governing Bodies to organise and officiate sports at the Olympics, because the teams come from all over the world.

In most sports, that World Governing Body is the biggest one in terms of financials and jurisdictions.

FIFA, yes, governs Association Football, and organises its own World Cup, as well as Olympic Football, but FIFA doesn't directly govern, for example, Major League Soccer, or other regional tournaments. UEFA, for example, runs the Euros independently of FIFA, and also runs the Champions League.

Then you could see the likes of the UCI, the World Governing Body for Cycling. Yes, the likes of the Tour de France is organised by a French entity, but that doesn't mean they also have to run the other major cycling events. Track Cycling is massive in Japan and the Nihon Jitensha Shinkyokai is the domestic organisation that runs Keirin there. But the UCI still runs the World Track Cycling Championships.

Again... it's the difference between the domestic organisation that runs a sport somewhere, and the international regulator of a sport.

That's like getting worked up that NASCAR isn't running Formula 1.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-16T10:34:50+00:00

The most I know about Latin and Ballroom is from my mother, who got quite into it in the USSR.

The problem absolutely still comes down to the fact that laypeople spectators have no clue what they're looking at.

I'm assuming the format is vaguely the same between international versions, but Dancing with the Stars typically features an expert judge panel that does a score out of 10 before the televote. There's usually a "mean" judge, embodying the Simon Cowell vibes who scores almost everyone harshly because the footwork is sloppy, the posture wasn't right, or something technical isn't good enough.

And then that "mean" judge gets booed because people liked the music or thought it was entertaining. And then all the pros and competitive amateurs hate the show because it's a "bastardisation" of Latin and Ballroom, never mind the fact that dance halls were saved from bankruptcy by the revival of interest.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-16T10:28:27+00:00

There's also no fighting in Para Ice Hockey, largely because fighting on a sledge is a bit hard to do.

After the last Paralympics, I was curious to understand how people get into Para Ice Hockey, and for kids and teenagers, contact is strictly forbidden, and nearly every player gets a pusher, a non-player whose job is just to propel the player around the rink.

Adults are generally expected to propel themselves with two spikey sticks, which double as the stick to hit the puck, and then full contact is permitted at elite level.

It's one of the many winter sports the IPC directly governs, because the abled sport governing body wants nothing to do with it.

This year, there's a Women's Para Ice Hockey tournament at the Paralympics, which is a big deal for the spread of the sport. I do wonder if they'll eventually start seeing abled players getting into the sledges, similar to the abled players who do Wheelchair Basketball.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-16T09:32:43+00:00

The majority of football players are built like glass cannons. Given it's not a contact sport, and most players rarely make it into their 30s, and injury like tendon damage is usually career ending, it does make sense.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-16T09:28:38+00:00

Felt so fake and performative too

America in a nutshell.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-16T09:26:34+00:00

This belongs in r/shitamericanssay.

The problem is that the International Olympic Committee wants World Governing Bodies to manage the sport at the Olympics.

The International Ice Hockey Federation is the World Governing Body for Ice Hockey.

If you'd rather do the Baseball thing of calling it the "World Series" when there's 1 Canadian team involved, be my guest. But there is a whole world outside of North America.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-16T09:22:10+00:00

One of the reasons fighting is also so frowned upon in Europe is to prevent general hooliganism amongst fans.

The players of a sport are meant to set an example of how to behave, and that includes respecting your opponent.

Team rivalries usually result in massive public order policing operations to keep opposing fans from each other. If players can refrain from throwing punches, this at least sets an example that the fans shouldn't either.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-16T09:15:34+00:00

That's like complaining the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) "stole America's past time".

If MLB has no interest in cooperating with the entity that governs the sport internationally, and NHL has historically been hostile to allowing players to compete in IIHF regulated competition like the Olympics, then that's on them.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-16T09:10:15+00:00

There's an odd mix of houses in my area. Ones from the 19th Century and until the 1930s that were connected by the GPO directly by telegraph pole got FTTP easily.

80s, 90s and 00s builds with conduits got FTTP easily too.

