live handball coverage

I’ve waited till 2:30 AM to watch handball. And I seriously thought I wasn’t going to get into the Olympics this year.

I was nutty into the Atlanta games, staying up way too late to watch the late night show for weightlifting and water polo and all sorts of silly stuff. I did manage to go to bed just in time to miss the bomb going off, but I have that special ability for important late night events.

I don’t even remember the 2000 summer games. I don’t know if was the massive tape delay, the bad press because of the massive tape delay, or just being college and having better things to do.

Even though I watched a whole bunch of Salt Lake stuff and drove people crazy with self hype of curling, I didn’t think there was much in Greece for me to find interesting. I guess I need to never underestimate my desire to watch weird programs at odd times.

Wow, handball IS cool. I’m glad I stayed up for this. They’ve got some nice info on NBCOlympics.com, your home of finding out what may or may not be on in the next half hour. This would’ve been cooler if they didn’t pick an odd time to take a break.

While I’m in the category, JLU was okay, but it’s an obvious odd choice to have two straight non-new people episodes right after introducing the new concept. I guess having kid Green Lantern act completely differently from than non-kid Green Lantern was allow them to do the wacky Green Lantern powers the GL fans dig, but maybe it would’ve been better with another character who fit there better. Or someone else instead of Superman, since he didn’t do much.

Having someone new would’ve made things a bit more interesting, but it’s still a stock “what would our characters be like if they were suddenly kids!” plot, not exactly the most creative of ideas, based on a comic or not. It’s no more than I expected in the new format, but not realy worth the three paragraphs I just spent either.

According to this post, it looks like this episode was originally slated for later in the season. Which would made more sense. The Cartoon Network listing has this episode as #5 instead of #3 as well. (Heck, now that I check, so does the TiVo listing – what happened here?)

I need more Flash. Flash is awesome. Doesn’t sound like he’s on next week either. Doesn’t sound like he’s lead superhero in ANY of the episodes. Sucks.

Handball has quite the Water Polo-esque frequent stops for penalties. I think this would have serious Curling-type cult success if it was on at a better hour and the US had someone to root for.

Wow, USA Basketball is sounding like they’ve learned nothing. This is going to be much much worse before it gets better. Carmello whining about playing time in a twenty point loss should be reason enough not to do the All Star teams again. They’ll squash Greece and everyone will think everything’s okay again, but there’s not medaling here. I hope the right people win the ensuing argument.

You can not stop Korea on the fast break! Maybe Gail’s part of the Olympic team (the Olympic team OF THE FUTURE) and that’s why she’s from Korea. And the power play let’s them make a huge run – they keep slipping behind Russia on the break. I may know nothing, but having no one between you and the goalie is a good thing.
This second 2nd half break is at the wrong time, as Russia may have just taken the momentum back – except they stopped the tape, awesome. 4 point led with 10 minutes to go, but a good pass allows 11 to slip behind for a shot and Korea needs to think this over. Korea’s wisely taking off as much time off as allowed. I’d kinda expect more basketball type post work on the edges of the goal box, either muscling around for a shot to drawing people in to go to the perimeter shooter, but it’s a lot more international basketball types slashing in action with outlet passes. Constant movement.

Looks like Korea’s defense might be breaking down, Russia beating them on the transition. But then South Korea makes 30, really happily. And a stop and 31, putting the up by 4. It must be awful being the goalie, because there’s not much you can do when it’s one on one; it’s a five times harder than a penalty kick because the ball’s smaller and there’s more angles it can come from.

Oh no, 2 minute penalty. Now they’re really dead – so we take another break. Wow, we got about 3 minutes of TV time before another Hardball commercial. The breaks do allow me to cruise info about handball.

Oh no, they skipped ahead this time, but the score’s essentially the same with 1:@0 left with no one in the box. I don’t know if Russia has time to come back here. They’re scrambling and manically trying to find a an open shot. Point, down 3 with a minute left, as they do some mass subs. Might as well use a time out here. Russians do the hand cheer of no hope.

Stalling stalling stalling. They may make the ref make the call. No, pass from the corner to an illegal shot. Russia is at least running on the turnover, but they blow the shot and Korea’s goalkeeper whips the ball down court for an easy one on one. GOAL. That’s it, non-subtle shove by Russia after the shot besides. Russia gets in a goal that’s for a point but pretty pointless and Korea gets a huge upset. I don’t know enough about handball to say Russia/Korea is USA/Puerto Rico, but given that only European Teams win these things, it’s pretty big.

Lester Holt tells me more at 2PM CST and I may actually TiVo that. Now, bed.