Why can professional hockey players play in the Olympics? Isn't it supposed to be only for amatuers?
95551
I think it is suppose to be about the best of the best.  Since they get paid alot of money to play a game, chances are they are the best at what they do.  That doesn't mean that there aren't amatuers out there that might deserve to be there but were overlooked due to status.
1115172
We were the olympic champions in Hockey once upon a time but then we have been pushed backwards. \nMany sports activities and athletic activities are not yet encouraged so much but it is not as if there is NO ENCOURAGEMENT at all. Slowly it is being built up but much more needs to be done.\nRight from young age talents have to be located , selected and state has to take the responsibility to give them training and proper type of food etc etc.\nIf individuals are to come up as in cricket it does not happen in games like football.
135494
It usually happens in mid to late February.  But there's no NHL all star game this year due to the Olympics.
144998
No, besides the fact that it would be impossible to have live realtime results which would force long wait times between performances and the athletes receiving their scores, most people would only give good scores to the players from their own country. The general public is not unbias enough or knowledgable enough in the various competitions to give an accurate score. It would become a popularity contest and turn the olympics into a joke.
113101
They have not set the final lineup yet, some players will be named to the qualifying team. This lineup could dirastically change before the actual summer olympics.
708823
allot of this players in the AHL have been drafted and not ready to jump to the NHL. most come from the Junior leagues in Canada and some from the colleges in the US and allot come from overseas. when they get drafted by a team it doesn't matter so much on the points they get through there year in the farm league they just need to learn the teams system then they get the call up when they are ready and sometimes when there are injuries. some players do make the team there first year and some don't.
41005
I don't think so. It's a sport that both men and women can participate in. They make a good couple too when they join the figure skating event :-)
135071
Each national sports governing body has their own selection process. In the U.S. ice skating is based on performance in the national championships, one event. In skiing, the skiers season standings.\n\nThe international federations also have rules on how many athletes are allowed to compete. For example, in figure skating, some are only allowed one skater, others two or three , depending on how well that countries skaters did in the last world champions ships. The U.S. got to have 3 women because of Micelle Kwan's 4th place finish at the last worlds.
349639
Apparently triathlons only take place during the Olympics.  thanks Mike...  Yahoo! has yet to add many sports to the list.  Skate/Snow boarding, Tri's, running.  None of these seem to have made.  But curling and snookering seem to have a large fan base.  Come on Yahoo! guys, think!!!!
137111
the reason why they call it winter olympics is because of the figure skating, snowboarding, skiing, curling, and luge. They have to have it in the winter so the snowboarders and skiers have snow. And those are sports in the winter and for example, they take the best winter athlete's out of the X Games and put them in the winter olmpics and put them in the country they were born in,that shound explain why they call it the winter olympics.
281060
Because their lineups sucked.  The U.S. team has declined in the last ten years.  There are more American players in the league now, but they are not necessarily stars.  They haven't done a good job of replacing Hull, Deadmarsh, Kevin Hatcher, and others.  And guys like Tkachuk, Chelios and Modano have aged.  As for the Canadian team, Gretzky put too much focus on players that had Olympic experience.  Guys like Spezza, Staal, Crosby and Phaneuf should have been playing, instead of Kris Draper, Bertuzzi, Sakic and Ryan Smyth.
118573
They are because a majority of AMericans couldn't care less about the sports in the Winter Olympics.  Some will watch the figure skating and hockey fans will watch hockey, but that's about it.\n\nI personally find nothing interesting about the Winter Olympics at all.  Summer Olympics I love, but not winter.
692552
it would take too long to travel to other hockey countries like russia, sweden, czech republic etc.  canada and the u.s. are in the same contintent so that makes it easier.
106796
I think because anything classified as a sporting event it requires a certain degree of athleticism, skill, practice, dedication, and (in the case of team sports) team-work; add in an opportunity to test your levels against others to find out who is best and you have a sporting event(you mentioned NASCAR in your question details... driving a car in a big circle for a couple of hours doesn't require much athleticism either, but it is still considered a sport, right?)\n\nNow why it is considered an Olympic event... well, it is a sport with growing popularity in many countries that participate in the Olympics (Canada, many of the northern European countries, and a growing fan-base in the northern United States), and the Olympics have been a fairground for countries to show off new and/or unusual sporting events from around the world (Ice Dancing... the poor-man's figure skating OR "I'm just doing this until Disney-on-Ice calls me in for an interview!").  Some of the events catch on and become world-wide phenomenons, others fizzle and die.\n\n<Added>I added athleticism to the list of skills needed because there is a degree of athleticism to curling that you don't find in other strategy games (chess, for example). I mean, watch the curlers in the Olympics. They are running around on ICE for Pete's sake! Any time I step on ice I fall on my... personality... but these guys are running up and down the ice as if they were walking in the grass! And it isn't just the shoes they wear. I saw a documentary on the U.S. Olympic curling team and they showed people trying to do it and they were falling all over the place.
28427
First of all, I'm glad to see that somebody else besides me would prefer the olympics to be a sporting event, and not a biography on obscure athletes.  I can't stand to watch the olympics, because they never actually show any sports.\n\nBut... to answer your questions, it won't be all focused on ice skaters in mini skirts.  There will also be advertisements every 4.5 minutes.
282629
I don't even think figure skating should be a sport.  No offense intended to anyone, especially because I still consider figure skaters athletes, but it isn't a sport!  It's more a competition, like ballroom dancing or something.  You don't see ballroom dancing in the Olympics.
419104
First of all, curling is not a real sport.  It's a leisure activity.  It's not much harder than playing a pocket ball.  The reason it's in Winter Olympics is because there aren't too many events in Winter Olympics.\n\nOn the other hand baseball is definitely a sport.  It requires physical speed, strength, endurance, skills, team spirit and more!  This sport is getting more popular and it should be part of Summer Olympics.  I mean basketball and soccer is in Summer Olympics.  Why shouldn't baseball be?  It's only a matter of time before baseball will be part of Summer Olympics