57 Days

NBC announced that they are forecasting a loss of about $200 million by televising the Olympics in February. That is a heck of a lot of money. I guess the economy and ad spending is not what it used to be. If you want to argue that the Summer Olympics brings a larger audience than the Winter Olympics do, NBC also lost an undisclosed amount on the Beijing Summer Olympics, two years ago in 2008.

The city of Vancouver spent $57 million to build a speed skating oval for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

The last time the Winter Olympics took place in Canada was in 1988, in Calgary. 57 countries participated, as opposed to the 80-plus countries competing in Vancouver. One of the highlights of the '88 Olympics was the "Battle of the Brians" in men's figure skating, between American Brian Boitano (who won) and Canadian home-country hero, Brian Orser (who placed second). Orser is returning to the Olympics this year as the coach of Korean figure skating phenom, Yu-Na Kim, who is expected to medal in Vancouver. We were also introduced to Italian skier, Alberto Tomba "La Bomba" who was known more for his playboy/model-dating ways than for his three Olympic gold medals (two of which were won in Calgary). Another notable story was that of the Jamaican Bobsled team - proof yet again that the Olympics is not just about winning gold medals, but also about passion of sport. With no chance of winning, they stole the hearts of Olympic fans everywhere when they walked their bobsled over the finish line after having crashed on one of their runs. Here's clip of their crash.