The culminating activity in our Business Planning Session last week was a film showing of Miracle, a Disney film release circa 2004. It was starred by Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks. the legendary US Ice Hockey coach who led his team grabbed the Gold Medal in the 1980 Winter Olympics — against the Russians. This is a true story.

As a backgrounder, The last time the USA won the gold medal in Ice Hockey was in 1960. Since then, it was the Russians who dominated the event every Winter Olympics. With just seven months before the opening of the 1980 Winter Olympics, Herb Brooks was asked to coach the team, composed of amateurs from different colleges and universities. Apparently, his decision of not to have professionals in the roster proved him right. At the beginning, since the players came from different rival schools, they seem to be playing on their own. Every time that Herb will ask a player, “What is your name? Who do you play for?”, the players will respond that they are playing for their school. Then came the time, during their first exhibition match, that they were nailed by the visiting country, 5-1. Instead of going home after the match, Herb decided to have an impromptu  training — it was here when the players realized that they should be playing for the USA, and not for their own schools.

Enough of the film, just go to the video store and rent/buy a copy of it.

While watching the movie, I realized that it is something that our national athletes lack: teamwork. Based on my opinion, the players are not really playing for the country, but for themselves. Thinking of the sum of money they will bring home if they will receive an Olympic Gold, and the fame (read as endorsements) that goes with it. I guess, the POC needs to have a film showing of Miracle to our players on of these days.

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The games of the 29th Olympiad has just began at Beijing, China. Missed the beginning of the ceremonies, which started at 8:08PM on the 8th day of the 8th month of 2008 (08 August 2008 at 8:08). Nice numbers. Wonder will this bring luck to Team Philippines.

Was excited to see the events of the Opening Ceremonies as they unfold “live” at C/S (Solar Entertainment channel), but got dismayed with the number of commercials during gaps. Luckily, I found another channel covering the ceremonies, just minutes behind the one aired at C/S. But, seems to be that the lucky day is not favoring me: the CCTV channel just went off the air. Got pissed, turned the television off and headed on to the net. Justin.tv is still not covering the ceremonies, but the pictures are already online at the official Olympics website and at Yahoo!News.

Now, I remember 16 years ago, I was just 11 years old then when Barcelona in Spain played host to the 1992 games. Because of the timezone difference, my dad woke my brother and I up at around 2AM just for us to catch the opening ceremonies. It was the first time that I had actually watched the Olympics Opening Ceremony. And who can forget the dramatic lighting of the cauldron by archer Antonio Rebollo? For those who were still very young to comprehend or remember the 1992 Olympics, here’s what happened during the final torch relay and ceremonial lighting of the cauldron:

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Last month, it was reported that swimmer Miguel Molina will be the country’s flag bearer to the Beijing Olympics come August 2008. However, upon Manny Pacquiao’s return from his successful match with David Diaz last week, PGMA announced that he will be the country’s flag bearer to the Olympics.

Alright, Manny is a great athlete, I have nothing against him, but is it really necessary to kick Miguel Molina out of being the flag bearer? Another thing, Manny is NOT even on the official Philippine delegates list to the Summer Olympics, thus making the butts of the Philippine Sports officials off their seats trying to get him in the list to Beijing. Shame on you PGMA!

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