Beijing 2022 Day 16 Review & Closing Ceremony Review
Can you believe we are here? The end of another Olympics. SAD! But don't be too sad as we are at least here to go over everything from the final day of competition and go over the closing ceremony to bring the final day of Beijing 2022 to a close in true OTP style! Are we satisfied with the closing ceremony or do we feel disappointed once again? How satisfied are we with Finland finally winning ice hockey gold? What about Canada winning one more bronze medal? What has New Zealand done again to piss off Ben? And how do we feel these Olympics ended up compared to last time out in 2018? Get yourself in the zone one more time and pump some entertainment in your ears with our latest episode!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
BEN WATERWORTH: It is Off The Podium coming to you once again for a Beijing 2022 recap episode. Day 16, the final day, and the closing ceremony, the Olympics are over. Always a sad day. And we are here to go over the final day, the closing ceremony, and everything else in between. Joining us is a man who has a penis. It's Colin Hilding. Hello Colin, welcome back to Off The Podium. I don't know why I said that, but I just wanted to clarify for those at home who were wondering.
COLIN HILDING: Six years of waiting, and the listeners finally have confirmation that I do have a dong.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, indeed. How are you today, Colin? Are you sad? Are you happy? It's always a sad day on the final day of the Olympics, is it not?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, you know what's interesting is that I feel like for the Summer Olympics, it's not like I wouldn't be okay if they went for a couple extra days, but by the time you reach day 16, I'm almost like, yeah, you know what? I think I'm full. Whereas I feel like I'm still hungry for the Winter Olympics, and that's just a Winter Olympic thing. And it's unfortunate because the way the time difference is, I kept thinking to myself, oh, there's three days left to the Olympics a couple days ago, and I realised yesterday, no, no, no, there's two days left. No, no, there's technically one day left because when you look at the TV coverage, you're like, oh, yeah, we still got prime time coverage all the way through Sunday night. But then I realised that Saturday night's the last night of live competition, so it creeps up on you. It was a good last day, though. I like less events because it means a little bit more focus. You don't have to worry, although CBC had a hard time juggling last night. We'll kind of talk about that a little bit. But I'm also a little bit more OK with the Olympics being over now that we've witnessed the closing ceremonies, which might be worse than Pyeongchang.
BEN WATERWORTH: Did we witness the closing ceremony? I believe I went to the bathroom at one point, and it was over. That was quick, which is something we generally shouldn't complain about because I still think Rio's finishing. But look, I don't even want to sit here and complain anymore because I just feel like this is what ceremonies are now. Like, there's no point in having a whinge because literally what does a ceremony incur now? It's welcome to the ceremony, insert opening or closing here. Here's a 10-minute light show, which we claim is cultural. Then we welcome the athletes and the countries. Then we play an anthem. Then there's a kid singing something. Then Thomas Bach speaks for 45 minutes. Then we'll see you in Milan. I was thinking about this. The noughties were the golden period of ceremonies, I think. From Sydney through to London. I mean, Sochi wasn't bad. Let's go to Sochi. From Sydney through to Sochi, that was peak ceremonies. We didn't have a bad one, really. Now, I mean, Rio onwards, we just haven't had anything good. You know, again, that you're having a bad time when the Gold Coast opening and closing ceremonies are better than anything Olympic that we've had in the last six years. I don't even know what to say, Colt. That was just so underwhelming.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I kind of have the same feeling as you did going in. I'm like, oh, I don't want to be like the guy for the third Olympics in a row is just complaining, oh, that was lame. But there's nothing to it. And I think these ones for me are particularly disappointing because we've had an opening closing ceremonies without any cultural aspects at all. The cultural aspects are very minimal. And the music choices again, I mean, let's just acknowledge our German overlords of the sliding events by playing Beethoven for an hour and 40 minutes straight. But this is kind of what makes me miss Pyeongchang now because they at least had some of those cultural elements. And same thing in Rio. And this just felt like it was an opening closing ceremonies that was produced somewhere else in the world. I will say, I think that it was a conscious effort on their part to maybe not alienate themselves any more than they already are politically. Let's just make something that is accessible for everybody. But even the athletes coming in, it was just so chaotic and brief. I'm still looking for Isabel. I don't know if she's out there, our closing ceremony flag bearer. I caught one or two athletes on the field. And we'll talk about Paris, or not Paris, Milan in a few minutes.
BEN WATERWORTH: Milan, Milan or Cotina.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, the highlight of these closing ceremonies, but still kind of a letdown. Yeah, I don't want to be the complaining old guys again, except this is what it is and move on. Why are we even doing this episode?
BEN WATERWORTH: But the thing is, Colin, we can be, because why do people go on social media and go, oh, this is so spectacular? What are they watching? I just don't understand people's eyes in 2022, because maybe we are just those old guys who have grown up on the Olympics and have witnessed greatness. Like, I'm thinking, obviously we do this in the opening ceremonies, but again, let's go over some closing ceremony highlights we've had over the last 20 odd years. Sydney, barrel of fun. You had freaking Kylie Minogue coming out in a giant thong. You had Paul Hogan, Earl MacPherson. It was fun. Salt Lake City, you had giant fucking dinosaurs voiced by the Osmonds. You had Bon Jovi, you had Kiss. Come on, that was epic. Athens, I can't even remember Athens closing ceremony, to be honest, but I think it was good. I remember the opening ceremony. Taryn, you had fucking Ricky Martin. You had Ricky fucking Martin. He's not even Italian. And he was singing in the closing ceremony. London, you had the Spice Girls in One Direction Vancouver. You had Avril Lavigne. You had Nickelback. They were probably there too. Nickelback, Atlantis, the greatest hits of Canada. Michael Buble, like, God. Vancouver closing ceremony might be my favourite closing ceremony of all time. And even Sochi had the giant fricking bear. Where was the giant being Duan Duan? Like, come on.
COLIN HILDING: And it's also disappointing because the creative director for these opening closing ceremonies, Zhang Yimou, he is the most spectacular director in China and probably one of the ones most well known outside of China as well. I mean, he made the movie with Jet Li called Hero years ago. It was a massive hit. Another one, which I think is probably the best foreign language film of all time, House of Flying Daggers. I mean, he is known for spectacle. He is known for putting on a show even in his movies. And I think the thing that was most disappointing to me with this was how few people were involved in the presentations. And even for the Milan side, you know, coming soon. Can we have had more than two people out there? Like, because they get lost in the shuffle. And when we have such a huge visual aspect, it looked like America's got talent to me, you know? We've got this incredible big screen on the ground, on the field, that dwarfs any person that's out there. Like, where's the human element? I could just be watching a YouTube video if I wanted to see a video presentation.
BEN WATERWORTH: And we've already seen some people in the closing ceremony are doing the whole, like, what you see versus what we see. So, like, you see the big snowflake, and yet you see the video aspect of it, where you kind of see, like, they've got superimposed stuff on there. It's, um, yeah, it just doesn't really appeal to the masses and what you see. And, like, people can use a COVID excuse, but I don't even put the COVID excuse on it. Like, it's just, I mean, Pyeongchang was a letdown, but I mean, Pyeongchang was a highlight of this three cycle of Asian host cities, because we thought that Tokyo was going to blow us away being in Japan with technology. No, that was, I still stand by that Tokyo was the worst of the three.
COLIN HILDING: And yet Tokyo's presentation in Rio was spectacular.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And then, you know, then we thought, OK, well, Beijing won't let us down, because we know how good they were in 2008, and then here we are. So, I mean, we've got a couple of European Olympics now. LA, surely, I mean, we just saw the Super Bowl the other day in LA. That was pretty good. And then Brisbane will save the day. Australia never let anyone down. And then Vancouver slash Salt Lake in 2030 as well.
COLIN HILDING: The last time Los Angeles had the Olympics, a UFO flew over the stadium.
BEN WATERWORTH: A jetpack, wasn't it, as well in Los Angeles, I believe. Remember, that was when John Williams created the iconic Olympics theme.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, the Summon the Heroes. You really have to think that we're going to get something good. But again, we said that about the last three games.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I'm saying this now. I don't know if we've really talked about it on the show, the fact that Paris is having this unique opening ceremony on a river. They're not having it in a stadium, of course, which I'll be honest with you. When I heard that, I'm like, oh, I'm not a fan. Don't like the idea of that. That doesn't sound good. Fucking bring it on. I got to say now after the last few ceremonies, I'm like, it can't be any worse. Put a bunch of French people on the river with some baguettes and some croissants and sing, you know, bring it on, I say. I just also want to say, we'll talk about the Milan aspect, and I actually want to talk about one thing about the Canadian uniform. I think we're the problem, as we always are. We've got a curse on the Olympics in terms of, you know, gold medallists from Australia, at least now Canada can win gold. But let's be honest, ever since we've been on air, the ceremonies have sucked. So it's our fault. It's our fault, Colin. We are the reason why opening and closing ceremonies at the Olympics now suck.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, if anybody out there wants a good opening ceremonies, find a way to cancel us. Ben has said plenty of things throughout 230, 40 episodes that warrant us being cancelled. So get rid of our show and you'll get your own. We're holding the world ransom now. We're daring you to cancel us.
BEN WATERWORTH: And you know how well that works for us over on 007 when we threaten things, that clearly works the trick. I think out of the like 200 countries in the world, I've offended about 122 of them. So your next is Pakistan. Come on, trust me. I just want to put a warning out there. If you're from New Zealand today, tune out now.
COLIN HILDING: I will back you, New Zealand. I've got your back.
BEN WATERWORTH: I really don't think you will after today, after the facts I'm going to bring. Before we talk about Milan, the Canadian uniform, so you kind of went for like a this grey sort of silver, almost like a Bond style outfit or something like that. Did you see the cool little trick pocket that was involved in the Canadian uniform? Was this shown on your coverage?
COLIN HILDING: No.
BEN WATERWORTH: So there was a pocket underneath the hood, which contained the Canadian flag. You unzipped it, and you pulled out a Canadian flag, which was attached to the jacket. I thought that was really cool. So props to Team Canada. For Lululemon, you came through the goods all of a sudden, unless that was one of the carbon sports uniforms, which props to them. But I thought that was a really cool idea. That's why so many of the Canadians had the big Canadian flag behind their back.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah. I was wondering about whether or not the flag was part of the uniform, and now you've confirmed it for me. I will say it's the best thing I've seen Lululemon produce, mostly because it looked simpler, but it also looked really comfortable. Like, I was looking at these jacks to come. I think I mentioned this a couple days ago. I haven't worn an actual jacket in five or six years. I just wear a hoodie, even if it's minus 40 outside, which it is today. I wore a hoodie outside. I wore two hoodies outside. But I would buy that jacket. So when I tomorrow go to the Lululemon store, I will be checking it out and seeing if I can pick one up for $980.
BEN WATERWORTH: I like the silver one better than their opening ceremony one.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, much better, yeah.
BEN WATERWORTH: If they've got it on sale, Colin, for anything less than $1,000, you still don't buy the one. I can't afford that. I still haven't got my one from frickin Tokyo yet. So we're gradually waiting for that. Actually, before we start talking about Milan, we should mention the flag bearers for Australia and Canada. So Isabel Weidemann, Weidemann, so she was your...
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, they changed the pronunciation here. I wanted to mention that.
BEN WATERWORTH: What is the pronunciation as of this minute?
COLIN HILDING: Well, at this minute, they're now pronouncing a Weidemann, which for the first three or four days of the games, it was Weidemann every single time she was mentioned on air. So come on, you need a researcher like Ben Waterworth that's willing to actually find a YouTube video where somebody pronounces it themselves.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, it's actually funny you talk about that, because I've experienced this kind of firsthand, the whole pronunciation thing, because there are moments where literally Joe would be like, how do you pronounce this person? I'm like, don't ask me. But you would go onto YouTube, and you would find, say, an interview. And this is what I generally do on this show as well. And often, you go by on an interview with that person, or if they've got a video saying, like, hi, I'm Isabel Wiedemann, and if they're saying it, generally it's correct. So there were multiple occasions where I got the name pronunciation for Joe based on what the athlete themselves are saying on YouTube. Then all of a sudden, she'd be doing an interview with one of the expert commentators, and I'd be like, no, it's pronounced this way. And I was like, that's not what the athlete themselves says, but we'll go with it. But the most unique one that I actually experienced was Kiara, what we said, Radingus on this show, because that was based on my research when we interviewed her, and that's how her name was pronounced. Seven checked everything. They actually ended up calling up her parents to find out that it was a Radingus, basically.
