So the highly-anticipated Canada City v USA-USA-USA hockey game is tonight.  And, for once, I will not have a case of Olympics Overload.

Watching these games has been exhausting.  Compared to the summer version, the Winter Olympics have a wide variety of different types of Sport that I dig.  Skiing, speed skating, and the ever popular curling are chief amongst these.  But ice hockey, certainly, is number one.  And this matchup, as I have been pimping all week, is appointment TV.  (So, for that matter, is the Russia v Czech Republic matchup on right now on the Mothership.  As I write: after two periods, it is Putin’s Madmen 2:1 Fighting Havels.)  So full attention is paid by me, and here.

The depth of Team Canada is positively frightening.  Sidney Crosby, Joe Thornton and pals will be leading the attack, with Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook (teamed up here in town for the Blackhawks, to excellent effect) on the blue line, and the incomparable Martin Brodeur between the pipes.  The U.S. Americans are younger, and fast.  Phil Kessel is a stud.  Patrick Kane (another Blackhawk) can be a stud, but is prone to knuckleheadedness (silly stick fouls and such).  Ryan Miller (from the Buffalo Sabres) is your likely starter in net.  Game on MSNBC at 1900 Eastern.

[Speaking of MSNBC: one wonders why Keef is not a part of the proceedings here.  Dan Patrick and Cris Collingsworth have been here with the King of all Sport, Bob Costas.  Keith is stuck in 30 Rock.  Too hot to handle, perhaps.]

Elsewhere, there’s alpine skiing (with New Hampshaah’s own, Bode Miller), ice dancing, and other assorted goodies.  Notable: ski cross (NASCAR on skis, if it weren’t for the random right turns) and bobsled.  You look at the bobsledders, and they actually look like normal people.  In fact, some of them are full-fledged members of the Union.  (Brotherhood of Immense Gentlemen — Gut Union International, or BIG-GUI.)  Good to see.

Sorry for no update yesterday.  Real life interfered. 

Well, we have our first party foul of the Games — Scotty Lago forced back to the States, after the publication of racy photos of him with a woman getting an up-close-and-personal look at his snowboarding bronze medal.  As you know: achievement and dedication are American hallmarks, celebrated especially during the Games.  Another grand American tradition: insufferable prudishness.  God bless America! (Sniff.)

So: what else have we learned?  Team USA-USA-USA has done well thus far — the notable exception being the curlers, who have disappointed.  (The men’s skip got benched.  That’s how bad they have been.)  USA Men’s hockey could win their preliminary group by beating the Canadians tomorrow.  Canada, more broadly, has four golds, and eight medals total.  That’d be enough to call it a successful run at the end of the day, and the Games are only half done.  Great Britain has an individual gold (wimmin’s skeleton, yesterday) — their first in 30 years — and thus can go home happy.  Norway and Sweden are doing well in nordic events — this, of course, is a recording.  Figure skating remains impossible to understand.  And Stephen Colbert is in real danger of becoming overexposed.

Today, then.  The wimmin have their Super-G tonight, and there’s more speedskating.  Lotsa cross-country in the afternoon, along with freestyle aerial skiing.  Curling and hockey throughout as normal.

Everything in this world is connected in the weirdest ways, as you are aware.  Take, for example, Johnny Weir, whose tortured soul will be on display tonight.  He’s skated in many tournaments in his life, against many different skaters.  One of these skaters — who skated in several U.S. Championships with Johnny over the years — is a guy by the name of Derrick Delmore.  Two salient facts about Derrick: he was three doors down from me in my freshman dorm at The Farm, and he was raised in a town in Maryland known as Silver Spring.  As you all know, Silver Spring is also the name of a song made famous by Fleetwood Mac, and was specifically was recorded during the sessions for the album that would become Rumours.

This week, Rumours was named as one of the top ten albums by, oddly enough, L’Osservatore Romano.  This paper is, of course, published by The Vatican.  And who runs The Vatican?

Yes, friends.  Johnny Weir to Pope Benedict XVI in six steps.

[For those people who say that the song is actually called “Silver Springs” — phooey.  You’re no fun.  And incidentally — does the Pope know that Fleetwood Mac did enough drugs during the Rumours sessions to make Keith Richards cry?  And that the band members basically engaged in as much adultery as is humanly possible?]

Anyways: open thread for sequins and spandex — plus a replay of whatever Lindsey Vonn pulled off and Hannah Teter’s shot at gold in the halfpipe.  (No SI Swimsuit picture here of Hannah.  The Pope would not approve.  Maybe tomorrow.)

