Friday, February 1, 2002

No more playing Games

By ROB BRODIE -- Ottawa Sun
 Just call them the Friendly Games.

 As in viewer friendly, that is.

 For the first time in six years, serious Olympic watching won't involve the need to bank dozens of hours asleep starting next week. Or changing one's nocturnal patterns during the 16 days television sports' biggest event lasts.

 Say goodbye to the whacked out 14 and 15-hour time differences of Nagano in 1998, and Sydney in 2000.

 Salt Lake City is gonna be a breeze by comparison.

 "The great thing for the viewer is that you don't have to get up in the middle of the night to watch a hockey game," said Joel Darling, CBC's executive producer for Salt Lake Olympics coverage, which begins next Friday.

 "People will understand this schedule a lot better than Sydney. Canadians don't have to set their clocks differently."

 Anyone who struggled to stay on top of track and field or swimming events held in the middle of the night or just before the crack of down knows of what Darling speaks. If you're like me, you were still recovering from it a week or so later.

 Not so in Salt Lake. CBC's live coverage day essentially runs from 11 a.m. to midnight, with a few breaks for news in between. High-profile events such as men's hockey, figure skating and speed skating will happen in prime time, though anything skiing-related obviously has to occur during daylight hours.

 Viewers also will have a choice during a Winter Games for the first time. Not into the figure skating or hockey that CBC is showing? Flip over to TSN, and you can catch a curling match in its entirety.

 In all, the two networks will team up for 377 hours of Salt Lake City coverage (250 on CBC, 127 on TSN), making it the most comprehensive package ever offered to Canadian viewers at a Winter Olympics. Darling said CBC offered less than 200 hours on its own from Nagano in 1998.

 "One thing that is exciting for us is that we have two channels of Olympic programming available to Canadians," he said. "There is a choice on many occasions.

 "If I'm a curling fan and could care less about figure skating, I'm happy that I can watch the curling from start to finish on TSN."

 And with far less sports to cover and many more TV hours available, Canadians should get a much more complete picture of what's going on in Salt Lake City.

 Best of all, they won't have to rearrange their lives too much to take it all in.

 Does it really get any better than that?

2002 Games News Coverage