COLIN HILDING: Sounds like a Harry Potter spell.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, it does, right? Radingus. So it was kind of interesting seeing that firsthand of them having to go through the levels of pronunciations and that. But, oh, breakfast time.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, there's even Canadian bacon on here.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, what a movie that is. But was Isabel the, you know, popular choice? Was there anyone else that you kind of think got snubbed? I mean, of course, you get three medals. So I think she's pretty much a shoe in, right?
COLIN HILDING: I thought I chewed my Canadian bacon.
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't know why I'm so glad I chewed it. It's fucking fantastic.
COLIN HILDING: All right, so I would kind of mention yesterday, I think Max Perot was the favourite. I didn't see him. I also didn't see 90% of our athletes in the CBC coverage. So I don't know if he was there, but nothing against Isabel. But more against when she was selected, when the announcement was made. First of all, CBC completely dropped the ball. It was promoted that it was going to be announced at like 7.15 Eastern Time, so 6:15 p.m. or something like that for us here in Winnipeg. And CBC didn't cover this. So I was tuned in. My children are running all over the place crying because they can't watch Cars or Peppa Pig or whatever else they're trying to watch. And I'm just like, come on, I'm waiting to see this. And all of a sudden I'm like, it's like 7.20 or whatever. And I look up and like, no, they announced it online. Come on, just give us the coverage. There's no reason to not give us the coverage. But when she was announced, it was, oh, she has become only the third speed skater in history to win three medals in one Olympics for Canada. And I'm thinking poor Stephen Dubois literally did the same thing in these Olympics and literally is going home with the full set just like she is a gold, silver and bronze. A lot of people have been saying, nobody's knocking her as a choice, but what is it? Are we not allowed to have two flag bears for the closing ceremonies or something?
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't think it was... Yeah, I don't know if they've ever... I think it became an optional thing for the closing ceremony. I think because they made it optional, I think for the opening ceremony this year as well. But yeah, I don't know.
COLIN HILDING: Because I would think if the criteria is she won three speed skating medals, she won a gold, silver and bronze, we have a guy who did the exact same thing, also the same thing in a team event for the gold, individual events for the silver and bronze. They literally are identical. They check all the boxes. My only real problem is that this is our third speed skater in a row. We've technically had our closing ceremonies. One for Pyeongchang was a speed skater, Charles Hamlin for the opening ceremonies one, and then now Isabel for the closing ceremonies. I kind of want to spread it around a little bit. It would have been nice to put them both out there. I still think the obvious choice was Max Kuro and Sarah Nurse. But again, it's Canada, speed skating, which I guess on that note, I talked about how Brad Gushu kind of saved curling for Canada here. I mean, he would have been a great choice just because of how vocal he's been and how emotional he's been about this. But with the speed skating, it was like I think almost a weekend where I was saying, the biggest disappointment for Canada so far is our performance in speed skating. We've had a lot of medals we thought we would take that haven't worked out, and Canada ends up in these Olympics mostly through the second week here with nine speed skating medals. That's more than a third of the medals we won in this Olympics were speed skating, and I was saying how disappointing it was for speed skating a couple of days in. So I guess we're going to award a sport. Let's give it to a speed skater again.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's interesting sort of that. I mean, did many of your athletes leave? Was it sort of announced? Have you got many of your athletes back in Canada being into you and things like that that you're aware of, like you're mentioning about Max Pro, whether you didn't know he was there or not? Because I'm very publicised here that the majority of our medallists, I mean, three of them are back in Australia, one of them is in New York, so none of the medallists are there. So hence why none of the medallists were our closing ceremony flag bearer.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, you know, the ones that we know for sure are the speed skaters and the hockey players and the curlers. They're still there because they were still competing. Max has been completely silent on social media since he won his last medal, like completely silent. So I don't know if he was still an option or not. I know most of the athletes from the first week have already come home. I kind of was holding out hope that it was going to be Max because all the media coverage was basically... I don't know if you get the same thing. They'll put up like, who do you think should be the flag bearer? And they'll put the favourites. Max Perot was mentioned as one of the favourites the entire time. But I mean, if he came back, he's probably just a very private guy. Who knows?
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I mean, that was the issue with us is that, as I said, none of our medallists were there. I mean, Jakara is the obvious choice. Long home. She was like one of our first athletes home. Scotty James buggered off back to New York, putting on social media, living the life in penthouses in Central Park with Chloe, as you do. And yeah, both Jackie and Tessa are also back in Australia. What did you have?
COLIN HILDING: I didn't even see.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I wanted it to be Bree, just because I thought, well, Bree got fifth. So there you go. I think we did mention last night, Sammy Kennedy Sim, our ski cross athlete who eighth, obviously, in the small final against her third Olympics. So she ended up getting the nod, which look, I mean.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, so it's one of those like, let's give it to the veteran.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, like I would assume that was their choice, which I think Paul Phil Bellingham, our cross-country skier at his third Olympics, robbed there. But like Sammy's also a very popular member of our team. I don't think there's a single member of the Olympic team that doesn't like her. I mean, Greta Small, again, another three-time Olympian. So there's a few three-time Olympians. I think if it was results-based, Bree should have got there not again for getting fifth in the monobob. But Sammy Kennedy Sim, another Off The Podium guest. So basically, all three Australian flag bearers at the Beijing Olympics are Off The Podium guests. So we might not be getting the gold medallists, but we're getting those flag bearers at Off The Podium. So we said this last night. You want to be a flag bearer coming Off The Podium. 100% track record for Off The Podium guest. But yeah, Sammy got the nod. So well done, Sammy. Yeah, the Milan presentation. I liked the Paris one, and I think I said my only concern of that was that we crossed live to Paris. I wanted it to be in the stadium. But again, that was 10 times better than we got. The video is kind of cool. The Italian national anthem sung by that woman and the violin guy was amazing. And we had, what, two people dancing with some visual aspects on the floor again. It's like, OK, cool. Come to Milan. This is Milan. Isn't it like the fashion capital of the world? I want models walking in there and rubbing Gucci in my face and stuff like that. I don't know. I mean, it's just, again, it was like, hey, come to Milan. It's like, sure, if I have to twist my arm, like at least with Paris, you had the freaking prime minister standing on there. That was epic.
COLIN HILDING: Hey, prime minister.
BEN WATERWORTH: Hey, prime minister, come to Paris. I don't know. There was just something more endearing about all the French. Like, you know, I'm talking about France again. What's going on? Sure, Milan, if I have to, that should be the motto of it.
COLIN HILDING: Well, starting with the video, one thing I did find hilarious was the, I think it was the two mayors who were giving the final, like, I like, right. Well, what I didn't understand is this is sort of the stereotype when you're speaking to somebody in a different language, you just speak slowly. It's like, how are you today? That's the way they both were. And I'm pretty sure that one of them was speaking in Italian and the other one was speaking Mandarin, because it kind of sounded like the second one was. But like, they both were very like, you know, come to Milan, 2026, Mario, Luigi. But the the Jets at the end, I mean, it was a cool visual. But again, we just saw Jets in Paris, and I think the Paris video did it better with the Jets. I also found the first part of the video where it was just zooming over all the slopes and all that. It really made me dizzy. Like they're going a little overboard with the camera tilts and all that. The dancers or whatever, big problem with that because you had two people out there. This was even worse than the stuff that the Chinese presentation was doing in the closing ceremonies. You have two people, you have the entire floor lit up with graphics, and your dancers are wearing matching colours to the floor with graphics. I can't imagine how bad, it looked bad on camera. I can't imagine how bad it looked in the stands. Would you even be able to see these people? But 100% of the national anthem, and I'm pretty sure I've said this on the show before, my favourite national anthem in the world is Italy. And the main reason for that is because my fondest memories outside of the Canadian moments of the Touran Olympics was every time Italy won a gold medal, when you would have the crowd singing along and just the enthusiasm, because they have one of those national anthems that you could just belt it out. Yeah, it's just amazing. So I love the national anthem part. That was the highlight. The highlight of the closing ceremonies was the Italian national anthem.
BEN WATERWORTH: I would rank the Italian national anthem top five, probably top three. And to me, a lot of that comes from as a Ferrari fan growing up, watching Michael Schumacher win a lot. You would have the German national anthem, followed by the Italian national anthem, and seeing Italians sing that as Ferrari fans, it's something else. And yeah, so the Italian national anthem is a passionate national anthem. So I absolutely agree with you. But yeah, why in a presentation for a Winter Olympics, were we all hanging out by the ocean, all the canals, and celebrating summer, like, hey, come to Milano, look at the beautiful cafes, come and get pizza. And it was like the fucking Winter Olympics, mate. Like, come on.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, like you want to see some type of presentation. And again, the first part of it did show the snow, the slopes and everything. It showed a little bit of venues. But this video, like, was it put together six months ago? Like, I can imagine that if I thought, okay, well, maybe because this video or whatever is a last minute thing, maybe they were meant to have a big presentation there because of COVID, they called them off. But it makes even less sense in that case, because this video was clearly shot months ago. It's you want to see what they're going to do with winter. I don't remember what Beijing's...
BEN WATERWORTH: Beijing's was underwhelming. I think it was just a... From what I remember, it was like a video of happy Chinese people and then a weird thing in the centre of the stadium. Like basically what we just saw tonight.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, exactly. And we also got a bunch of children tonight too.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, well, let's get it. Children are the future. I fucking listened to Whitney Houston. I get it.
COLIN HILDING: Can we just finally... Fine, you want to put a children's choir out there, but like we basically had three sections to the Chinese closing ceremonies, as far as like the Chinese presentation, and all three were just children's choirs, like some variety. Fine, you want to put a children's choir out there, fine, but give us something else for the other sections.
BEN WATERWORTH: Put a bunch of grandmas out there, like the granny choir.
COLIN HILDING: The granny choir! Chinese grannies!
BEN WATERWORTH: Those kids have got their entire lives ahead of them to be in a fucking choir. There's a bunch of ageing grannies here in China, probably going to be dead within the next six months, and they could have been singing in the closing ceremony, like just ripped off the granny choir of Beijing. That's all I can say. Am I the weird one that, like, you watch the Milan presentation, and then I always think, like, oh, this time in four years, we're going to get to see the presentation for, well, we don't know, insert Vancouver or Salt Lake City here. So, like, it's kind of, like, with some ones, we're in that unique period where we know the next few, so it's like, oh, in Paris, we get to see the LA one, and then, oh, in LA, we get to see the Brisbane one! Like, it's kind of that weird little thing where it's like, you don't want the Olympics to end, but you always get excited. Like, I legitimately remember Taryn being so excited for the Vancouver one. I'm like, oh, my God, Vancouver! Like, it's Canada! I love Canada! And then Avril Lavigne walks in. I'm like, Avril Lavigne!
COLIN HILDING: She's got a disease!
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't think she did in 2006, did she? But the disease is called Chatt Kroger. They're not together anymore. Canada's still mourning the loss of their first couple. But yeah, Milan. And the logo is shit. I can't wait till we do our ranking. You didn't like it? No. We did our medal one, obviously, and I think we mentioned our next one will be ranking the logos. But I've got to say, the logos to me in the Olympics are kind of going the way of the ceremonies. I don't know when we last had a good Olympic logo. Rio was decent. Well, Vancouver was a great logo. London was a good logo. Lisa Simpson giving a blowjob. Once you see that, you never unsee it. Pyeongchang, boring. Tokyo, I mean, it was better than the first one they put up, but it was still kind of crap. Beijing was OK. Actually, Beijing's not bad. Don't mind Beijing.
COLIN HILDING: And I don't like Beijing. To me, Beijing looks like font from 2003. What I like about the Milan logo, it is weird that the city name is so drastically different from the 2026 part of it. It looks like you had two different people working on a logo, and they just mash them up together. But I love the way the 2026 looks on there.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm not a fan. Paris is a bit regal. It's a bit elegant. A little bit French. It's a bit French, but I like the colour, because I think they kind of got like a black and gold. I love black and gold together. I think it's the two of my favourite colour combinations. The LA ones are too, I don't know if you've seen them, but they've got like five different stylised versions of them. I'm not a fan of the LA ones. But anyway, the ranking of the logos, we'll do it eventually. But I'll tell you one thing, Sochi 2014, I'm looking at you as absolute garbage, which I think you said you like the Sochi one. Like, what is wrong with you, Colin?
