Vancouver is golden!

Winning at home is always sweetest. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)

It finally happened!

Canada didn’t win gold in 1976 in Montreal. We didn’t win gold in Calgary in 1988, either.

But tonight, in Vancouver, it happened.

Alexandre Bilodeau of Quebec – a toddler when Canada last hosted the Winter Games – is the nation’s newest Olympic hero as he captured gold in the Freestyle Skiing – Men’s Moguls competition. He also made a little history, becoming the first Canadian Olympian to win gold on home soil. Bilodeau beat the heavily favoured Dale Beggs-Smith (a Canuck, incidentally, competing for Australia) with a score of 26.75.  Team USA’s Bryon Wilson captured bronze in an impressive effort.

Bilodeau’s inspiration? His brother Fredric, who lives with cerebral palsy, and who was cheering for Alexandre harder than anyone else in the red-and-white clad crowd at Cypress Mountain. You can read about Alexandre and his brother here and watch their story “Source of strength” here.

I don’t think freestyle skiing has ever moved me to tears. Bravo Alexandre!

Hump Day Hottie: Team USA

Since I’m snowed in today, I have snow on the brain.  And, as most of you know, I usually have hockey on the brain.  So why not show you a glimpse of some Team USA Hockey hotties?  So follow me after the jump for some hotties to watch for in the next coming weeks!

Get Out There And Play

Winter sports, and the hotties that go with them, are often overlooked. So I thought I’d share just a few with you at this time of year.

AFC and NFC Championships: Last Call for Weather

Since the last seconds ticked off the clock in the Cowboys-Giants game on Sunday, I’ve been downright giddy thinking about the conference championships for one reason and one reason only; they both are going to be played outside in the cold, and hopefully the snow.

The Weather Channel forecasts Foxboro to have an expected high of 24 degrees and a low of 7 degrees on Sunday, with strong west-northwest winds of 22 miles per hour.

Green Bay at kickoff? Somewhere between 1-4 degrees with a 30% chance of snow. (This is warmer then yesterday, when it was forecasted to be -4 degrees for the low.)

According to The Weather Channel’s shaky analysis (the stats for games played indoors vs outdoors for each team seem to be incomplete) the cold does favor one team more than the other three. And it is not Green Bay.

Sunshine cannot bleach the snow,/ Nor time unmake what poets know

Is there anything more beautiful that snow gently falling on a couple dozen of the hottest men in sports? After watching a few hours of just that in the Pens-Sabres matchup in the NHL’s Winter Classic, I would argue not.

Upper St. Clair alum Ryan Malone bendy sure is bendy…