I haven’t been paying much attention to the Olympics, but is anyone else out there annoyed by the fixation on medal counts by nation? Sure, I can appreciate rooting for “our guys” (whoever those guys might be for the rooter), but once you start aggregating the results of individual efforts into some national scheme you lose sight of the triumphs and disappointments that are what sport is all about.

Yeah, I know, I’m old and grumpy. Next I’ll be asking for sportsmanship.

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For some reason, here at Little Café Near Home, we are watching some sort of Ballroom dancing competition. Like figure skating, it fails on all three of my criteria for being a good sport:

1. No judges – if you need someone else to tell you who won, it’s not a sport at all. Lack of an empirical scoring system removes the activity from even being considered as a sport, let alone a good one.
2. Scoring must be a significant event – NBA, please take note. Scoring should be a cause for celebration.
3. Scoring must be possible – take hockey. Points are rare, but things are nuts and a score could happen at almost any moment. Soccer occupies this weird realm where almost scoring is such a rare event that even that is cause of great emotional release. I will grudgingly allow that perhaps you can derive some tension from knowing that your team could in the next few minutes work their way into a situation where they almost score (but probably won’t).

Anyway, ballroom dancing stumbles at criterion number one, and so cannot be considered a sport at all. Yet here it is on the Czech sport channel. All other judgement of worthiness aside, I watched for a while and wondered, “isn’t dancing supposed to be fun?” I watched a little longer and had to wonder, “isn’t dancing supposed to be about being with someone?

Here’s the thing: the women in these events have their backs arched and their necks twisted such that one must conclude that they find the man they are with repulsive. They hold their heads as far from their partner as possible, with plastic smiles on their faces, looking anywhere but at the man. I’ve had dance partners like that, actively radiating disinterest, lest I get the wrong idea. Yet here are the friggin’ professionals, people who theoretically have chosen to be together, yet to appear to be enjoying the company of your dance partner is considered bad form. When the music’s over they still don’t look at each other; they turn and suck up to the crowd. I wonder what would happen if one of these teams went out and did a really passionate dance, eyes locked, and at the end the dude gave her a little kiss. Maybe just a kiss on the hand, thanking her for the wonderful time they just spent together. Like they were courting. Like they were dancing.

Forget about whether it’s a sport; in my book, this competition is not even dancing. It is, to twist a phrase, strictly “ballroom”.

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Sparta and Slavia are the two soccer teaks from Prague. Think Mets and Yankees, and you’re getting warm. Red Sox/Yankees would be closer, as there is no Boston equivalent in the Czech Republic. Tonight, these guys are playing each other, and it’s for keeps. While there has been some lying in the grass crying like a baby, there hasn’t been much, and the game is turning into a hard-fought affair.

But here’s something you will not find in any sporting contest on US soil. Frankly, I’m pretty damn stunned that it would happen here (after all, this isn’t England). The game is being broadcast live, of course, and after a corner kick the defenders had gained control when a bomb went off behind the goal.

Let me write that again, in case you missed it the first time. After a corner kick the defenders had gained control when a bomb went off behind the goal. The advertising set up there was blasted, and the goalkeeper hit the deck. The players paused for perhaps two seconds, then resumed playing while the smoke cleared. An emergency crew rushed to the location of the blast to repair the advertising. The shot of the girl in stands eating a sausage garnered more comment among the rank and file here at the Little Café Near Home.

Meanwhile, the game has been a good one. (Yes, I wrote that.) Slavia scored early but Sparta has been dominating, threatening to score much of the time. It seems I’m surrounded by Sparta fans. There are a lot of muddy uniforms, frayed nerves, and unheard of in this sport, players are picking themselves up off the turf to show that they can take a hit. Players are colliding and not falling over; instead they play through and try to get the advantage with their own talent at fotbol, rather than the ref’s whistle. The ref proved inclined early to let the boys play.

— As I typed the above, a Slavia player took a dive. Massive head trauma of some sort. “Three minutes!” Franta said, predicting how long it would take for him to get back in the action. “Two minutes,” I countered. I imagine a scene in which the team medic is summoned onto the field, to discover to his horror that the player is actually injured. The doc is helpless, as his magic freezy spray cannot heal the stricken player.

The “let the boys play” attitude turned this into a very physical game, and toward the end of the first half we found out just where the ref’s limit was, as a flurry of yellow cards and one red came out. The game is still hotly contested, but so far in the second half there have been no bombs.

Oops. I wrote that sixty seconds too soon. Smoke bombs this time. One section of the stands is engulfed in orange and yellow. There was a great shot of a woman in the Emergency Response Team running with a smoke bomb, trying to find a place where it would be less harmful.

— As I typed the above, I saw that the guy out with the head injury is still out. It’s possible I owe him an apology, but Boy Who Cried Wolf still applies. The game is winding down, and as usual it’s easy to tell which team is ahead. They’re the ones lying on the ground to eat up the clock. In this regard the game remains fundamentally broken.

— The game is as good as over, but a Slavia player was just hit by a thrown beer while preparing to throw the ball inbounds. (The beer-thrower was skilled; the cup was miraculously half-full when it reached its target.) Clearly fans throwing stuff at players cannot be tolerated, and the game stopped while security handled the situation. I assume that if the perpetrator could not be identified, the home team would have been penalized. This is right and proper, but compare with BOMB above. The bomb did not make it into the highlight reel.

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Close on the heels of my last episode I find myself drinking a fine beer, eating a plate of goulash and potato dumplings, and watching hockey. I noticed something else about the sport that embodies toughness. Not only do players get up when then are knocked down, they also don’t whine about the call they got or didn’t get. They go to the box or they keep on skating. I saw a bad call and the alleged offender left the ice without comment. It was a weak call at a critical moment, but he sat without whining about it. Sure, while serving the penalty he might be cursing the ref, but he’s not going to hurt his team further by making an ass of himself. He’s there to play hockey.

There was a time in basketball when a player would raise his hand when a foul was called on him, to make things easier for the scorekeeper. That doesn’t happen anymore. If I was an NFL ref, I’d throw the flag on any receiver who made the “throw the flag” gesture. American football is the absolute worst for players bitching and moaning to the officials. Just. Play. The damn. Game.

Hockey. They just play.

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