COLIN HILDING: Well, I wouldn't say I love the Sochi one. I kind of appreciate it. I kind of like the Sochi.ru. It's cheesy, but it's different. I'm trying to think, what's the best way to describe this? It's kind of like what I was saying about the Turin medals. It's not that it's a great medal, but you remember it. And it's not like you remember how bad it is. I can picture the Sochi logo the way I could picture the Turin medals.
BEN WATERWORTH: Fair point. All right, I'll give you that. Final day of competition, though. Anything else to add on the closing ceremony before I move on?
COLIN HILDING: I mean, we'll have some commentary stuff coming up later, so I can save that.
BEN WATERWORTH: I will be completely honest. I didn't see a word of Thomas Bach's speech. Sorry, Thomas Bach Olympic medallist fencing.
COLIN HILDING: 1976 fencing.
BEN WATERWORTH: I did not watch any of it. I think I left the room and did something else, so I have no clue what he said. But yeah, well, there's a few things about the closing ceremony I'll talk about with Channel 7 as well. Final day of the competition. Finland did it. Finland. Yes. Team Finland. Gold medal. Suck it, Russia. Suck it, ice hockey world. They've finally done it. Helsinki is celebrating. I went to one of the Finnish news websites, and the Finns are on the streets. They were celebrating. I messaged my Finnish friend. And you know what he said to me when I said to him, like, yeah, go Finland. He literally replied, fuck Putin. So that was interesting. As in the fearless leader, don't invade Ukraine. But oh, God, I was watching this, and I got a bit worried when they went one-nothing down. I'm like, no, no, not again. But they did it, Colin. Finland, gold medallists, get on board the Finns.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I mean, it's very exciting for them. I said I would be fine with either country winning. I think that Russia winning kind of makes the statement, you know, this isn't secondary men's hockey. Finland winning is a great, like, underdog story. Not as good as an underdog story as Slovakia. Let's just say that. But being their first one, it's obviously fantastic. My only disappointment is that I was wide awake for the women's gold medal game. I was wide awake that entire night. We talked about that episode. That was my most memorable Daily Olympics. My disappointment with this has nothing to do with the game itself or the winners, but just I wish I could have seen more of it because I put this on in bed. I, you know, used our Chromecast. I cast it to the TV. And the CBC Sports app was just disconnecting, like, every 10 minutes. I had the same problem trying to watch the curling earlier in the night. So I'm in bed trying to watch this, and it just keeps freezing up and disconnecting constantly during the whole... I barely saw anything in the first period. Eventually, I just gave up and said, I'm just going to watch this on my phone. So I'm watching on my tiny screen on my phone. I drifted off during the end of the second period. I was awake during most of the third period, drifted off for a couple of minutes. So I know that I missed some of this game. I'm interested to go back and rewatch the game again to see how good we get because it was a tight score. And this isn't like the, I guess, the other two big games we had, the women's gold medal game and then the Slovakia win. You kind of knew who was going to win. With this one, it was a lot closer. So it looked like it was an exciting game. And yeah, great for Finland. I'm sure Team Salani is celebrating right now.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, what a man, what a man. I mean, it could keep us off as well. Someone's out there protecting goals and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, great, great for Finland. And yeah, Slovakia, obviously, we don't have Jarrod here. We'll talk to him tomorrow night about it. But they're not winning. Was it 2-0 over Sweden as well? So I think they scored a goal just after we got off air last night.
COLIN HILDING: It ended up 4-0 at the end.
BEN WATERWORTH: It wasn't 4-0, was it? I sort of didn't really watch any of much of it.
COLIN HILDING: Literally, like the last couple of minutes, they got two more goals.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which again, their first ever medal in ice hockey, men's or women's at the Olympics. So good job for them. And Sweden just unfortunately couldn't get that one. But I'm guessing you were happy with that, seeing a new medallist in a similar... I mean, Germany wasn't a new medallist four years ago, but it was obviously the best it ever did. But you know, similar story almost to Germany four years ago.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, and they're going to be the new stars of the hockey world. That's not even necessarily a joke. It's one of these things where when you have success in something, and Canada's experiences, I'm sure Australia's going to experience this now. We've been talking about a lot during these Olympics. When you have success you haven't had before, it means that you have a whole new interest from the next generation. And the good thing is, in a sport like hockey, the next generation is really only one or two Olympics away. So I'm excited to see what we're going to get, possibly in Vancouver, from Slovakia. They could end up being another dominant team that we just expect every single Olympic. Oh yeah, Slovakia is definitely in the mix.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's good to see the half of Czechoslovakia that everybody actually likes has finally succeeded. Hello to our Czech Republic. I shouldn't say that. Is it from Czech Republic, Ben? Don't be rude. In other news today, Scotland won the gold medal in curling. So good for Scotland. You're happy about this? Team Scotland won Great Britain's only gold medal for these Olympics?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I mentioned a couple of times. It's funny, I mentioned probably a couple of times on here. I'm a big Eve Meirhead fan. Jamie told me last night, she's like, I'm so sick of hearing about Eve Meirhead, these Olympics, because I've probably talked about her as much as I've talked about the Canadian athletes. She's, you know, fellow celiac. She has a disease. She's an incredible curler, and she's got a great story, too. I think that the great thing about her is that it's unusual in the Olympics, even especially in curling, I would think, to have so many athletes come back this many games in a row. And this is the fourth games in a row. And I think that's one of the great things about her, is that you recognise her from one Olympics to the next. It's not one of these countries where they have two Olympics, and then you've got a new team out there. It's always Eve Merehead. She was in Sochi. She was like the youngest medal winner ever for, or the youngest skip to ever win a medal. And now she's got a gold to go along with that. And something I didn't even realise until the game started, you know, we were talking about how Japan was the surprise bronze medallists in Pyeongchang. I completely forgot that they beat Eve Merehead in Scotland for that bronze medal. So this was like rematch of the century. And this time it came out on Great Britain side.
BEN WATERWORTH: I just seen here she was born in Perth in Scotland. So surprised we had a real person. The real Perth. But well done, Scotland, getting your first gold medals of the games. Good to see England didn't get a single medal these Olympics. So well done. The other medallist, I like the in the women's 30 kilometre freestyle, Theresa Johar. She won the last gold medal of these Olympics. Well, sort of. I guess the ice hockey was the gold medal, last gold medal Olympics. She actually won the first gold medal of the Olympics too. So that was a cool little fun fact for her. But she won the women's 30 kilometres in the cross country. That was her third gold medal of the games. So well done to Therese Therese. What do you want to say? That she beat Jessie Diggins, who fresh after getting America's first ever solo female cross country medal a few weeks back. She's now gotten another one, silver medal for her. And Kurtu Niskanen of Finland, the bronze. Can I just say, I like these, it's like I like the marathon. I like how they do the ceremony, the medal ceremony in the closing ceremony. I like that little touch. I like how they do this. And got to say, I love the women's one better, because every single one of those athletes was over the moon that they were winning a medal, like just so happy, so pumped. And yet get to the men's, and the Russians are just like, yes, we win medal for Russia. We now go to Siberia after these games. Although it does look very awkward when they're standing on that podium listening to fucking Tchaikovsky. It just doesn't work. Something about it just doesn't work.
COLIN HILDING: The guy who won the gold, I can't remember his name.
BEN WATERWORTH: Alexander Bolshinov.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, like he has won, he's been in nine events in his Olympic career, and he has medalled in all of them. I mean, this is just, it's boring to him at this point. At this point, he's like, I don't want to be here. I want to be with my fellow athletes dancing.
BEN WATERWORTH: With Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yes.
COLIN HILDING: Yes.
BEN WATERWORTH: All right, I thought you were going to add more to that.
COLIN HILDING: No, no.
BEN WATERWORTH: Okay. But do you like the ceremonies in the ceremony?
COLIN HILDING: Oh, yeah. I think it's appropriate to have the last medal awarder there. And maybe I'm just saying that because it's what we're used to in the Summer Olympics. I would be for this being like a full marathon, but because to me, the only thing that really takes away from this is it's a 30 kilometre distance. When the Summer Marathon is significantly longer, this and I'm not knocking cross country skiing. As I said, I run marathons, and I would much rather run a marathon than cross country ski. It is brutal. But just the duration of it, you know, when it's an hour and 10 to an hour and 20 minutes for your gold medallist, it doesn't quite feel as big as the marathon when we get in the Summer Olympics. And if these athletes are willing to do 50km, like we said and we've seen before, let's make sure it's always... If it's a 30km event, it's not as important, but still not taking away from them. It's something I would want to do.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think they should have the men's ice hockey go in there and do the ceremony. Imagine that back in Vancouver. Had you had the gold medal ceremony happen in bloody BC place, that would have gone off.
COLIN HILDING: I think the only problem with that is like, you know how long it takes to award all the medals in hockey. If you're doing gold, silver and bronze, these ceremonies would be, I mean, it would have been fine here because it still would have been under two hours. But in a regular Olympics, it might take a little long.
BEN WATERWORTH: The other medals today, Alpineski and the mixed team, Austria took the gold. Mr. Johannes Stroll has got his third medal of the games as well. Part of that team, they beat Germany. And Norway got third. And who do you think they beat in that bronze medal race? America. Who do you think lost one of the races in that to lose in the bronze medal? Hello, Michaela Schitfrin. I didn't think she was racing today. I honestly didn't see any of it, so I don't know if she crashed or not, but I just thought that was funny. And in the foreman, Bob, Germany gold, Germany silver, but Canada bronze. Justin Kripps, I believe, became Canada's first ever. Bob started to get a medal in the two and foreman, so congratulations to him. But your final medal of the Olympics means that you equal your second best ever total medal hole that you achieved back in Vancouver. So 26 medals in total, so good job.
COLIN HILDING: Now, as a researcher, you might be more easily able to come up with this answer than I am. But I believe this is only one of like maybe three or four times Canada's ever won a medal in the foreman bobsled.
BEN WATERWORTH: I think at the top of my head, I think they said it was a third, but I shall confirm that with you, Colin.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, because I know what happened in it was either Nagano or Salt Lake City. And of course, we had the celebratory athletes for Team Emery. The first time Canada ever entered this event, they ended up as the gold medallists. So it's kind of surprising we had more success. So was it Nagano or Salt Lake for the other?
BEN WATERWORTH: You got a bronze in Vancouver.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, Vancouver.
BEN WATERWORTH: You got the gold in Innsbruck.
COLIN HILDING: But you know, with this event, it kind of looked like yesterday, where we have a shot at this. Justin Cripps, there was a lot of hype behind him here. So I think the country was hopeful. I was doubting it. I sort of thought, yeah, I don't know if we're going to get this, what, number 26 medal. But I again wish that I had been able to watch more of this. I'll have to catch up on it after we're done recording. But the curling was going on at the same time. And basically, as soon as curling ended, I switched over. And it was right at that moment where they were basically showing the last one coming across. I was like, and there we go, Justin Kripp says won the bronze medal. So I didn't even get to see their run. I'm not sure what their times were. If it was a decisive, it was close. But still, it's fantastic for us to pick up in one of the bobsled events that we actually struggle in more.
BEN WATERWORTH: You were 0.79 seconds off the gold and about 0.4 seconds off the silver, and you beat the other Germans by about 0.06 of a second into the bronze. Germany, I believe, won 9 of the 10 sliding events. The only one that they didn't win was won by a Canadian, even though she was wearing the wrong flag. So not bad. Not bad there, Germany. You did OK in the sliding events in Beijing. So Germans, we love to slide. You like to go to a water slide park with them. I was trying to think of a panel or something. No, not really working. Don't have Jarrah to rate mine.
COLIN HILDING: That's a three, Tops.
BEN WATERWORTH: That's a three.
COLIN HILDING: Three.
