Criticizing the Critics

So I hear “the critics” are knocking the Vancouver Olympics.
They’re calling them “the glitch games”. They say the weather has been lousy.
But that’s “the critics”. Are they ever happy? Does anyone even care?
Pity the poor critics. Critics get paid to criticize, and that has to a sad way to spend your time, always poking around the shadows of Negativeville.

I read one critic this morning whine about how the dominance of the Canadian and United States women’s hockey program is hurting the development of the rest of the world’s women’s hockey programs. I suppose for the sake of the sport, the Canadian and U.S. teams should be broken up, or at least made to skate with 100 pound packs and forced to wear thick coke bottle glasses. Citius, altius, fortius (faster, higher, stronger) is an outdated concept anyway, right? It’s downright rude for those two teams to come to the games to compete at their highest level!

As for Vancouver, personally I believe they’ve done a marvelous job putting on the Olympic games. I’ve mingled with tens of thousands of humans in downtown who would all agree. I’ve been to three Olympic games now (Seoul ’88, Salt Lake ’02 and Vancouver ’10) and this is by far the friendliest gathering.

No matter how many people are crowded on the streets, everyone seems to be in a great mood. They’re happy to share with the world this beautiful place they call home. Yeah, the weather here isn’t exactly wintery. But most of the events in Vancouver proper are held indoor, or on refrigerated tracks. It got a little dicey at Cypress, but the folks here managed. Besides, who can control the weather? That would make a fine Olympic event. Of course, even if Vancouver Olympic officials could make it cold and snow, the critics would have found something to whine about. They always do.
-Carp