Sochi Olympics!!

[betiko]

No one watched the half pipe then??
I heard it s the one that gets the best audience, and Shaun White is the best paid wintersports athlete.

Anyways, why are Norwegians always so good and Swedes always so bad? I know they have almost no mountains, but any cross country, biathlon ect doesn t need mountains.

I can answer that. Cause we only care about real sports like hockey. Cross-country, biathlon, snowboard, curling etc. is marginal sports that people only care about every fourth year. Norways hockeyteam sucks so they have to make up for it in the marginal sports.

well I'd rather be good in so many winter sports as Norway rather than just hoping for bronze in one sport that is relevant in only 10 countries in the world or so.

And snowboard a marginal sport seriously? there is like 100 times more people who practice snowboard compared to the marginal ice hockey.
Shaun White is the best paid sports guy of the whole olympics by far.

I watched the women half pipe today; my god the competition has nothing to do with men... Women are so inconsistent! And only the american girls are worth something, they were really killing the competition this year. There was this french girl that wasn't bad, she finished 6th or so but the americans were just not in her league.

[oVo]

Maybe others can do the same tricks, but his style and fluidity are like no other. Also he goes higher than anyone.

White got the big air on his final run but caught the lip
on the same trick the Gold Winner nailed and that was
the big difference.

Don't compare extreme sport / snowboarding to Ice Hockey betiko,
because Ice Hockey wins the numbers game hands down. There are
so many more participants, fans, venues and international history
that snowboarding can't touch it.

[Draq]

And snowboard a marginal sport seriously? there is like 100 times more people who practice snowboard compared to the marginal ice hockey.
Shaun White is the best paid sports guy of the whole olympics by far.

If you are refering to the Forbes list of highest paid athletes, that one excluded all the hockeyplayers, otherwise it would have been a list of pretty much only hockeyplayers. I doubt there are 100 times more people that are registered snowboarders then hockeyplayers, but you are welcome to present your sources on that one. Hockey is still a much bigger sport both if you look at registered athletes and public intrest, compare NHL and KHL with for example X-games. Snowboard is like a hobby, not many see it as a real sport, I´m mean even the olympic athletes dos´nt take it serouisly. The swede that came 4th in slopestyle did´nt even care that much about the judges poor decision (he should atleast have the broze) all he cared about was having fun.

[betiko]

http://www.examiner.com/article/number- ... nationwide
I just found some 2010 figures, didn't bother to look further, and this is just the US: 11,5 million skiers and 8,1 million snowboarders. Any country with mountains is interested in ski/snowboard.

there is a handful of countries interested in ice hockey: Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland the United States.

This is like if rugby is introduced in the summer olympics and I tell you it's the only sport that counts... or an indian guy about cricket, a cuban about baseball. those sports are far from being universal.

I practice snowboard since I was 12 and I couldn't care less about ice hockey. Here on TV they don't put the games on unless it's a game for a medal, they show any sport really.
And the biggest worldwide audience, even in the US is for the men's halfpipe.

[betiko]

Maybe others can do the same tricks, but his style and fluidity are like no other. Also he goes higher than anyone.

White got the big air on his final run but caught the lip
on the same trick the Gold Winner nailed and that was
the big difference.

Don't compare extreme sport / snowboarding to Ice Hockey betiko,
because Ice Hockey wins the numbers game hands down. There are
so many more participants, fans, venues and international history
that snowboarding can't touch it.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/spo_i ... ed-players

lol there you go, there is 6 times less people playing ice hockey worldwide compared to people snowboarding in the US alone.
There is 18 times more american snowboarders compared to ice hockey players. what are you talking about???

[Gillipig]

Maybe others can do the same tricks, but his style and fluidity are like no other. Also he goes higher than anyone.

White got the big air on his final run but caught the lip
on the same trick the Gold Winner nailed and that was
the big difference.

Don't compare extreme sport / snowboarding to Ice Hockey betiko,
because Ice Hockey wins the numbers game hands down. There are
so many more participants, fans, venues and international history
that snowboarding can't touch it.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/spo_i ... ed-players

lol there you go, there is 6 times less people playing ice hockey worldwide compared to people snowboarding in the US alone.
There is 18 times more american snowboarders compared to ice hockey players. what are you talking about???