BEN WATERWORTH: So the medal table, we'll put the full one up in the next day or so, like we did with Tokyo. But I'll go through the top five, and then obviously Canada. So Norway on top, 16 gold, new record at the Olympics. Winter Olympics, I should say, most gold medals ever won. Eight silver, 13 bronze, 37 in total. I think they got the record of 39 medals back in Pyeongchang, so they didn't quite get to their total record, but still thoroughly successful games for Norway. Germany second, 12 gold, 10 silver, 5 bronze, 27 in total. China, sorry, the People's Republic of China, 9 gold, 4 silver, 2 bronze, 15 in total. Great result for China, home nation, their best ever Winter Olympics by far. USA ended up doing OK after starting off a bit slowly. 8 gold, 10 silver, 7 bronze, 25 in total. And Sweden ended up in the top five. 8 gold, 5 silver, 5 bronze, 18 in total. Canada needed that one more gold medal to get them into the top 10, but you finish in 11th. 4 gold, 8 silver, 14 bronze, 26 in total. And Australia, 1 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze, 4 in total. 18th place, most successful ever winter Olympics by Australia in terms of total medals won. Great job. And if you do it by total, then Canada ended up in fourth overall. Beat America, though, that's all that matters. And Australia ended up being in 17th if we do it by totals. One spot ahead of New Zealand. I'm just pointing that out, which we'll get to something with that. Here it comes.
COLIN HILDING: We're still holding off?
BEN WATERWORTH: No, not yet. Not yet. Don't worry. The lowest amount of gold medals Canada have won since Lilahama, when you got three. So, but again, as I said, 26 is an equal second highest. Vancouver, you got 26, obviously you got 29 in Pyeongchang. So, I mean, again, I've said this every day, and it's obviously not a Canadian thing that you care about the golds. But is it something that anybody has raised since? So about, oh, we only got four golds. I mean, because the last three Olympics, you got double digits worth of golds. But now you're down to four, but not obviously something that really concerns Canada.
COLIN HILDING: Still no mention of it. And I think had we not won as many medals as we did, it probably would have been a bigger concern. But for us to come away with 26 medals, which is well ahead of what was projected, it's nothing that anybody in Canada is going to be complaining about the four golds. If you look at it, I think Lillehammer was also when we really started to pick up in our overall total.
BEN WATERWORTH: The first one you got double digits was the Lahama 13.
COLIN HILDING: So I mean, it's almost kind of appropriate then that in our two lowest gold medals that we've had in the last 30 years, that it's been all the silvers and the bronze.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, this is the first time since, if I quickly skim over these, this is the first time since you've got to go back to Barcelona slash Albaville, in which you have won less gold than you did at the Summer Olympics prior. Well, that wouldn't count because I guess Barcelona came after, well, same year back then. What I'm trying to say is that you got seven gold in Tokyo and four gold in Beijing, but you did get two more medals in Beijing than you did in Tokyo, so you still got more total in the winter by two. But interesting. Again, there's something that the Canadian media can have for free. You won more gold medals at the last Summer Olympics than you did in the Winter Olympics. That hasn't happened in a long time for Canada.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, and that's coming from a recently unemployed researcher, so listen to what he has to say.
BEN WATERWORTH: Wow, Colin's bringing the burns all of a sudden. What can I say about that? But yeah, I'll see for Australia. First time we won a gold since Vancouver. Ended up with four. First time we've ever ended up with four medals. So yeah, pretty happy about that. I think we can take that one there. Just going over the results for other Canadians and Australians in the final day of action. So in the Alpine skiing event, Canada went out in the first round to Slovenia. Slovenia? You're from Slovenia? Come on, Canada. I expect better than that from you. But you try.
COLIN HILDING: Even our ski jumpers like Slovenia better than Canada.
BEN WATERWORTH: Australia didn't even show up. So what can I say? In the bobsleigh, Christmas Springs team got ninth. And that was it. Brazil got 20th in that. Obviously, Jamaica didn't make it through to that round. So anyway, in the cross-country skiing, Sandrine Brown for Canada was 16. Well done, Sandrine. Catherine Stewart-Jones for Canada was 30th. Daria Beatty was 39th. Best Australian was Jess Yeaton. She was 43rd. Then Laura LeClair for Canada was in 51st. Off The Podium slash Australia's Casey Wright was in 56. And that is that for Canada and Australia. And there was nobody else in anything else today for either countries along the way. Just wanted to actually, before I go into what we watch, fails and New Zealand rants and all that kind of stuff, just on the multiple medallists for these Olympics. So we actually had four athletes who got five medals. Now, I don't know if we're really going to do our Athlete of the Games today, or we save that for tomorrow. And then maybe I know you're probably not going to be joining us tomorrow. So maybe we have to get you to like give a vote off air or something along those lines. So the four athletes have got five medals in these Olympics. Obviously, we talked a bit about Quinton. Quinton fell on Malay in the biathlon. He got two golds and three silvers. But then, of course, you got Johannes Tinges-Bow, who does not send dick pics to children. Four gold and one bronze biathlon as well. So two biathletes in there. Three biathletes actually, because then you've got Marte Olsbo Roseland of Norway in the female biathlon. She ended up with three gold and two bronze, if you don't mind. And our other cross-country skier, Alexander Bolshinov. Oh, I win a medal all the time. I'm going to be grumpy in the cross-country. In the closing ceremony, I should say, three gold, a silver and a bronze for him. And then a couple who got four medals. So Irene Schutten in the speed skating. She was Schutten array. She got three gold and a bronze. Taje Bowe, the other Bowe brother who also doesn't send dick pics to children. He got two gold, a silver and a bronze. Johannes Halbert Klebo in the cross country got two gold, a silver and a bronze. Suzanne Schultling in the short track got two gold, a silver and a bronze. And then you had a bunch who got three and two along the way as well. So, I mean, you don't you can give an answer right now if you want to, Colin, or you can save for the chat, or you can just have a bit of a thought process. But I mean, athlete of the games for you based on medals. I mean, it doesn't even have to be one to one five. There's somebody you want a couple, you know, that you want to look at that I have mentioned. Clearly, I like good. Like I've well, of course, I mean, the face of the games as we keep hearing here on Channel 7.
COLIN HILDING: Nobody has ever won three medals in freestyle skiing before because nobody's ever been eligible for. I actually have a list right now of about six or seven athletes. I kind of want to narrow it down. I'll give you guys some ideas. I don't know if I really have an order of where I put this in, but you obviously mentioned Quentin. Quentin Flynn. Malo. Yeah, he's on my list. JT Bo is obviously on my list. Four gold medals. That's insane. I almost feel bad, though, like when I'm making my list, I'm like, it's a lot of cross country. And it's kind of like that thing during Tokyo. Like, oh, do you want to give it to the swimmers because they won the most medals? But then I think about the fact like cross country. These people are basically running marathons four or five times, same thing with the biathletes during these Olympics. I almost want to give them more credit, you know, because this isn't a sprint. It's over and done with. I mean, they're running almost every two days. Massive marathons.
BEN WATERWORTH: I mean, it's crazy. It's called the 10 kilometre sprint.
COLIN HILDING: Exactly. And as I said, you know, I would much rather be running a marathon than cross-country skiing one. But some of the other non-cross-country skiers I have in here, I am putting up Alana Myers Taylor, obviously the flag bearer for United States. Lifetime medals, obviously it's huge. It is a huge deal for her in these Olympics. I don't know if she's gotten much coverage there. Even in Canada, she's getting a ton of coverage. But the most decorated bobsledder now of all time, Ariana Fontana, I'll throw in there. Again, just lifetime achievement, huge. One that I know we briefly mentioned, but I think it's a huge deal, because when we awarded our Tokyo's athlete of the games, we gave it to Elaine, didn't we? Yeah, Elaine Thompson. And it was because of her accomplishments she had across the multiple games. I've got Tobias and Tobias in the luge. I mean, those guys have got the triple double, which is an incredible accomplishment.
BEN WATERWORTH: What about Garsenberger? What about Natalie?
COLIN HILDING: I mean, Tobias and Tobias have names that go together perfectly.
BEN WATERWORTH: True, true. Yeah, look, I don't disagree. I haven't made a decision yet to be completely honest with you either, but I'm with you with the cross country and biathlon. I mean, biathlon, I mean, think about that. They're doing marathons and shooting halfway through. Like, you know, it's kind of it's amazing thing. Speaking of shooting, sort of similar name, Suzanne Schultling in the short track, you mentioned Ariana, of course, but like for a country that's so dominant in long track that they, until four years ago, the Netherlands had never won a medal in short track. They finally broke that duck, and then Suzanne Schultling has come out and won four medals here. Like kind of just, you know, it's scary to think that the Dutch could be just dominating the short track as much as they are the long track in a few years. So I think that's pretty spectacular for her. Shout out to Lindsay Jacobellis. I mean, just, I think just her story is fantastic and the fact that she came out and won a second and then put everything to rest by doing the trick on the last jump, risking it all. And it's almost like, fuck you, Dallas. I'm going to do this now, finally to succeed. And yeah, I'm going to be completely biased and give you this next name. Esther Ledecker. I mean, she shattered in in the snowboard, absolutely shattered in. And okay, she didn't get the double-double again, but I mean, in all seriousness, she still got fifth in the Super G, which is pretty incredible. The downhill, I think she would have medalled had she not fucked up and done an extra scream and semen and spun out and then kept going. And then she got fourth in the combined, an event that she just woke up one day, I was like, yeah, maybe I'll do the combined. And completely sucks at slalom, but somehow managed to get fourth in that event. So got to give props to my girl, Esther, Colin, come on.
COLIN HILDING: I would have had her as an honourable mention. I mean, obviously she didn't have the success. She didn't have the success that she had in Pyeongchang, if you're looking at overall. But the amount of events she's willing to compete in and be a real contender at, that's what's so impressive about Esther. Let's just be honest, though. I mean, I almost wouldn't want to give her an athlete of the game, because if we eventually decide to end the show or get cancelled and we do one final episode, we're giving her the athlete of life. I mean, there's no question about that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Her and Chloe. It's a fight between her and Chloe now. Come on, Queen Chloe. Oh, and Bart Swings. Oh, what a man. I agree with you, but in some weird way, I'm almost more impressed with Esther at these games, because what she did in Pyeongchang was incredible, but she competed in two events and went two for two. This time around, she competed in five events and got top five in three of them. You know what? No, four events, sorry. And she got top five in four.
COLIN HILDING: I want to throw out three.
BEN WATERWORTH: Three of them.
COLIN HILDING: I want to throw out three other honourable mentions. Two, three, four, four. It'll change by the time I'm done talking. But a couple of other honourable mentions here. We've been singing the praises of Oscar Erickson, obviously. Let's sing his praises for a different reason. Let's throw him in the category with Jennifer Dodds and Bruce Mowat as well. Those three athletes competed in every single curling game that was possible for them to be at the maximum amount of time. And I don't think in the history of the Olympics, there's ever been athletes who had as long of a duration from day one of competing to the end. We're talking about two days before the opening ceremonies. They started and they finished on the last day. That's 18 days of constant competition in two separate events for those three athletes. We have an honourable mention category. I think you group those three in together. Oscar Erickson, Jennifer Dodds and Bruce Mowat.
BEN WATERWORTH: Most decorative curler of all time is Oscar Erickson in the Olympics. Four medals.
COLIN HILDING: And he's not even the skip. That just shows you what this man's capable of.
BEN WATERWORTH: What a beautiful next James Bond right there, Oscar. When we do our Double L7 next James Bond episode coming soon, his name is going up there. What did we watch today, Colin? No, he's choking. I watched Colin choke.
COLIN HILDING: I really only had time to watch. The curling was what I wanted to watch last night. Very disappointed that I couldn't watch it on the projector because the CBC app kept disconnecting. So I had to watch it on traditional television. Still, it was worth it. And then the Men's Gold Medal game. Those are the only things I actually got a chance to watch. I just turned on now the fourth run of the bobsled, but I'm not even paying attention to it at this point. I wish that the time difference was different so I could have watched all these events. Because I told Jamie, the exciting thing about the last day is you only have so many events, you can literally watch everything if you want. By the time you and Jarrod record tomorrow, I will have watched every second of Day 16.
BEN WATERWORTH: Which, Paris and Milan, better time zone Europe to North America, right? Not so good for Australia, but it will be better for you guys, won't it?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, that will be more complicated for our recordings, just trying to line everybody up, because the day is going to end at, what would it be for me, about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, let's say. That's when the day is going to end. But then 3 o'clock in the afternoon for me is what time, like very early morning for Australia?
BEN WATERWORTH: 8 a.m. Depends. It would be more like 6 a.m. I think, because that would be non-daylight savings time. I hopefully won't be in Australia in two years' time anyway, so it might not affect me. But Jarrod, well, you know.
