Sochi Olympics night 1: Talking Jeremy Abbott, Patrick Chan, NBC’s figure-skating coverage

Tonight, the Sochi Olympics more or less started courtesy of some men’ figure-skating coverage … even if the actual Opening Ceremony does not take place until tomorrow night. In some ways, this is like a story opening before its Grand Opening: Testing things out and seeing how they work.

Now, there is one thing that you should know now before we start diving into our coverage of the games this year: We’re not a sports site, and with that, we’re not going to give you up-to-the-minute highlights on anything. What we will be talking about here instead is the entertainment factor of some of what NBC gives to us, and if it’s something that the average viewer with no Olympic sport knowledge can really enjoy.

When it comes to the Alpine Skiing and Snowboarding event coverage, we were at least mostly intrigued. NBC does a good job particularly with their camera work, ensuring that they give you multiple vantage points of all times as to what is going on, and there is very little that is as breathtaking as wondering if some guy on a snowboard is going to stay on his feet.

The biggest problem? We found it a little awkward to listen to the skating commentary, mostly because the announcers were so hard on skater Jeremy Abbott, and to make matters worse, he was pretty much forced to do an interview the moment after going on the ice. Can’t these people have a minute to breathe? It’s their only opportunity to be in the spotlight, and we just feel extra sympathetic for these people when things don’t go completely their way. Maybe this is why we don’t watch many more sports. Current Grade: B-.

If you want to read some more news and highlights for the Sochi Olympics, just be sure to click here. We’ll have so much more to share here soon enough.

Photo: NBC