Friday, February 26, 2010

Root, root, root for the home team...

I've been quite taken by all the enthusiastic and supportive Canadian blog "shout outs" to various Canadian home town Olympians.
Isn't it fun to cheer the locals on?
Isn't it just THE BEST when they do good?
It makes watching the events so personal.
So special.
So memorable.

And of course it makes one feel so proud of one's own home town.

I wish I could say it was the same way with our local Salt Lake City area Olympians:


Team USA has 216 members.
FIFTY SEVEN of them reside in Utah either full or part time, mostly in areas that are just minutes away from my house.
(I think the training facilities around Salt Lake and Park City have a wee bit to do with that fact.)
With so many contenders from here, there actually is a "Utah House" up in Vancouver's Olympic Village.
I really can't do "shout outs" for all my homeys; I'd grow hoarse before I was a third of the way down the list!
I'm afraid I could never even survive watching all their events.
Truth be told, most of the time I don't even remember all of their names.
Sort of sad, isn't it?
I know players for Utah have won medals in each category, and more medals are likely still to be won.
Apolo Ono, for instance, has won a few medals in skating

Shannon Bahrke (lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, from Tahoe Calif.) won a Bronze Medal in Free Style Skiing at the Women’s Moguls

Chad Hedrick (lives in Salt Lake City, Utah) won the Bronze medal in Speed Skating Men’s 1000m

Bryon Wilson (lives in Park City, Utah) won a Bronze medal in Free Style Skiing at the Men’s Moguls

Last night another Gold medal was draped on one of our lads.

There are others who have medals of various colors, and I am sure there are more medals coming our way soon.

But I think I have probably already said too much about all this.

You know how it is.

Americans are just modest by nature.

I wouldn't want any one to think I was bragging!

(I just couldn't resist. With love to all my Red Mitten wearing Maple Leaf wagging blogging friends! I cheer for your teams whenever they are not going up against my team and think of all the fun you are having right now.)

6 comments:

Vicki said...

Interesting little factoids with each athlete!

Lovella ♥ said...

Okey dokey . .this one really made me chuckle. Do you know that we have even been called UnCanadian for being so enthusiastic about our home team? There was even talk in the local media about if we are overdoing it a bit. .but boy does it ever feel good to let our true colors fly . ..for once. We'll let you toot your horn again . ..real soon.
I think one of the things that has been so enjoyable for me is to see the Today show showcase all the beauty of British Columbia. That will likely never happen again and so .. yes . .we'll keep our mittens off until the flame fizzles out.
Amazing how many athletes come from SLC . .I thought I heard you once or twice.

myletterstoemily said...

i love canada, too...but USA! USA!

Islandsparrow said...

And there is only 1 athlete from PEI - but she won gold!

Congratulations to all your local athletes!

I wonder . . . who will be doing the final cheering when it comes to men's hockey?? It'll be close.

Judy said...

I'm taking off my mittens momentarily...just so I can type. We are being uncharacteristically patriotic over here...and it feels good. But guess what...we too are cheering for our American cousins when not competing against each other. It's all good!

And thanks for your research...I'd heard the names...now I know a bit about them.

Dolores said...

Hey, brag all you want. As of today, there's a bit more gold in Canada. We have to schedule our day tomorrow around the hockey game. Good luck to both sides. Me, I may just sew.
As I write this, the curling gold just became ours too. 13 right now.