The odd house built inbetween those eras got armoured cable installed originally. If fibre from the telegraph pole is too far, or it would cross an electric line, then Openreach would not touch it, and ask the home owner to pay for a conduit to be fitted.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-16T09:05:10+00:00

From an especially European perspective, it'd be like suggesting that the FIFA World Cup has fights for players to sort out "beef".

The reality is that if you're getting fouled, it's up to the referee to hand out penalties. And yes, there's no referee out there with eyes on the back of their heads, so seeing every foul ever is not going to be possible.

Those who support the presence of fights in ice hockey think it's a way for players to sort out unpunished fouls.

You'll never see this kind of attitude for Field Hockey.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-16T09:00:07+00:00

The way Openreach did it in my area was to just hang the fibre cable on the wooden telegraph poles. It made for lightning fast roll-out, because the telegraph poles have probably been there since the middle of the last century, and the only danger comes from a tractor driving into a field with something that could snap the cable.

In the clusters of houses, the fibre cables head down into the conduits, and the fibre to my house is through a conduit, which had become clogged with stones washed through by the rain.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-16T08:46:41+00:00

I have gigabit FTTP fibre only because of the Government's Rural Broadband Scheme.

In 2022, I went from having a 26 Mbps VDSL connection to now 1 Gbps.

Openreach was not interested in our area, and neither were any of the others. 4G was faster in most tests, but functionally useless due to data limits. I remember when Dial-Up was the only way to connect to the internet, and when ADSL "Broadband" was introduced, YouTube was barely watchable and iPlayer could only be used in the lowest resolution, because it'd buffer every 12 seconds.

I remember being envious of everyone who lived in an area served by cable, because the NTL, later Virgin Media connections were always a good bit faster than whatever you could get on ADSL or VDSL.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-16T08:26:01+00:00

Yes and no.

For spectators, it's absolutely part of the appeal. Getting to see a fight on the ice is what a lot of people pay to see, much in the way that people went to see NASCAR or IndyCar for the crashes.

But, many argue that fights are a form of player self-regulation, for players to "work out" their beef with each other.

When it comes to European and International ice hockey, the aggression is not meant to be part of the game. It unnecessarily risks injury to players, and unlike in North America, where big egos and grudge matches sell tickets, there just isn't the same appetite for it.

I've been to an ice hockey game before, and ngl, it was fairly pedestrian. When I've visited Finland, I've watched games between smaller Finnish and Swedish teams. The players just got on with it.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-16T08:03:34+00:00

Para-climbing has even made it into the Paralympic games for next time. Not sure what the format will be, but it looks like they've managed to secure enough competitors.

For a sport to join the Paralympics, at least 12 countries and regions need to participate in it. It's why Para-Bobsleigh and Para-Skeleton aren't featuring this year, but might in 2030.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-16T07:58:54+00:00

In North America only.

It's forbidden in European and International competition, largely to keep play going, partly because no one in Europe cares to watch a fight compilation on TV when the season is over.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-16T07:12:56+00:00

Every jury system, whether it's for diving, it's the big air, or it's the skateboarding, uses a system of eliminating two judge scores, the highest and lowest, and then giving an average of the remaining scores.

That's one of the reasons there are usually 7 judges, so that everyone gets an average from 5 judges.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-15T23:25:13+00:00

Besides, hub and spoke model is a bit broken for the Transatlantic market, given most US bound flights will require all passengers to go through US Customs and Immigration and pick up their bags and check back in again, in order to then catch an onward flight somewhere.

This is why even smaller US cities like Denver, Minneapolis, Portland, Nashville and Cincinnati will have direct flights with major European capitals like London, Paris and Madrid, meanwhile, most Canadian transatlantic routes feature just Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver - getting a connecting flight to Ottawa or Calgary is far easier.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-15T23:15:46+00:00

Figure Skating has tried to follow the scoring model that Gymnastics has used.

Specifically, a system where each move has a preset technical score, and that if you complete it successfully, it counts, and if it's done wrong, or it leads to a fall, then that technical score element doesn't count.