So Lindsay Vonn (r) and her Shin of Destiny (not pictured) are at Whistler today for the wimmins’ downhill run.  Apolo Ohno does his thing again tonight, as does Shawn White and Shani Davis.  Thankfully, there’s no figure skating to interfere, though NBC of course will do its level best to squeeze in a half-hour of talking about it before the men’s final tomorrow night. 

And we actually have a shot (supposedly) in the women’s cross-country 1200m sprint race.  And a word on that — have you ever seen the end of a cross-country race?  Jesus: every single time, they cross the line and then immediately collapse in exhaustion.  You don’t see that in marathons, or swimming (a good thing — you’d have drownings otherwise), or any other olympic sport.  Kind of incredible, really.

Elsewhere, USA 3:1 Switzerland in men’s hockey, in a frankly underwhelming performance.  Though it must be said that the Swiss actually trained as a team in the run-up — only three NHLers in the lineup allowed for that — the U.S. Americans should have done better.  Mark Sunday in your calendars, when they take on Canada in the biggest preliminary matchup of the bunch. 

And the storyline for Lindsey Jacobellis came to an obvious conclusion when she crapped out in the semi and ended up in fifth.  This, once again, leaves Bob Costas wanting for a storyline.  Poor Bob.  Perhaps a cute, 10-minute fluff piece about the noble, majestic beaver?  Nah… Lindsey Vonn stories are — [SHOT CLOCK BUZZER]

With the Olympics about a quarter done, let’s run through the comments to see if there is anything amiss.  And, sad to report, there is.  One of us came with: “curling would be more fun to watch if the competitors carried rifles.”  This instigated a right-hand-menu poll, in which the question was asked: “what would get you to watch curling?”  BC Bud is leading “weapons-grade Roombas” at the moment.

Hold.  Up.  You’re in my house now, as — yes — a former curler. 

Took up the sport while in Madison.  Would curl now, if the rinks weren’t all the way up in North Bumblefuck — a lovely little town which would be an hour and a half away from downtown at rush hour, thus making me late for the start.

Why do I dig curling?  It’s Rule No. 1, entitled “The Spirit of Curling.”  Follow me post-jump, please.

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Well, everybody can shut up now about Canada City putting up an oh-fer in Montreal and Calgary.  Thank God.  Also.  Full fawning is in effect over at CTV-ville, here.

Meanwhile — USA Wimmin 12:1 Chinese Wimmin in hockey.  The PRC is just going to have to console themselves by buying another $2tn in T-Bills.  (And that wasn’t even the worst outcome.  Canada City 18:0 Slovakia.  That’s a goal just about every two minutes.  Pete Carroll should look at that and sob.) 

A helpful viewing tip: Olympic coverage is much more bearable when you can fast forward through figure skating prelims.  If I’m going to sit through athletes crying through their makeup, it had better be for a medal.  (DVR is also quite useful for fast-forwarding through the B.C. Tourism spots, from which I am now officially sick.)

The menu: ice pairs will wrap tonight.  We might have men’s downhill — including everybody’s favorite flinty guy from New Hampshaah, Bode Miller.  And snowboard-cross; whoever can avoid getting tackled halfway down the hill takes the hardware.

The early leader for “Storyline Bob Costas Is Beating To Death” is the whole “no golds for Canada in Olympics held on home soil” deal.  Apart from the fact that home soil is not normally touched in the Winter Olympics unless the snow melts (that’s in the mail for sure, on recent evidence), Canada’s done just fine.  At Torino, they nabbed 7 golds, and 24 overall — good for fifth.

One of those went to Jennifer Heil in moguls.  Ah, but looky here! Hannah Kearney (right) of Norwich, Vt. — Vermont, bitches! — beat out Heil to take U.S. America’s first super-duper shiny object.  Two things about the moguls — (1) my knees hurt just watching that, and (2) you can’t tell the difference between one run and another.  In that regard, it’s like figure skating without spandex, and with more stoners.

Anyway: Canada’s not starving for gold.  Tone it down, Bob.  (And that’s a general instruction, Bob, applicable to all things.)

Briefly: USA hockey (wimmin) draw China to open their run this afternoon (basic cable).  Mothership has more luge (safer than advertised, thank God).  Also: nordic combined has, in a shock, a dark horse American in the mix, and the fellas take to the bumps.  And ice pairs, for those into spandex.