The other morning I was up ungodly early for no good reason and found myself staring blankly at the TV screen. Blabbing back at me was the latest loop of CBC News Now. Once my eyes adjusted to the Star Trek-inspired set (it gets me every time), I realized there was a discussion of Olympic sports underway. On this local Toronto edition, the host was talking to another reporter acting as an "expert." (I forget their names, but gimme a break it was before 6:30 a.m.) The topic was snowboarding. 

Now, we all know that mainstream discussion of largely niche sports can be about as cringe-worthy as your mom throwing a fist-bump, but given snowboarding has been an Olympic sport for more than a decade, the media has had ample time to bone up on the sport. However, the other morning when the host asked if Canada had anyone who might challenge defending half pipe gold medalist, American Shaun White, the "expert" reporter launched into a report on slalom racer Jasey-Jay Anderson. Two completely different events. Ugh. It would've made our friends over at Push.ca  punch themselves in the neck with a wrench.

This is obviously a whole lot of blather about one little misstep on an early-morning news show, but it got me thinking, how often might this happen when I'm watching an Olympic sport I don't know anything about? Because if I knew nothing about snowboarding, I would now think that half pipe riders wear spandex onesies and race through gates, and this Anderson guy might have a shot to beat Shaun White.

I could be watching biathlon and the announcer might say, "Norway's Ole Einar Bjorndalen trains in the off-season by hunting bears and Norwegian prisoners on rollerblades," or tells me that if a target is missed a player must go through the penalty loop, which is a 500-metre gauntlet of booby traps where other players shoot at the penalized biathlete. Or that the two-man luge has its roots in an ancient Swiss mating tradition. Or that long track speed-skating got its start in Holland when topless gin bootleggers would race from village to village during the annual Winter Wooden Shoe Festival. And I'd believe them. Why? Well, I don't know anything off-hand about biathlon, luge or speed skating AND chances are there might be a glass of whisky within reach.

Luckily, there's this thing called the Information Superhighway where you can look up facts on things you know nothing about. And not just on TwoManLugipedia. It's all right there on the official Games site. Which is probably where that early-morning reporter should've gone.

: 3:11 PM in Olympics