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Observations from the ice

Is there a better night in sports than the first Sunday of the Winter Games? Figure skating and one of the most thrilling events in all of sports – the men’s downhill. The only thing that would make my rapture greater would be if there were curling, too.

Curling combines two of my favorite things – competition and housework. Watching people sweep and cry “Ai, ai” as that fat curling stone comes down the ice in a kind of wintry shuffleboard is beyond adorable. It was David Letterman of all people who cemented my love of curling. One year to promote his “coverage” of the Games, which consisted of reports from his mother, his publicist sent us entertainment writers curling stone paperweights. I keep mine in its little plaid box in my library. (It’s in a plaid box, because curling comes from Scotland, the land of kilts, Sean Connery and Andy Murray. We owe Scotland so much.)

But back to skating. Read more

 

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What if New York had the Olympics?

With the Sochi Games now open, The New York Times has been wondering just that, with drawings that imagine the Big Apple as an Olympic winter wonderland. (This year we certainly have the snow for it.) But readers need wonder no more. In my new novel “Water Music,” it does. 

This first of the series “The Games Men Play,” two pairs of athlete-lovers who are at the heart of my story – swimmers Daniel and Dylan and tennis players Alex and Alí – meet at a Summer Olympics in Manhattan, where shifting professional fortunes signal shifting personal alliances.

Having awarded New York the Summer Games, I’ve gone on to give Omaha its own football team. The Omaha Steers are center stage in my second book in TGMP series, “In This Place You Hold Me,” about a quarterback’s search for identity. (Omaha, I know you were disappointed that Peyton Manning – who always uses Omaha as one of his audibles – and his Broncos lost the Super Bowl. I hope my giving you your own team takes the sting out of that – but I doubt it. Art can’t make up for real life.) Read more

 

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Hanyu’s great skate

Well, it didn’t take long for the theme of rising to the occasion – or not – to emerge at the Sochi Games with the new team figure skating event. American Jeremy Abbott, whom I’ve rarely seen skate well, turned in a disastrous performance. Canada’s elegant Patrick Chan, the three-time world champion who acknowledged that hometown nerves got to him at the Vancouver Games, skated well but tight. Evgeni Plushenko was, well, Evgeni Plushenko. He’s a big-game skater but loses points in my book for arrogance. (We all remember how he dissed gold medalist Evan Lysacek in Vancouver when Plushenko stepped up to the top of the podium before taking his silver medal place.)

No matter. For me the performance of the first night of team competition belonged to Japan’s Yuzura Hanyu. Read more

 

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Mark your calendars for "A Night of Beauty"

Thursday, March 13, 6-8 p.m. Check-in 5:30 p.m.
Bloomingdale’s, White Plains

Local readers are invited to mingle at "A Night of Beauty" with Georgette Gouveia, editor of WAG magazine and author of “Water Music,” the first novel in her provocative, sensual new series “The Games Men Play.” Get face time with our local personality, then take time to treat your face to one-on-one skin care consultations and makeup applications from all your favorite brands. Indulge in savory hors d’oeuvres by 42 The Restaurant and snap a photo for WAG. Read more

 

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Is Peyton the Michelle Kwan of football?

Forget Richard III. This is the winter of my discontent, and it isn’t just the unrelenting cold, snow and ice in the Northeast. (It’s like “Dr. Zhivago” without Omar Sharif.) 

No, it’s partly because my guys – Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Colin Kaepernick, Gov. Chris Christie and now Peyton Manning – have all fallen short this season. (Thank God Tim Tebow has found his calling as a T. Mobile pitchman and ESPN analyst, or this winter would be a total bust.)

Let’s leave off Gov. Krispy Kreme, shall we? Remember how in math you always had to pick out the one thing that didn’t belong to the set. Well, he doesn’t belong to the set. His is a different kind of performance to be judged by other criteria. What I want to talk about today in the aftermath of that dud of a Super Bowl and with the Olympics beginning Thursday, Feb. 6 with the new team ice figure skating event is why some people – brilliantly talented everyday achievers – fall flat in big moments. Read more

 

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Year of the (Sea)hawk

It’s supposed to be the Year of the Horse. But someone forgot to tell the Seattle Seahawks.

And the Denver Broncos. Thunder, the Broncos’ Arabian stallion of a mascot, may have thundered into MetLife Stadium, but the Broncos sure didn’t.

So what did we learn from the less-than-Super Bowl?

1. Good pitching stops good hitting. Football translation: Good defense stops good offense. The Hawks’ D-line just shut Peyton Manning and company down.

2. But you still have to put up some points, otherwise a good defense means nothing. Ah, 43 – 8 Seattle? No problem.

3. The guard has changed. Peyton may be the classic pocket passer but – and it breaks my heart to say this – his time is past even as he lives it. The game belongs to a breed of young, largely African-American, running quarterbacks – led by the Hawks’ Russell Wilson – who are not afraid to move and mix things up. They’re risk-taking, they’re thrilling and their time is now. Read more

 

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