COLIN HILDING: It's only your problem, Jarrod. Deal with it. Yeah, Jarrod.
BEN WATERWORTH: Exactly. Move. You've got two years to move. Somewhere better, Jarrod. Not in any planes anymore. I caught the end... I don't think I'm making Colin die. He made me spit take before the bloody episode. Now it's his turn. I caught the end of the bobsled, then I saw the ice hockey, and then I saw the closing ceremony. Although I did see... It was really weird on Channel 7. They aired the figure skating gala like at 8.30, like in prime time, and they tried to sell it like it was live, which I'm pretty sure did happen when the men's ice hockey finals were on. I thought it was around about the same time. But I saw the end bit when they had a big dweed dweed come out on the ice. Little inflatable big dweed dweed. And then they cut away for a big dweed dweed to show him that he's fallen flat in his face again. Big dweed dweed, flat in his face on the ice. Little legs in the air going, and then you had Nathan Chen and a bunch of other skaters coming up to try and get poor little big dweed dweed back up on his feet. So big dweed dweed athlete of the games for me.
COLIN HILDING: Is big dweed dweed kind of like the Simpsons of the I Didn't Do It Kid? You make a mistake and then everybody laughs at it, so I'm like, I got to make a mistake every time.
BEN WATERWORTH: You know, I've been watching the last few days on YouTube. I've been watching the best of classic Simpsons. All I want to use in conversation every day now is stupid, sexy Flanders.
COLIN HILDING: I've got a Simpsons reference coming up still in my notes here. One thing I wanted to ask you about... Excuse me.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's called burping. There we are. sportspodcastsawards.com. Vote for us for best Olympics and Paralympics podcast.
COLIN HILDING: That's the first noise that's come out of my mouth. There hasn't been a cough in two weeks. This is impressive.
BEN WATERWORTH: Why are we the COVID crew doing this episode right now, Jarrod? This shows our dedication.
COLIN HILDING: Jarrod can't be here. He's perfectly healthy, but he's busy. Anyways.
BEN WATERWORTH: Gotta get up early for work.
COLIN HILDING: Oh. You know how many days I got up early for work at 5.30 in the morning so I could record before work, Jarrod?
BEN WATERWORTH: I only missed one day because of COVID, Jarrod. I've been here for 15 of the others, and I'm dying. It's coming out.
COLIN HILDING: Anyways, I wanted to ask you about, maybe you have some insight into this, what the ratings or the viewership has been like. One thing that I really noticed that's weird in the last two Olympics is NBC. I kind of like to look at the NBC coverage sometimes when I watch something, what's different from the Canadian coverage. And both Tokyo and this, they are not airing the opening ceremonies until prime time. And other days of the Olympics, you could tune in to NBC at 7 o'clock in the morning, they're airing something, Olympics coverage. But opening and closing ceremonies, Tokyo and Beijing, they're just leaving it. They're like, nobody's going to watch this whole evening anyways. I don't know what the viewership is like there. I know for Tokyo, they were saying it was down. But here in Canada, there's been a lot of talk about, oh, viewership is down almost 50% from Pyeongchang, and it's down 20% from Tokyo. I mean, down 20% from Tokyo, that's in the middle of the summer. There's a lot more people who can watch versus now in middle of February. The second thing being that obviously maybe some games fatigue. We just had Olympics six months ago. But the crazy thing here is that they're saying that viewership on the app is up 50%. So really, if you're going to criticise, we've lost 50% of our TV viewers in Pyeongchang to Beijing. We've gained 50% back watching it streaming now. But I don't know, maybe you have some insight into Channel 7, how this is doing.
BEN WATERWORTH: I honestly don't. The only thing that I got any insight on was like day after, I think it was the Sunday night, the first Sunday that Channel 7 beat Channel 9 that morning. And they were very excited because Channel 9 had a big interview on TV and Channel 7 shattered in over them. So they were celebrating that. I don't actually know about Beijing. I think from memory, I saw that the viewership for Tokyo was quite high, that it rated pretty well. And people were sort of like, oh, because of coronavirus, they wanted something good to happen. And a lot of it, I think, Melbourne was still in lockdown during the Olympics. So, you know, a lot of people were just stuck at home and really into watching all of that. But yeah, I find it interesting that, you know, it's so hard to compare sort of Olympics to past Olympics, because again, of how TV works now. And it's also a case of, you're right, like with apps and online, like, you know, when, I don't know how it worked in Canada, but when this whole notion of having the internet to watch the Olympics came into play, it was a lot different back there. I think the first one I really remember them offering it was Beijing. And they had like, I remember I had my Nokia N95, you know, when the internet was still kind of a new thing on your phone, and you could stream, like, I think you had to pay like a $5 subscription fee a day or something like that to watch some things. And I remember being out for dinner one time, and I think watched us when a canoeing gold medal sitting on my phone in a restaurant, and like, that was technologically advanced. Then come Vancouver. Channel 9 shared it with Foxtel, which is like our main cable provider in Australia. And I know Foxtel offered like a package where you paid like an extra $20, and you got all these channels. And I was really shitty because I didn't have Foxtel back then. But then London, Channel 9 offered another thing. So like, back then, when you had the multiple screens and you could choose a sports, at least for the first few Olympics, they charged you for it. And I think Rio, like I paid the $20 premium Channel 7 fee to get no ads on it. So now that you do it for free, even with very limited ads, I will say, they don't actually show a lot of ads on these things now. Like it's quite groundbreaking to think about it. So I can't imagine that there are some people who just forgo watching TV completely. Because I mean, you don't really need to watch Channel 7 or CBC. Literally, you can just sit there and be your own director and watch whatever the fuck you want. So therefore, I think the ratings are probably more so on these apps, if anything. And I know, for example, with the Paralympics about to start, they're only going to be showing a tiny little package every night here on TV. I don't even know if it's half an hour. It might only be a 15-minute package every night. That's it. And basically, they're directing you to the app, saying everything will be live and free on the app. We're barely showing anything on TV. So I don't know if that's going to be for you with the Paralympics, but that's just the way it is now. That's kind of just how you have the Olympics, and I think it's great that it's for free.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, I'm trying to think if it was a big deal still in Sochi. I know in Sochi, I was still watching it on TV mostly. Where apps really took over was the Pan Am Games in 2015 here, where TV coverage was, I guess, less. So they started pushing. You can watch some more of this on the app, as opposed to we have six to eight hours of coverage a day compared to the Olympics, where we have 24 hours of coverage a day. I think for real, that's where it really became, oh, this is interesting. You can watch everything. What I like, though, now, especially, I think this explains maybe why CBC's viewerships have dipped a lot, is that you can watch the TV coverage. Instead of tuning into the channel, I know you were saying you can't watch the Channel 7 feed with the anchors and the commentators and everything on the app, if you were saying, if I remember right.
BEN WATERWORTH: You can't do the replays of them. So I can watch it live, but you can't watch the replay. You can only watch the replays of the individual events, if that makes sense.
COLIN HILDING: I've been recording on the PVR every single night because I'm just used to doing that during the Olympics. Okay, I'm going to go back. I'm going to have to see what was on, so I know which events to record. And I've barely touched my PVR, because first thing in the morning, I'm just popping on the replay of the primetime feed, the replay of the overnight feed. And then once I'm done that, the replay of the morning shift feed and going through that. And then anything that's missing, I'm like, oh, let me find the individual event. I mean, I see no reason to watch TV because the CBC coverage is literally on the app now. They've really made a push for that during these Olympics. We did have the one exclusive, though, which was the last Commonwealth Games, the first time where there was no Commonwealth Games coverage on TV at all because there's that DAZN app, D-A-Z-N. And I'm kind of suspecting we might get that again for maybe it'll be the Pan Am Games or whatever because CBC has been having a lot of commercials for DAZN. Maybe they're just simply going to be taking over the online coverage. Well, CBC still has the network coverage. I don't know, but it's definitely going to become more and more of a thing. I don't think anybody is going to be caring about TV ratings in another four years.
BEN WATERWORTH: I saw a lot of DAZN advertising when I was in Canada, and I was like, hey, that's that thing that Colin used to talk about. Yeah, we're seeing a lot of that in Australia with some of our streaming services. I know, for example, the Australian Swimming Championships last year for the Tokyo Trials, and they're generally prime time events. I remember before every Olympics, the Australian Swimming Championships would be front and centre on Channel 7, Channel 9, prime time. And even in non-Olympic years, every year, you would have the Australian Swimming Championships prime time event. Last year, it was on Amazon Prime. If you wanted to watch swimming trials, you had to get that. And then a lot of our soccer coverage in Australia now is purely on apps, like the World Cup soccer. The last one, SBS is sort of... You've heard us talk about SBS. SBS is always the multicultural channel, but they've always been the soccer channel. The porn channel. But if you watch the World Cup, it's always SBS carries the World Cup. But the last World Cup, it was like they only showed the Australia Games and the Finals. And if you wanted to watch any other games, you had to sign up to Optus Sports. Optus is kind of like our Rogers or, you know, something like that. So it's kind of... A lot of Australia is going more towards these streaming platforms of sport, which is odd. But I think we've also got what's called anti-siphoning laws in Australia, where there are laws in place where certain events have to be shown on free-to-air TV, like it is law. So like Olympics, for example, then you've got things like certain cricket matches, like even something like the Australian Grand Prix, like a Formula One race has to be shown on free-to-air TV. So it's things like that. So I know the Commonwealth Games are going to be on Channel 7 this year, but I honestly cannot remember if they had an app during Gold Coast, because I worked all the time. I didn't get a chance to watch the app. So I'm assuming they had an app during the Commonwealth Games, where you could watch all the different sports. I can't remember. But I would assume if they didn't, they might have it for Birmingham this year. But we'll see. It's going to be a weird time zone for Australia, because we have to go Europe time. But hey, I'm going to be in America, hopefully in fucking July. So how's that going to be? Hey, can I tune in to NBC to watch a Commonwealth Games? What are the Commonwealth Games? Eileen Goo on NBC. So anyway, fails, fails, fails. CBC closing ceremony, anything along those lines?
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, there's a couple here. First, one of the things that they did differently, typically in the past, you would have your ceremonies. You'd have one of the anchors and maybe one of the head commentators, and then you'd have one or two of the athletes on. This was unusual. We had one anchor who I've talked about a lot here, Andy Petrillo, and then three athletes. I mean, Perdita Felicien, she's basically transitioned to being an anchor now. She's like our Joanna Griggs, started as an athlete, eventually got into broadcasting, now is basically a full-time broadcaster. And then the two other ones who are actually in the stadium were Kelly Vanderbeek, who was a former downhill skier, and then Anastasia Bousas, who's a speed skater. It's not really a funny moment, but it was more just like, oh, this just shows lack of experience, maybe as broadcasters. To you, what was the standout moment of the entire games? And of course, Anastasia Bousas is like, well, I'm going to say it's Aaron Jackson because I'm a speed skater. And then Kelly Vanderbeek, what was your moment of the entire games? Oh, Sophia Goggia, the one who made out with the camera, is like, obviously, because you're a downhill skier. I mean, it was just, yeah, you clearly have one expertise, and that's all you can talk about in the air. So kind of a fail with them. What do I have here? Oh, yeah, so Andy Petrillo, who's basically the greatest broadcaster in Canada for many reasons. Check out her Instagram to get more of an idea. But completely aside from that, she basically verbalises a lot of what we're saying. Like the frustrations I had with Eileen Goo, it's like, oh, the most accomplished athlete in the world. That's where I would have wanted Andy Petrillo to pipe in, because when they were giving the medals away to the cross-country, and they mentioned that Russian guy, he's had nine events, and he has medalled in every single one. Andy Petrillo almost gets angry, and she's like, we have someone like that. His name is Andre Degrasse. Let's give credit where credit is due. And also another great Andy Petrillo moment here, which is piggybacking off of our video montage. I'm sure you have the same thing. The end of the Olympics, they'll pick a song, and there's a Canadian medley, the Arkells. Yeah, well, the Canadian one, the Arkells, I have yet to see it because they basically showed a 15-second clip of it. And you can see the rest of the Arkells video at the end of the CBC Primetime Olympics tonight. So I didn't even get to see the video yet. But Perdita Felician was basically talking about the Arkells. It's like, you know, I saw them. She goes, funny story, I was at the Grey Cup, and they played the Grey Cup halftime show. And Andy Petrillo just goes, great. Yeah, I think those are the only two ones I had. You know, an all female panel, they were definitely a little bit nicer to each other other than the Grey Dynamite drop in there. I'm sure if I went over it again, I could find in the hour and 40 minutes of closing ceremonies, at least one more thing.
