OT: Team USA Curling in Win-or-Die Game Tonight
The US Men's team, with wins over Canada and Switzerland in their last two games, sits 4-4 in the round robin, and must win their next and final game against Great Britain (really Scotland) to have a shot at the 4-team medal playoff.
That game is tonight at 8:05 PM 12:05 AM Eastern. Best bet is to stream on the NBC Sports app.
Team USA controls their own destiny: a loss and they are out but a win secures them at least a tiebreaker game opportunity to make the playoff.
Your rooting interests for this last session:
1) USA beats GBR
2) CAN beats DEN DEN beats CAN (thanks for the correction Alton)
3) KOR beats JPN
4) Whoever in SWE vs. NOR. Sweden has already guaranteed the top seed, and Norway was eliminated with a loss against Italy.
This creates a 4 way tie for 2nd. USA would take the 2nd seed by virtue of their 3-0 record against the other 3. The other 3 are all 1-2 against the 4 tied teams (and 1-1 against each other), so the third seed would be awarded to whoever has the best score from the last stone draws (currently SUI). The final two teams would play for the last spot.
This would put Sweden and Canada in the 1 and 2 spots, with a 3-way tie for 3rd between USA, GBR, and SUI. USA would automatically advance due to their wins over both teams, and SUI and GBR would play a single tiebreaker game for the last spot.
If Japan beats Korea, this would create a 5-way tie at 5-4 for the last 3 playoff spots. Again, USA would advance automatically by virtue of their top record against the tied teams (they would be 3-1), leaving CAN, GBR, SUI, and JPN to play two tiebreakers, with the two winners advancing.
Go USA!
February 20th, 2018 at 8:00 PM ^
They have the livestream announcer team covering the entire event, right down to the skiers from tropical nations finishing 6 seconds off the pace. I did, in fact, listen to that call, and it was pretty good; NBC later ran it in a highlight package and it was readily available on the website. I guess they just wanted to give Hicks and Miller the mic, since that was who viewers were accustomed to hearing.
The Czech call, which NBC also eventually dug out (I managed to catch it on Youtube that night) was great.
I mean, I know what you mean. I love PbP calls that are live and bring out the excitement of the moment. I prefer the live call replays. I'm just trying to understand NBC's decisionmaking for the sake of argument.
February 20th, 2018 at 8:22 PM ^
I get where you're coming from, part of it is that NBC just tends to totally biff the actual sports aspect of the Olympics, especially on the primetime broadcasts, and this just feels like the latest symptom. So perhaps I over-relish the opportunity to call them on it.
Incidently, the livestream coverage for curling has been pretty decent, although often they don't have enough announcers for every game. It's especially nice that the players are mic'd up so you can hear them strategize.
February 20th, 2018 at 8:51 PM ^
I find myself defending NBC too often when talking about the Olympics, but you do have to be fair to them--the event was delayed one hour from its original starting time. The event was supposed to start at 11:00 Pyeongchang time--9:00 pm EST--but it started at 10 pm.
NBC had a commitment to show men's figure skating, an inexplicable fan favorite, at 10 pm, so they really had to squeeze the women's super-G into a time slot when they wanted to be doing something else. There was no way that 11:00 pm was going to roll around with them still showing the Super-G.
Without the 1-hour delay, that might have been a more satisfying viewing experience.
February 20th, 2018 at 9:39 PM ^
This is a really good point.
I think NBC gets too much guff for its Olympic coverage--they've gotten a lot better, and the free streaming is absolutely tremendous and has been for years.
One complaint I do have is their willingness to skip a skier or two to show a brief commercial or, as has happened tonight, to pump up Lindsey Vonn.
So far, other than that, their coverage has been pretty good. Bode Miller is only ok as a color guy, though.
February 20th, 2018 at 11:01 PM ^
When they skipped from #5 Goggia to #7 Vonn, just to show Vonn psyching herself up in the starting gate, of course it was annoying that they skipped #6...but I have to think that it was a very compelling sequence for the average viewer who does not understand the sport but enjoys "the human drama of athletic competition," as they used to say. It turns out that #6, Kira Wiedle, finished 11th, so it was a calculated risk by NBC that panned out for them.
But yes, Bode Miller lacks any sense of the dramatic and he really sucked a lot of emotion out of the event.
February 21st, 2018 at 12:50 AM ^
February 20th, 2018 at 10:07 PM ^
I guess NBC decided to go with the poison today: it looks like they're going all the way to #30 or so.
February 20th, 2018 at 10:53 PM ^
Shows you what I know.
February 21st, 2018 at 12:52 AM ^
February 20th, 2018 at 5:45 PM ^
February 20th, 2018 at 6:52 PM ^
in other words.
February 20th, 2018 at 8:28 PM ^
February 20th, 2018 at 9:51 PM ^
February 21st, 2018 at 12:47 AM ^
February 20th, 2018 at 10:19 PM ^
February 20th, 2018 at 10:47 PM ^
February 21st, 2018 at 12:46 AM ^
February 21st, 2018 at 2:08 AM ^
February 21st, 2018 at 2:19 AM ^
Anybody else think that the UK coach is regretting his halftime speech about how they were going to "destroy" the Americans? Or, at least, is wishing he'd remembered that he was miked?
Also, how the hell does the country that includes Scotland have a Swedish curling coach? That's like the US hiring a Korean to coach the Olympic baseball team.
PS: Korea just knocked off Japan, and the US wins the tiebreak to go through to the semifinals as the #3 seed. They'll face off against Canada, and Sweden will take on the winner of the play-in game.
February 21st, 2018 at 8:34 AM ^
February 21st, 2018 at 8:58 AM ^