Must be american thing with snowboard, I've never met anyone in Sweden who does snowboard, everyone has done skiing in some form though.

Edit: Checked the link.
Who are these 67,858 people snowboarding in Sweden?? Seriously these numbers looks inflated, In every class there are some guys who play hockey, but going through school I never encountered anyone who said they did snowboarding. Are people ashamed of saying they do snowboard? Is there like a closet snowboarderer thing? lol

[betiko]

Well it s very popular in any european ski resort. There are less snowboarders than skiers of course, but i don t know, i d say a bit under a third of the people on the slopes are snowboarders.


By the way, that slope style event is awsome. And the US got all 3 spots on the podium, pretty impressive..

[Gillipig]

I was looking at the hockey numbers and thought they were snowboard numbers, thus my surprise. I wonder how many "registered" snowboarders there are, I have feeling the article you looked at was very generous in what it considered a snowboarderer. There's a pretty big difference between someone who owns or hires a snowboard and uses it one vacation week a year, and someone who does snowboarding on a monthly basis. Or the article might be even more generous and consder anyone who has at least once in their life tried snowboarding. In that case I'm a tennis player, rower, ping pong player, kayaker, martial artist, hockey player, basketball player, high jumper, long jumper, soccer player and badminton player, but I'm really neither of those things, because I don't do those sports often enough. I swim a lot, I run a lot and I bike a lot. So those are the three sports I consider myself performing.

[betiko]

I was looking at the hockey numbers and thought they were snowboard numbers, thus my surprise. I wonder how many "registered" snowboarders there are, I have feeling the article you looked at was very generous in what it considered a snowboarderer. There's a pretty big difference between someone who owns or hires a snowboard and uses it one vacation week a year, and someone who does snowboarding on a monthly basis. Or the article might be even more generous and consder anyone who has at least once in their life tried snowboarding. In that case I'm a tennis player, rower, ping pong player, kayaker, martial artist, hockey player, basketball player, high jumper, long jumper, soccer player and badminton player, but I'm really neither of those things, because I don't do those sports often enough. I swim a lot, I run a lot and I bike a lot. So those are the three sports I consider myself performing.

Lol, how can someone snowboard monthly all year?
You are talking about an activity that requires metereological conditions and that can only be practiced on hardly accessible places for someone living in a city. Can you really compare this with the practice of ping pong?


Second gold medal for Martin Fourcade in biathlon, and he still has 3 more competitions! Only top notch athlete we have for these olympics, let s see if we can optimize our medal count with him!

[Gillipig]

I was looking at the hockey numbers and thought they were snowboard numbers, thus my surprise. I wonder how many "registered" snowboarders there are, I have feeling the article you looked at was very generous in what it considered a snowboarderer. There's a pretty big difference between someone who owns or hires a snowboard and uses it one vacation week a year, and someone who does snowboarding on a monthly basis. Or the article might be even more generous and consder anyone who has at least once in their life tried snowboarding. In that case I'm a tennis player, rower, ping pong player, kayaker, martial artist, hockey player, basketball player, high jumper, long jumper, soccer player and badminton player, but I'm really neither of those things, because I don't do those sports often enough. I swim a lot, I run a lot and I bike a lot. So those are the three sports I consider myself performing.

Lol, how can someone snowboard monthly all year?
You are talking about an activity that requires metereological conditions and that can only be practiced on hardly accessible places for someone living in a city. Can you really compare this with the practice of ping pong?


Second gold medal for Martin Fourcade in biathlon, and he still has 3 more competitions! Only top notch athlete we have for these olympics, let s see if we can optimize our medal count with him!

You just fed into my point there. There aren't many who snowboard on a regular basis, and that was what I was saying as well. Whatever reason we attribute this to does not change that it is so. I was under the impression that you were arguing that snowboarding was a bigger sport than hockey, and if you are going to compare the two sports in popularity, one of the points of interest is how often it is being practiced. That is more important than how many people has ever held a hockey stick or how many has ever stood on a snowboard. Besides, the number that was given for hockey was number of registered hockey players, not number of people who has ever held a hockey stick and stood on skates.