BEN WATERWORTH: We didn't get any, oh, God, it's like whatever, like, you know, they need him in there.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah. I wanted to, I wanted that guy out there with Bing Dwen Dwen's falling. Oh, no.
BEN WATERWORTH: Please, please find the footage of Bing Dwen Dwen falling over and dump that over the top. Oh, no.
COLIN HILDING: Oh, I'll find it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Bing Dwen Dwen falling over the star of the games. A couple of things that I have with Channel 7, actually. One of my sad moments of the fact that they flew me and fired me basically on the Friday, and I didn't get sick around for the last couple of days of the Olympics, is the fact that beloved Bruce came in and I missed him. He came in apparently to the studio on Monday when I was sick with COVID, so I didn't get to meet him. And then he did the appearance tonight on the closing ceremony leading. Now, I missed the opening part of it, so I obviously missed the part where he actually was talking about the Winter Olympics. I tuned in as apparently Channel 7 were just like, Yeah, the Winter Olympics are over. Commonwealth Games are coming up. So I literally turned on when you've got Bruce McEvaney and Hamish McLaughlin talking about Peter Ball and Rowan Browning. I'm thinking like, you're not seeing Peter Ball running the bobsled or Rowan Browning in the curling. And then all of a sudden, they're like, Hamish McLaughlin's like, So Bruce, I know you're a powerful man. Why don't you click your fingers and see what happens? So he clicks his fingers, and all of a sudden, boom, Rowan Browning pops up live from like Sydney. And they start interviewing Rowan Browning about his beloved mullets talking about the Commonwealth Games. And the best bit about it was like, Bruce McEvaney just being Bruce. Like, you know, interviewing was like, Well, really, there's not really Jamaicans to worry about this time around. You got to worry about the Canadians and the South Africans. And they're like talking up like, Oh, you know, the sprinters in the world that aren't the Jamaicans anymore. It was just kind of like, OK, I get it. That's the next big event. But one thing I don't know if you would get it in Canada, but I don't want to say that it's demeaning. This isn't just a Channel 7 thing. It's almost just an Australian media thing. Is that when we're talking about the Winter Olympics, we can never just celebrate them for being Winter Olympians. Like, here's, you know, J'Carr Anthony. You've always got to compare them to a summer athlete or a summer Olympian. You've got to do something summer based. So like, it's just the way they get that here. It's like, you know, it's like, oh, you know, oh, it's such a great team, isn't it? Yeah, it really reminds me of, you know, like, of what Jess Fox did, or it just reminds me of, you know, what this athlete did. I'm like, can't we just celebrate them for being themselves? I like, this is a problem. These poor athletes get ignored for four years, and then they get two weeks to shine in the spotlight, and still you're like, oh, J'Carr, isn't she just like Jess Fox? Like, no, J'Carr Anthony's like J'Carr Anthony. She won a gold medal in moguls in a different sport. Put Jess Fox up there in a couple of skis and make her ski down some lumps, and then put J'Carr in a canoe, and then you compare the two. So like, that's just frustrating. And again, that's not just me ripping into channels, that's literally an Australian media thing. We can never just celebrate them for being themselves.
COLIN HILDING: You know, New Zealand is better than that.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, are they? We'll get there. Don't get me started. Don't push my buttons yet. I've got my rant to come. The other thing I was actually quite surprised tonight with, it's always a Channel 7 tradition that whenever we have a closing ceremony, you've got to mention that Australia invented the idea of the athletes coming in together and not separate countries. And every fucking closing ceremony, we're like, yes, we know. They didn't mention it this time around. So quite impressed. The montage, again, maybe the number one thing I always look forward to in every single Olympics, Tokyo's was quite underwhelming. That was like this, it was over in like 30 seconds, but that's it. The Beijing one was fine, but the problem is they showed it at the beginning of the coverage and then showed exactly the same. When they did the opening of like, this is what we're into the closing ceremony, it's like, cool, got a montage, great. And then they literally showed the same montage at the end. And I'm like, we see this montage, this isn't a new one. Like, I mean, aw. And they showed it to, it was a bittersweet symphony, but it was like one of those orchestral epic trailer versions, which I think I used it in the Australian Survivor Hall of Fame last year for one of our inductees. So it's a cool song, but again, and like the one thing I'm going to say, Ben Waterworth Gets Selfish Moment, number 412 of this episode, is back in the day when they showed the closing montage. They actually would have credits, and they would list who worked on the coverage, and they would list the researchers. They don't do that anymore, so my name didn't get to be on the credits. I was hopeful they would bring it back for these Olympics.
COLIN HILDING: Maybe they moved it over to 7Mate. To see exclusive coverage of our closing credits and future researchers' names, tune in to 7Mate.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yep, yep. All right, we're still not to New Zealand rant yet. Let's, our final athlete celebration of the day. Talk yours up. I love yours. This is the best one for Canada today. This is the number one of the entire Olympics. My man. Talk about him.
COLIN HILDING: Well, I mean, you kind of gave your rundown yesterday of your criteria, and I had basically decided on, I'd say, my first six or seven firms. Similar to what you did. I'm like, I want to have a variety of men and women. I want to have a variety of sports. I want to have some on the right days and all that. And I had a handful where I'm like, I don't know. Once it gets closer to the end, which is one of the reasons why we've had a lot of repeat athletes, we had more figure skaters, more speed skaters here at the end. And I really, I included the very first day was obviously the first gold medallist hockey team. But I wanted to include an individual athlete if I could. And most people would say, Oh, it's going to be Sidney Crosby. It's got to be Sidney Crosby. For literally the last 20 years, I have done nothing but talk about how the star for me of Canadian Hockey Olympics has been Jerome McGinlay, which I knew you would be happy about. I even mentioned it to you. I'm like, yeah, it was like on day three or four. I mentioned, I'm like, yeah, I'm thinking about putting up Jerome McGinlay near the end. And you're like, do it, do it. But it's not even just as obviously, there's a weird thing Canada has for Sidney Crosby. I mean, half people love him, half people don't hate him, but just get annoyed that he even Eileen Goo type credit where credit isn't due. Jerome McGinlay was one of the stars in Salt Lake City, like literally break out. He had really broke out on the end. He was in the NHL. What put him on the map was what he did in that tournament in Salt Lake City. And then Vancouver, I remember being quite annoyed in the final game, especially when Sidney Crosby scores the goal, which I think was the only goal he scored the entire playoffs. And Jerome McGinlay had something like three goals, a couple of assists. And it was Jerome McGinlay's assist that assisted that goal, but nobody ever mentions Jerome McGinlay's name. I'm saying right now, Jerome McGinlay, one of the stars.
BEN WATERWORTH: Listen to our introduction with all the commentary, and you hear the golden goal, Sidney Crosby. You hear the name, McGinlay, and you hear him. His name being mentioned before Crosby gets that goal.
COLIN HILDING: Yes. Because we have to give credit where credit is due. And also, I already made a big deal about the fact that, like, Sarah Nurse being the first black woman to ever win a gold medal in hockey, Jerome McGinlay was that first black man to win a gold medal in hockey, and he did it 20 years ago. So Jerome McGinlay also is just, he's one of the greatest NHL players of all. It's almost a selfish reason. I'm like, if I want to put up anybody, there's two names that I thought of, Joe Sackick and Jerome McGinlay, because they're my favourite hockey players of all time, but you can really back up looking at the Olympic performance of Jerome McGinlay, start to finish, as just being one of the great Olympians that Canada had outside of his NHL career.
BEN WATERWORTH: I remember when he left Calgary is one of my saddest days, but I got to, I did get to see him play twice. My very first NHL game when I went to Madison Square Garden, he played, and then by circumstance, when I saw him play for Colorado, when I was in Colorado, when I got to see him play. So it was kind of like, I'll randomly get to see him play for a different team. So what a man! Should be part of the Triple Gold Club. You know, 2004, they were robbed from the Stanley Cup. So yep, cool. But yes, great choice, Colin. I'm on board with Jerome McGinley Day. Good job.
COLIN HILDING: I knew you would be.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, we have an ice hockey player too for Australia today. Our rarity. No, it's not Nathan Walker. It's our second Australian ice hockey player. Funnily enough, we had Vic Ekberg ride on day one. David Cunningham is our player today. Created history for Australia in 1960 when he scored the very first ever goal by Australia at the ice hockey in the Olympics against Czechoslovakia. Australia were trailing 2-0 in the first period, and he got a goal! David Cunningham was 2-1! Australia were in the game! They ended up losing at 18-1, but whatever, he got one! And that's all that matters. David Cunningham's name in history, which I still say, if Australia ever made it back to the Olympics in ice hockey, which we never will, that will be bigger than Dean and Tarly. We will be hooked on that.
COLIN HILDING: I thought you were going to say he would be the captain.
BEN WATERWORTH: Probably will be. He's probably about 92 now, I don't know, but probably our third best ice hockey player in the country.
COLIN HILDING: Exactly, it's Australian hockey.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. He's probably ranked highly. Well done, David Cunningham. It just reminds me of... I don't know why I'm thinking about Austin Powers. Hello, my name is Richie Cunningham, and this is my wife, Oprah. I just want to say that. Our last Daily Dale of the games. I've got one in mind. Do you have any?
COLIN HILDING: I have one in mind. Well, obviously, Eve Muirhead. Even aside from just me being a huge Eve Muirhead fan and it being the only thing I watched completely in its entirety, the accomplishment of being in four Olympics, coming back after losing to Japan in the last ones, winning the gold this time, and being the first gold medal for Great Britain in 20 years, for Scotland in 20 years. Obviously, a huge accomplishment.
BEN WATERWORTH: In curling.
COLIN HILDING: In curling, yes. And the biggest win for Great Britain in these Olympics, or Scotland in these Olympics?
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I mean, I don't know how we're going to decide this because my nominee is Finnish ice hockey player Hannes Abjorninen. Now, in the final 30 or so seconds of this match, when Rock finally decided to pull their goalie, they had a faceoff in the centre ice, and basically, Hannes decided to, rather than get the puck with his stick or try and make a play, he just dived on the puck. He literally dived on the puck, and for a good, I don't know, of the last 20 seconds, for at least half of it, he was on the... The ref didn't call, like, stop, like, let's have a faceoff. He was just on the puck. He was just like, no, no, no, nobody's playing this puck. I'm diving on this puck. This is mine. No one's having it. He was like, stacks on the puck. And that, I'm saying that, one in the game. Cost him ten seconds. The puck got loose, went to the other end. Rock had no chance of getting a goal. So for Hans Bjorninen's suicidal efforts for Team Finland to help them win the goal, that's my nominee. So I don't know how we're going to deadlock this. We'll throw a chair or something.
COLIN HILDING: Can we give it to two people? It's never been done before, but can we have dual Daily Dale winners?
BEN WATERWORTH: I feel we haven't given it to... We had Team Slovakia didn't win as an ice hockey team. We've had Curler back on day zero. Let's end it with a Curler. I'll give it to Eve. Why not? I'll concede. I'll concede because I'm nice.
COLIN HILDING: Jamie will be very upset to see Eve Marehead's name again.
BEN WATERWORTH: Is this like a thing where you get a little bit of a feeling in certain areas of the body, Colin, or is this just like you admire her? Like, I mean, or is it a bit of both?
COLIN HILDING: I admire her as a curler. I cannot answer the other one. I'm sure Jamie would answer, but she's an incredible curler.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's because Colin is the one talking about sex.
COLIN HILDING: I don't know the meaning of that word. Sex.
BEN WATERWORTH: All right, so if you're from New Zealand, tune out now, because I've got a bone to pick with you, New Zealand. Now, look, we went over this yesterday. Um, you know, cocky New Zealanders, all right? Dealt with it. We had a metal tally faux pas, good for them. Okay, sure.
COLIN HILDING: All right.