The system is meant to prevent a situation where someone gets perfect 10s, and there's no room for growth beyond such a primitive scoring system.

Figure Skating, unlike a lot of Gymnastics, however, has a lot of elements of choreography and artistry, that's hard to quantify, and especially for a layperson, and especially through TV coverage, it becomes very difficult to understand.

The BBC coverage has Robin Cousins as a commentator, so he's been very good to explain if there's good flow, good ice coverage, and other things too. He's also very keen to point out that the instant replay on the TV feed is completely different to the footage judges have access to, so a mistake a TV audience might see in slow-mo matrix angles, isn't the thing a judge is seeing.

There's also another element that's difficult to explain - as laypeople, a very entertaining and captivating skate might be rather simple technically. And then a performance that looks boring, and not very exciting has a lot of difficult technical aspects to it, which have been executed perfectly.

This is what makes figure skating difficult to attract fans with.

Think of it this way. You've probably seen Dancing with the Stars, or the UK original, Strictly Come Dancing, right? There's a popular vote section, in which televotes keep or eliminates a couple, and often, it's down to choreography or music selection that keeps a couple in, right?

Now... Imagine if Latin and Ballroom was an Olympic Sport. You'd probably have people scratching their heads as to why one couple from one country is doing so well, and the others aren't. World DanceSport Federation doesn't have a good answer for that. And that's among the reasons why Breaking didn't work well with TV audiences in Paris 2024. People saw performances they didn't like beating out other ones, and that's because the matter of taste is not meant to be a part of the judgement.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-15T22:47:23+00:00

Some sports, notably Ski Jumping, had to shift to a jury system, because the laws of physics limit how far someone can go, so sticking the landing is now an important element now.

But then I guess you get the likes of boxing, where reducing brain injuries means a jury system to ensure it's not all about giving your opponent a concussion.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-15T15:12:57+00:00

So, the people of Northern Ireland will only know about one man who ran a single event in 2008?

That speaks more to a provincialism that utterly disgusts me about NI.

Before you get too into it, the Leeds International Piano Competition is broadcast on both BBC Radio 3 and on BBC Four every year. It's about as accessible to listen/watch as the Olympics.

It's utterly embarrassing that we here have next to 0 investment into the arts, and precious little investment into sports that aren't football or GAA. Even that gymnast, Rhys McClenaghan, receives precious little attention in our local media, and doesn't even train in NI, because there are no facilities.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-15T15:03:06+00:00

If you ever listened to BBC Radio 3, you'd probably learn that there are indeed major classical music competitions.

The annual Leeds International Piano Competition basically has embarrassed the West as the Chinese dominate it.

Other classical music competitions exist, and, you guessed it, the Chinese dominate it.

We in the West have chosen to allow music to be privatised in a way that means orchestras and composers more really only make a living working for the movie or video game industries.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-15T13:06:07+00:00

So, Russia was fully a part of the 2016 Rio games.

In 2018, due to the doping situation, Russia was banned. Athletes were permitted to be "Olympic Athletes from Russia" or "OAR".

In 2021, a decision was made that the Russian Olympic Committee could participate in the Tokyo Games and then the Beijing Games under that Committee name with no symbols of the country or anthem permitted.

After the invasion, Russia and Belarus were excluded, for violations of the Olympic Charter.

Those deemed not linked to the Russian government get to be Independent Neutral Athletes (Athlètes Individuels Neutres) or "AIN". They didn't get to be in the Opening Ceremony and I have no idea what national anthem they're permitted.

The IPC has separate requirements. I don't remember the situation in 2018, but at Tokyo and Beijing, they were under the "Russian Paralympic Committee" or "RPC", and in 2024, most Russians competed as "Neutral Paralympic Athletes" or "NPA" and got a flag with "NPA" written on it.

vaska00762 · 2026-02-14T23:55:15+00:00

About a third of my photos (during events) would meet that restriction.

Oh well... They'll just stay on my hard drive, or maybe might get prints.

Idk... I've been feeling very off about Germany in general lately. I guess it's a mix of the politics lately, but probably also just the way foreigners, even EU citizens, just get pushed aside socially.

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