[betiko]

Well i go twice a year since the last 20 years (although 2 years ago I didn t go as the year before I broke my spine after a hard fall on the ass snowboarding).
When you do it you do it all day during a whole week. i doubt you do that in hockey, even a pro would spend less time on an ice rink during the season .
Unless you live very close from a ski resort in the northern+southern hemisphere, there is no way you can ski/snowboard every month of the year. And if you do it, well you are a professional.
Here we are talking about people practicing.

[JBlombier]

Damn, we're skating our asses off in Holland. Not sure if this is most successful Olympic year Holland has ever had, but with some races coming up with a few chances for gold, it must be. My mother must be having a blast.

[betiko]

Damn, we're skating our asses off in Holland. Not sure if this is most successful Olympic year Holland has ever had, but with some races coming up with a few chances for gold, it must be. My mother must be having a blast.

yeah pretty impressive! the most impressive was a competition were all 3 guys on the podium were dutch!
so how come you guys are only good in short track/speed skating but there is no acrobatic/artistic skater ever? It's funny to see the specialities in each country.

[isaiah40]

So much for winter there. I heard it was 68F there today!

[Draq]

http://www.examiner.com/article/number-of-people-both-skiing-and-snowboarding-keeps-increasing-nationwide
I just found some 2010 figures, didn't bother to look further, and this is just the US: 11,5 million skiers and 8,1 million snowboarders. Any country with mountains is interested in ski/snowboard.

there is a handful of countries interested in ice hockey: Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland the United States.

This is like if rugby is introduced in the summer olympics and I tell you it's the only sport that counts... or an indian guy about cricket, a cuban about baseball. those sports are far from being universal.

I practice snowboard since I was 12 and I couldn't care less about ice hockey. Here on TV they don't put the games on unless it's a game for a medal, they show any sport really.
And the biggest worldwide audience, even in the US is for the men's halfpipe.

Still where is your facts? Compare snowboareders salarys with hockeyplayers please. Snowboard is still a marginal sports. Ice Hockey is a world wide national treasure.

[betiko]

what is for sure is that there are way more countries with ski resorts than countries interested/playing ice hockey.
Also, take the brits for example, they come to ski in france/switzerland ect and they have no interest in ice hockey either. Ice hockey is no way as popular as cricket worldwide for example. Doesn't mean you should like it less, it's just a fact. Ice hockey isn't popular worlwide at all, no matter how passionate swedes and canadians can be about it.

The olympics is about watching sports that you aren't used to watch; you guys watch hockey all the time so you might use the oportunity.

[HardAttack]

football / basketball / volleyball... these three to rock, rest come here to suck

[betiko]

Volleyball?? Lol, won t agree on that one mate! is it popular in turkey?

[HardAttack]

Volleyball?? Lol, won t agree on that one mate! is it popular in turkey?

yes !!!

we have some of the best volleyball teams worldwide

eczacıbasi / vakifbank / fenerbahce ulker and so.

[betiko]

I prefer handball a million times to volleyball!
we love handball here in france!

[Gillipig]

I prefer handball a million times to volleyball!
we love handball here in france!

I was pretty good at handball at school, not because I was very technical, but berserking your way towards your opponents goal is another way to do it haha. Sucked at basketball, too much technique, you can be more physical in handball and that's why I like it. The guys at a proffesional level are fucking warriors!!

[betiko]

I prefer handball a million times to volleyball!
we love handball here in france!

I was pretty good at handball at school, not because I was very technical, but berserking your way towards your opponents goal is another way to do it haha. Sucked at basketball, too much technique, you can be more physical in handball and that's why I like it. The guys at a proffesional level are fucking warriors!!

And you swedes are historically very good at it. Even if denmark is the best of the nordics nowadays

[HardAttack]

one thing i loved with handball,
when i was a kid to play football with regular ball was damn tough since it was heavy, then handball ball was quite of such a nice ball to make amazing fast shoots playing football using handball balls

handball, in my country, ummm, say number 5-6 in popularity ... behind the volleyball far behind it.

[betiko]

In terms of team sports, in france:
1Football; 2rugby; 3basketball/handball pretty much tied. Then any other team sport is veryyyy marginal.
Otherwise tennis/formula1/cycling (even if only the tour de france is really popular, no one follows the rest of the season)/WRC/golf/sailing