BEN WATERWORTH: But on the Twitter account today, Off The Podium, follow us on Twitter. We appreciate your feedback, because we will bitch about it on the episode the next time around. Um, happened to get a tweet today on our next metal tally from a Brian Hibbard. This is at Brian Hibbard6. And we'll go over some of his other tweets in a moment, too. Don't worry. He replied to the metal tally. I'm going to read this verbatim. 43 Australians v 15 New Zealanders. Population, 27 million versus 5.8. Aussie won gold, NZ two gold. Very poor Australia. See what you're doing there, Brian. Based on population, absolutely. That is a shithouse effort from Australia. We should pick our game up. Absolutely. But just on that, all right? Let's just go over a few stats for you, dear Brian. In Australia, we have five, five ski resorts. Five. We won four medals. It's almost a medal per ski resort in Australia. Pretty good effort, if you ask me. In New Zealand, you have 39 ski resorts for three medals. Barely won for every ten of your ski resorts. Okay. All right. Sure. You want to play that game? Fair enough. Awesome. You have won a total of six Winter Olympic medals in your history from three athletes. You can't even get your athletes to go out and do good. You got to rely on three athletes at the Olympics to win your medals, New Zealand. Okay. Good job, bro. You got your two gold. Well done. We were winning two gold at the Winter Olympics 20 years ago. Good job to catch up, New Zealand.
COLIN HILDING: All right.
BEN WATERWORTH: And if you want to talk about population and based on population per medals. All right. Let's talk about Norway. All right. A country of five and a half million people, they've only got 500,000 more people than you. They won 37 medals at these Olympics. You won three. Pick your game up, New Zealand. And if you want to talk about countries pulling ahead of their weight based on population, a little country called Liechtenstein have won a total of 10 Winter Olympic medals in their history. You've won six. Liechtenstein has a population of 38,137, which, for you New Zealanders listening, that is a population of Gisborne in New Zealand. That is the population of Fukitani. Actually, it's more than Fukitani, but I just like saying that name.
COLIN HILDING: Terry Fukitani.
BEN WATERWORTH: Invercargill has 49,000 people, 12,000 more than Liechtenstein, a country that can win 10 Winter Olympic medals, and you can only win six. And you've got 39 ski resorts, New Zealand. 39 ski resorts, you can only win three medals.
COLIN HILDING: We've got five and we can win four.
BEN WATERWORTH: All right? Good to say that's a bit of an effort. And you also win it in fake sports, freestyle skiing. They're not real. Also, I'd just say, hang on, hang on, hang on, not done. One more thing to go. I want to read out some of these tweets from Brian, who likes to reply to things. Let's just go the intelligence here of Brian. So, seems to be a bit anti-transgender people here in replying to a transgender swimmer. Says, another failed male at his chosen sport. I'll say I identify as a woman. Then the will win. So wrong on so many levels. Just like that Laurel Hubbard from NZ. Okay. In replying to some tweet about New Zealanders joining an anti-mandate protest, he replies, never heard of either of them are relevant. Turns around, watched some of the Winter Olympics. Said, just watch the women's free ski half pike final at the Winter Olympics. I see 12 year olds doing more. What a waste of a sport and not deserving of medals, I'm afraid.
COLIN HILDING: This is a medal.
BEN WATERWORTH: You won a medal in this event, my friend, and you're saying that you are shit. Okay. In response to an article about Jacinda Ardern, Kiwis can't get home, but this thing can fly in and out at taxpayers' expense for a chat for 60 minutes. Does she think she has anything relevant to say? Thick as a cardboard cutout. Hope she can't get back. I'm not even... This guy's getting way too much airtime. In the words of Brian Hibbard, irrelevant.
COLIN HILDING: So I'll address him since you're done here now. When you showed me that yesterday, I kind of agree with the first part of what he's saying. Based on the population, amount of medals and stuff like that, obviously, you could argue they've had more successful games than you have. Saying it was bad, it actually brought me back eight years ago. We didn't even have Off The Podium was still two years away from existence. And I have a very distinct memory of this. You and nobody else probably remember this, but we were doing a Survivor Oz episode, and there was a listener question for me that was basically talking about, how do you feel about Canada's disappointing results in the Sochi Olympics? And I went on a rant like you just went on, like, okay, you're going to compare the greatest performance any country has ever had in Vancouver and say that it's a disappointment just because we didn't live up to that. So I completely get where you're coming from there. Also to address it, we are very passionate on this show with the Olympics. As we found, we are more passionate with the Olympics than we are with our other podcasts talking about James Bond or Survivor or anything else. If you want evidence of that, listen to what happened when I was denied the athlete of the day for the greatest Olympian of all time. If you want further evidence of it, listen to what happened when I posed the question, maybe we shouldn't give it to 25% of our athletes, just to Australians, and see Ben's response. We all are very passionate on this show, almost to a ridiculous point. So there's something about the Olympics, it brings out the best and the worst. It brings out the passion in people. When you read the tweets, I kind of get this guy's a bit of an idiot, but I want to go along with his logic. I'm going to bring you back to an interview, one of the best interviews that you did with Devin Huru, our curling guy in Canada, the main social media guy they basically had. The man, yeah. When you were mentioning about Australia performing better than Canada and Tokyo, and he basically was like, all right, so he had you come up with the numbers. Now, how many medals did Australia win the Summer Olympics? And he's like, okay. And in Canada, how many in the summer? Okay. Now, in the last Winter Olympics, how many did Canada win? And he's like, all right. So what you're telling me, Ben, is that overall in the Olympics, Canada is way better than Australia. You're like, I can see your point. I like that logic. Now, going with this guy's population logic, Canada is one-tenth the size of the United States. So by that logic, Canada winning 26 medals is the equivalent of the United States winning 260 medals in these winter Olympics. Canada wins it all.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, no, I agree. Like, I think it's a great way to look at it. And I actually want to pull that up just quickly before I say something else. I mean, if you were to combine Canada's total medals with Tokyo and Beijing, 26 plus 24, of course, is grand total of 50 that you've won in the last two Olympics. We got 46 medals. Actually, it's the same. 46 medals in Tokyo and four in... It's even. So, we have...
COLIN HILDING: The battle is on.
BEN WATERWORTH: We have 18 gold versus your 11. But hey, who's counting?
COLIN HILDING: But it's...
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, no, like, that's a great point. Look, I... You're right. It brings down the pattern, because we're very passionate about our country, so of course we're going to be biased. That's the thing. I, for one, am passionate about Canada. I showed up to work the other day in a Team Canada jersey, and everybody, literally every day, I would have people pushing me, like, what's the deal with you in Canada? Like, why do you like Canada so much? I literally had Joe Griggs say to me, like, Ben, we're not talking about Canada on an air today. Thanks for telling me the Canadian statistics are with you time in a row. Like, I am passionate about that. And as much as I like to sit here and rip shit into New Zealand, I lived in New Zealand more than I lived in Canada. So out of Australia, I've lived in New Zealand the longest in my life. I personally do not hate New Zealand. I admire New Zealand. They're a great country. We just have a life ribbing back and forth between the two. And when somebody does that to me, you trigger me and I will get angry. I will rub that in your face, New Zealand. I will do that. But having said that, in all seriousness, I weirdly agree with this guy. Like, New Zealand has punched above their weight very well. To win three medals per capita for a country of five million people is fucking fantastic. I say even more so in the Summer Olympics last year, what they did as well. Like, really, it is great. I love seeing these countries who can do that. I mean, Norway, it's amazing what Norway... And again, this is the very beginning of the Olympics. We fear Norway now, because in the Summer Olympics now, they're doing well. Like, this isn't good. Stop it, Norway. We're scared of you. And at the same time, also, I am very bitter, and I am easily triggered, and I have a short fuse. So fuck you, mate, and go tweet about Jacinda. Again, irrelevant.
COLIN HILDING: I wanted to add one more thing on here. Just a little bit of research for people here. I mentioned earlier on about how Canada, like a couple of days ago, Canada basically turned around their Olympic performance when freestyle skiing was introduced in the Olympics. That's when Canada started to become a real winter Olympic nation. And we have the final total here of the history of the Olympics, freestyle skiing, Canada is still number one. We're still clinging to number one of all time in freestyle skiing. Australia, one of the Australians just said it's not a real sport. Fifth of all time now, you are in the top five freestyle skiing nations of all time now, just behind China, Switzerland, United States, and Canada. New Zealand is number 13, by the way. So they're getting close to the top then.
BEN WATERWORTH: Good, good, good for them. Actually, it's interesting looking at our updated winter table now, which is, yeah, so of our 19 medals, Australia has won, that's 19. New Zealand, you've only won six. Nine of them have come in freestyle skiing. Six in snowboard. Still two in short track speed skating, which we haven't obviously won in 20 years. It's so weird looking at this saying one in skeleton. It's so weird seeing that. And one in alpine skiing. So there you go. One in the... Can you classify skeleton as a traditional sport? Because that was back in like the 1920s, and then it was missing for like 60 years. So I mean, skeleton is kind of a traditional Olympic sport.
COLIN HILDING: Well, here's a complaint I've not yet brought up in these Olympics. Freestyle skiing has become way too broad of a term. And I would say even arguably in the beginning, when it was just aerials and moguls, those are two very different sports to me. It's as different as downhill skiing and half pipe skiing, as far as I'm concerned. I feel like we need to start breaking up the freestyle. Come this cover from Canada, who is the greatest of all time in freestyle skiing, I'm saying break it up a little bit, because we are grouping together freestyle skiing as one sport, but yet snowboarding is a separate one, but yet snowboarding and freestyle skiing are sharing 50% of those sports together. It doesn't really make sense to me why freestyle skiing still encompasses moguls, aerials, half pipe, big air, and all that.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's kind of like, I mean, snowboard, the giant slalom is very different to the half pipe, but I guess you still aren't bored.
COLIN HILDING: Yeah, shouldn't there be tricks? Come up with a better name, but trick sports, which would be aerials, big air, you can even include moguls. Moguls is kind of like, it's sort of downhill, it's sort of, but then you have downhill events, so let's include, you know, the snowboard slalom with the other alpine events.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, no, you're right. It's kind of like how pop music is so diverse, you know, because you can, pop is technically popular music. That's what pop is.
COLIN HILDING: Anything can be pop.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I've never thought about it that way. Well, some would argue with that, but it's like, it is kind of an interesting thing with the Winter Olympics, where, like, biathlon and cross-country skiing, basically the same sport, except one you shoot in it. And then you look at the sliding sports, and I can't remember which athlete it was that I brought up. Why aren't they all under the same federation? Because you've got Skeleton and Bobsleigh are under one federation, and Luge is a separate federation. And it basically, I think the explanation comes down to, because Skeleton and Bobsleigh, you sprint to start, whereas Luge, it's a sitting start, so they're technically, that's the only, to me, Skeleton and Luge are exactly the same thing, one you're laying on your back, one you're facing forward. I want to see the Luges running. I'm sure they would. I don't think Luge athletes are lazy, like I've given them a chance. Luge people go, I don't want to sit down and use my hands. I want to run like the Skeleton and Bobsleigh people. Come on, give them a chance. They're the fastest of all of them. Bloody lazy Bobsleighs and Skeletons.
COLIN HILDING: Freestyle skiers who just, I'm afraid of the wind.
BEN WATERWORTH: They're just like, oh, look at me. I'm sitting down. The Bobsleighs and Skeletons go, look at those lazy bastards.
COLIN HILDING: No!
BEN WATERWORTH: You're discriminating. You're discriminating. Alex Falazzo, you stand up. All the Germans, just stand up.
COLIN HILDING: Take a step back.
BEN WATERWORTH: Berger and everyone else. I think in honour of Natalie's achievements in McDonald's in Germany, they should release the Natalie Geisen Burger Meal. Can I have a large Natalie Geisen Burger Meal with fries? I'd order it. You get a free sippy cup. There she is. On your cup. You can drink out of a Natalie Geisen. Drink out of a tuque. A little tuque, you know. Now, this will be the last time we talk to you ever, because you were dying. You're not... Are you going to be on the episode tomorrow? I don't think you are, are you?
COLIN HILDING: No. I'm going to let you... We're going to pull the you guys record when you will need to record, and if I'm awake, I'll jump in.
BEN WATERWORTH: Sweet, cool. Well, on that note, final thoughts of these Olympics, your favourite moments, things like that, and I mean, how do you rate this compared to past Winter Olympics in terms of just how you enjoyed it, spectacle, anything along those lines?
