Play-by-play commentary must be incredibly hard. That’s why sportscasters presumably get paid a lot more than the likes of me. I’ve long been irked by the hyperbole that runs rampant in the sports world. The best catch, the worst fumble, the longest line drive in the history of the world, the highest, the fastest, the most incredible, you get the idea. One hour of Sportscenter results in the WORST headache in the world.Enter the Olympics.
Forget the hyperbole. I’m too busy rolling my eyes at the remarks of dumbassian proportions. Remarks such as “He’s in first place. That’s a good place to be” And “She’s not without talent.” Instead of hyperbole, they seem to be going for the gold in fucking obvious. Don’t believe me. Just watch and listen; you’ll have the worst migraine since the dawn of time.
“This has been tremendously tremendous!” —as the USA hockey team beat Team Canada
“He’s a contender in this event for sure.” —downhill skier already with two medals from this Olympics
“It will not be a cool running for Jamaica.”
“The biggest battle will be the one he fights from within.”
Then there’s the local NBC reporter who asked speedskating gold medalist Sven Kramer who he was, where he was from, and what he had just won. Kramer’s awesome response? “Are you stupid?”
Clearly a rhetorical question.
What are the most redonculous comments you've heard during the Vancouver Olympic Games?
(photo of Russian ice dancing team Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin, who "rocked" an Australian aboriginal look: washingtonpost.com)
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"Oh my god! He/she/it fell! That's not good!"
"Oooh, THAT mistake is going to cost them."
~ Side note in regards to the photo you captioned, I thought the aboriginal theme was rather unique and well done.
Okay, I have to defend that local NBC reporter just a teensy bit!
The likelihood that she would be the person editing the video for replay on that night's news is smaller than you'd suppose. She might be passing that video off to somebody else, in which case she can't just assume that the person reviewing it will know exactly who it was that she was talking to or why. She would have been better off explaining to Kramer why she was asking those questions, but it was a fair journalistic practice to make sure that information was included in the tape so that somebody else would be able to identify the person being interviewed.
Could she have stood in front of the camera and given all the information herself? Yes, and that might have been a good idea, except that by having Kramer pronounce his own name, then they can review that and find out if there are any pronunciation issues of which they had been unaware.
So, yeah, she could have handled it better, but I doubt seriously she was asking those questions because she didn't know the answers.
Deb, those are very good points. In interviewing people for print, I've asked them how they want their name to appear so this makes sense for video.
Oh, it's got to be Tracy Wilson, commenting on the ice dance. If I'd had a couple more people in my living room, I'd have brought out the tequila and made a drinking game of it -- a shot every time she said "twizzles," which apparently refers to the only ice move she's really familiar with, because she worked it into EVERY SINGLE DANCE. "They've been having trouble with their twizzles all season," she says, as the couple executes them flawlessly. "A little off on the twizzles!" she proclaims during another. Sometimes "twizzles" was her only comment, but she always managed to get it in there. By the time the last team skated (and yes, we heard about their twizzles, too), I REALLY wanted to punch Tracy in the face. How about "shut the fuck up and save your random yammering till they finish"?
the tremendously tremendous was my favorite. i heard that and had to rewind the tivo because i thought perhaps i was hallucinating. i mean, after all, it was right after the us beat canada in hockey. who saw that one coming. that was a really important win for the us. they really needed to make a statement with that game. (see i can be a sportscaster too!)
Oh, this made me laff and laff. I just wish I could remember ALL the crap I've heard that's such a statement of the obvious that I actually had to pause my deeve to look at Cathie and ask, What the fuck did they just say?!.
They must tell them, Talk! Talk! Say stuff! No one will care what it is!
I don't remember the particulars of who said what to whom, but over and over it happened that the woman on the course goes up to the leader, who just went into first place, "Do you feel good about that run?"
No. I really wanted to take the bronze. What a bummer.
Marvelous article in yesterday's LA TIMES about this very issue.
I'm so glad you're quoting the lovely Sven Kramer. I'm Dutch (living in the UK), and only get slightly patriotic when it comes to skating. It was a very proud moment when he told the NBC reporter that he was not going to respond to her questions. He had just won Olympic gold, his name was being chanted all over the stadium, and she had the nerve to ask 'who are you, where are you from, and can you tell us what you just won'. Um.. no. No thanks. If you don't want to do your job, fine, but don't expect others to do it for you.
Sportscasters can be so dumb at times. I listen to them and I think "Are you kidding me"
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