Bostonist Gears Up For A Weekend of Olympic Glory

Bostonist loves the Olympics. So much. Even though it's the winter Olympics, so there are far fewer obscure countries (Seychelles, represent!) and random-test-of-strength type sports (shotput, We're looking at you!), the skiing and skating and curling (oh, the curling!) do indeed rock our world. There are plenty of Masshole athletes to cheer on (like Jamie Hagerman, Courtney Kennedy, and Sarah Parsons of the women's hockey team, Rick DiPietro, Bill Guerin, and Keith Tkachuk of the men's team, speed skater Caroline Hallisey, and skier Emily Cook, all of whom are still in medal contention), and more incredibly ugly figure skating outfits than Bostonist can shake a baton at.

Bostonist intends to spend the long weekend on a serious Olympics binge, and we urge our dear readers to do the same. But damn it, there's something we have to say: The NBC policy of referring to the Olympics host-city as "Torino" is driving us absolutely fucking crazy. Partly, it bugs us because it's pretentious, like when Alex Trebek says a whole sentence exactly like the aging Canadian he is, then goes all Ricardo Montalban on one Spanish word ("No, I'm soorry, the correct question was, 'What is Nicaragua'"). !Partly, we chafe at the fact that they're taking pains to say an Italian word, but they're saying it poorly: "Terrine-Oh." But most of all, we can't stand that Turin is the only foreign location that gets translated. This became painfully clear to us last night while watching freestyle skiing, when the commentators explained the preponderance of Swiss fans by noting that "Switzerland is just a short train ride away from Torino." Arrrrgh!

Please, Bob Costas, please. Stop the insanity.

Images: At top, Natick's Caroline Hallisey (#12). At right, NBC's dreaded Torino.