COLIN HILDING: Well, considering I've been saying the entire time, you know, it's not a big deal in Canada that we're not winning all these golds, I feel like that's really what holds this back from being as memorable than Olympics for me as Pyeongchang was, especially Sochi and Vancouver. There is something different about coming home with a gold medal as opposed to a silver and bronze, and one of it is just the attention you get. I was thinking about coming into these Olympics, one of the weird things is how many athletes in Canada have that were like true stars, where Canadians would be tuning in because this athlete is out there. You know, McHale Kingsbury and the Deferlo Point sisters were some of those. It's big news. They are still hugging. We're still seeing montage of this, no joke, on CBC. Obviously, Charles Hamlin was at that level, but people like Max Perot weren't quite at that level yet. So maybe in the next Olympics, there will be more excitement than there was for this one. But if we had had more golds, I think that I would have had an extra feeling of excitement. One thing I will say I appreciate over past Olympics is, considering this was in China, and it definitely started on a note of, let's jump down, especially on CBC, let's jump down China's throats, let's spend the entire opening ceremony just talking about the politics instead of talking about the athletes, the ones who have nothing to do with politics that are there. It really became a very positive games. We're not getting so much media criticism the way that... I look back even to Vancouver and how much criticism there was about, oh, there's unsafe conditions because of the weather, as if the Olympic organisers could control the weather. Sochi and obviously Rio was kind of the worst of it. Let's just throw every criticism we can. It's weirdly been a positive Olympics. But I think the weird thing is, my memory of these Olympics, I think a lot of Canadians are going to say the same thing, it's how the Canadian athletes sort of accepted defeat. And it's sort of become a joke on this show, but like Justine de Furlough Point, and Laurent de Bray, and Jennifer Jones, and even Brad Gouchou just winning a bronze, the way that they kind of in their interviews, apologised, as they would, for the fact of losing and how Canada really wasn't harsh on them at all. I think that was one of the more memorable things of these games. I'll be okay if I don't have to watch Big Air again. I'll be okay if you bring in some more exciting, fast-paced sports in the future. But I mean, overall, it was a decent games. It wasn't the greatest of all time. Maybe in a better opening, closing ceremony, we would change that.
BEN WATERWORTH: It's interesting because I feel I'll give some thoughts tomorrow night. Obviously, we'll do our wrap up episode then. But I think we all kind of came out of Tokyo almost saying like, this might have been our favourite Olympics or like one of our favourite ones. We came out of it positively all going like, hey, actually, we thoroughly enjoyed these Olympics a lot more than I think. And I still stand by that. Tokyo was a fun Olympics. I had a very unique experience of these games, obviously working on them. It was an interesting sort of insight that way. I don't know if I leave these Olympics with like a... I'm sad they're over. I'm always sad when the Olympics is over, but I don't know if it comes down to that we've had two Olympics in eight months. I worked on them, so it was different, other things like that. I feel like these are Olympics where I'm kind of like, yeah, they were good, but I don't know if I'm ever going to look back and go like, wow, they were the... I'm not leaving this Vancouver or Salt Lake, and even Nagano. They're the Winter Olympics that always stand out to me. It's just very memorable. Still, I'd say Salt Lake are my favourite Winter Olympics I've ever kind of watched from start to finish. So yeah, I don't think I would say that these are the best ever, but from an Australian, obviously, we've had our most successful Olympics ever. You know, it's been enjoyable to see that success, getting a medal in skeleton, seeing curlers, things like that that you would never imagine we would have. So it's been exciting to kind of have that. And yeah, I think it was unique. So I'll probably give some more thoughts on that tomorrow night, but it's enjoyable.
COLIN HILDING: I have a question.
BEN WATERWORTH: Sad they're over. Yes, Colin, please ask a question.
COLIN HILDING: Feel free to answer this question tomorrow if you feel it's better to save it for your answer for another day. But the crowds in these games, we had more spectators than Tokyo, but I'll give my opinion. Feel free to chime in if you want. To me, it felt like Tokyo was a bigger experience. And maybe it was just the athletes knowing there's nobody here. We really have to make this count. We need to be the crowd. Some of these events with nobody in the stands or barely anybody in the stands, it still felt like a big experience in Tokyo. And you could probably also say it is a cultural thing because a lot of the spectators were all Chinese, and they were definitely more reserved than a Japanese crowd would be. And Japan's still known as being reserved, but I think having the athletes be the sole cheering section, they really put in the extra effort in Tokyo, which is one of the reasons that those games, even aside from Canada or Australia's success or whatever nation you are a success, it kind of felt bigger than these ones. Having a small presence in the crowd, you noticed it more than you did having nobody in the crowd and just the athletes to support in Tokyo, if that makes any sense.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, it does. And I'd probably agree with that for the most part, but also I think it's a bit different in winter sports where the crowds don't necessarily play a bigger part. And I always kind of assume that you wouldn't feel it as much in these Olympics. And I think that's the case. We don't have as many cowbells in the Alpine or the figure skating. We don't have the big crowds or the ice hockey. But I think maybe the difference is too as well is that Channel 7 didn't dub sounds over. There was no crowd effects that they dubbed over during the Olympics, whereas obviously they did that a lot in Tokyo. So yeah, it's an interesting point. And I still am on that level where I'm kind of used to not having crowds. But I still felt a little bit that in Tokyo, even though I enjoyed Tokyo, is that they didn't feel the same like Tokyo or Beijing without crowds and the ceremonies and things like that. So they kind of feel like these odd Olympics, where they don't feel as big and as grand as an Olympics usually do without the crowds. So it was only seven, eight months ago that we had this, but sincerely hope by Paris we've got crowds. I mean, Paris would be a great Olympics to go to and have crowds in in general anyway. And Italy obviously was not to take away from Tokyo or Beijing with the population there. But I think we're going to miss out if either of the next two Olympics don't have crowds. And I mean, for God's sakes, we should have them by Los Angeles, hopefully. I'd like to be in Los Angeles, hopefully. So, you know.
COLIN HILDING: Considering Canada has been under massive protests because of the government mandates on vaccination and people losing employment and stuff like that because they won't get vaccinated. It is kind of weird that that sort of ended during these Olympics here by all the provinces basically saying, yeah, we're going to do away with the mandates and Trudeau is like left as the last man standing. But that already is sort of making me think about the fact that even here in Canada, by the summer, it's like we can have crowds again. They may change it again in the future, but it's going to be back to normal ish. So I would think Paris would be. And another thing, I guess, to kind of end on a positive thing with Beijing, Tokyo, I feel like there were a lot more situations of, oh, more positive COVID cases coming out of Athletes Village than we had here in Beijing. And yet two of the three hosts on the show caught COVID by not being in Beijing. Obviously, they did a phenomenal job at containing this as much as they could. And we saw a lot of athletes who basically were like, yeah, I've been quarantining because I tested positive as soon as I got here, whatever, and now I barely have a chance. Alina Meyers-Taylor being one of them, barely got a chance to compete. And yet somehow they contained it a lot better than Tokyo did. Tokyo, though, was like they had no way to prepare. I mean, Beijing had Tokyo as an example. But still, amazing that that hasn't become a bigger deal during these Olympics, considering the amount of people you've crammed in there and allowed spectators in at the same time.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, just two quick things. It's funny, like you talk about crowds and that, because I realise like different parts of the world are different. But like Australia, we've sort of, I think, got to a point now where like, yeah, crowds are cool. They're great. Bring them in. And I mean, I possibly caught COVID by being in a basketball game and there was like, you know, five to ten thousand people there. So maybe that's where I got it. I don't know. But one thing actually that I think we've talked about, which I'm actually disappointed in the opening and closing ceremonies about Beijing, China is the home of coronavirus. So where was like the cultural segment about coronavirus? Like, I mean, this is the biggest thing in the world in the last two years. So like they should have had like...
COLIN HILDING: Don't call it the Chinese virus. This is how we're going to get cancelled.
BEN WATERWORTH: I didn't call it the Chinese virus. I said it started in China.
COLIN HILDING: They just said they're the home. Like that's going to be on the, you're entering Beijing, home of coronavirus.
BEN WATERWORTH: Be prideful. It's the biggest thing in the world. It's the biggest celebrity in the world. It's coronavirus. Come on. Coronavirus walked down the street. You're like, oh my god, it's coronavirus. I have the autograph. I mean, come on. So where was the cultural ceremony? A little bat flies in. Person bites its head. It's Ozzy Osbourne. Goes off the... We will do this tomorrow night, but I just want to go, do you want to hear your mental predictions to see what you got? I won't tell you if you won or not, but do you at least want to see what you got? Because I feel...
COLIN HILDING: I feel like I was very close on... I mean, everybody was going to be close on Australia, but I feel like I was very close.
BEN WATERWORTH: For Australia, you said we would win one gold medal. You are correct on that one. Well done. Good job. For silvers, you said that we would win two silvers. You got that correct. Well done. For bronzers, you said we would win two bronzers. Oh, oh, so you're one.
COLIN HILDING: I'm allowed to say this is a disappointing Olympics for Australia. You're not allowed to say it, Mr. New Zealander. I am.
BEN WATERWORTH: You are. Yes. But I won't tell you whether you win or that or not. For Canada, do you remember what you said for Canada?
COLIN HILDING: Not a clue. I feel like I said 26 for overall medals, but we'll see.
BEN WATERWORTH: For gold, you said nine, not even close. For silver, you said seven. You got eight, so one off. Good job there. For bronze, you said 10. You won 14, but 26 in total. You got absolutely correct. So good job. Well done. Do you want to know what your guess for Norway?
COLIN HILDING: I'm guessing we're all going to be very off for Norway.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, you said that they would win 14 gold. They won 16. Close. Silver, you said seven. You said they would win 15. They won eight. Not close. For bronze, you said they would win 16. They won 13. You said 45 in total. They got 37 in total.
COLIN HILDING: Not bad.
BEN WATERWORTH: Not bad. So anyway, tune in tomorrow night to see if Colin wins the metal table guessing game, because we're not going to give that away right now. Colin, it has been a pleasure having you on board for most of these days. Thank you very much for all of your help and assistance and everything else along those lines. We are going to hear your voice again in a couple of weeks. It's one of the interviews that we recorded many months ago with a summer athlete from Tokyo. I forgot about it. So I forgot about it too. That's airing in a couple of weeks. I'll talk more tomorrow night about other interviews we've got coming up. We do have five that we banked well before Beijing that are coming up. And then of course, also, we're ultimately hoping to get some of the other Beijing athletes on the show and other people on the way as well. But Colin, thank you. Any final words before I say goodbye to my COVID buddy?
COLIN HILDING: Just I was going to say just that maybe as a gift, once you arrive in North America, and I don't have to worry about shipping it overseas where it'll take six months, I will make us t-shirts to say I survived OTP 19 or COVID OTP or something like that.
BEN WATERWORTH: I would gladly wear that for a day and then probably never wear it again. But I appreciate the thought. sportspodcastawards.com, your last chance maybe to pitch this. Colin, come on, pitch it out. sportspodcastawards.com.
COLIN HILDING: sportspodcastawards.com. Vote for us because we're so much better than all those shows, or at least we're better at garnering the votes for being an adequate show. And let us beat the BBC and let us beat NBC, especially NBC. They don't even have time. This is why I would tell you about NBC. They don't even have time to carry the closing ceremonies, or open ceremonies live. They don't care about you, the Olympic fans. We care about you.
BEN WATERWORTH: As Colin Kurt turns into a robot right now in this rant about saying that NBC doesn't care about you.
COLIN HILDING: And population New Zealand has won this many medals.
BEN WATERWORTH: I don't even, yep. This is why you should vote for Off The Podium, because technical prowess is our key thing. We never have any technical issues on this show, and if we do, we always edit them out so you can never hear them, and you can just hear Robot Colin. Vote for Off The Podium! Because you don't want to vote for that peacock, because they're peacocky. No? That was a 2 out of 10. That was a bad vote.
COLIN HILDING: sportspodcastsports.com.
BEN WATERWORTH: Seriously, vote for us. We're winning. Like us on Facebook, follow us, Twitter, all that kind of stuff. And stay tuned, we'll have our Athlete of the Games and Metal Tally and other little cool things to wrap up the games as well. But that's it. Our episode tomorrow night will be wrapping up the Olympics in general with Jarrod and myself. And yeah, Beijing 2022, over and done with. Another Olympics in the bag. My name is Ben, special shout out to Jason Momoa. Put a sock in a mountain, and remember, go left.
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