Arizona had been there every year beginning in 1985 — twelve times to the Sweet 16 or better, four times to the Final Four — and the national championship in 1997.

Give it a couple of seconds to start. You don’t need to click or anything.

[And yes, I realize the pins on the center lane are not set in the normal arrangement.]

The Warriors won the game 169-147.

Many of us sat down for Sunday dinner after that fabulous game, almost like the Nelsons, the Cleavers, the Waltons, the Huxtables, the Munsters.

When’s the last time you could say that about a World Series game or an NBA final? The CBS-leased NCAA basketball championship now tips at 9:22 on a Monday night. Baseball’s Opening Day, sold at auction to ESPN, is now at night, this year’s first pitch after 8 p.m. in Boston — on April 4.

If NBC, or any commercial network, yesterday had been able to shuffle and deal, Canada-USA would have begun at about 9 p.m. ET to maximize coast-to-coast primetime ad revenues.

And NBC would have much preferred that we watched the game alone — more TV sets tuned in, that way — certainly not in groups.

In other words, NBC (and CBS, ESPN/ABC, Fox) would have preferred that we watched from the same place we now watch most games of national interest: that same chair or from bed, lights out, pillows up.

I watched with friends in a crowded bar where people cheered (for Canada, too). It’s a whole different and vastly better experience to share moments like these. (Ten of us watched the Super Bowl together at Jill’s. Same phenomenon — a wonderful shared experience.)

Seventeen days after it began, the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver are now complete. A total of 258 medals were awarded, with the United States, Germany, and Canada collecting the most medals. The second half of the games went much smoother than the glitchy first week, with many memorable performances by athletes from all over the world. Last night, a crowd of 60,000 filled BC Place in Vancouver for the Closing Ceremony, which took place shortly after the final event – a Gold Medal win by host nation Canada’s ice hockey team over the U.S. The Olympic flame will next pass to London, England in 2012 for the Summer Games, and to Sochi, Russia in 2014 for the next Winter games. Collected here are photos from the second half of this year’s events in Vancouver (see Part 1 for the first half). (45 photos total)

The Big Picture – Boston.com

Some great photography.

Canadians make up half of the approximately 740 players in the NHL. About 20 percent are American. The Czech Republic, Sweden and Finland contribute another 20 percent. The remaining 10% are from other European countries.

The Ligue nationale de hockey or National Hockey League was established with two Montreal teams, an Ottawa team and a Toronto franchise in 1917. The Boston Bruins joined in 1924, making the league’s name somewhat misleading. The Rangers, Red Wings and Black Hawks joined in 1926.

The NHL consisted of just six teams from 1944-1967 — the Canadiens, the Maple Leafs, the Bruins, the Rangers, the Red Wings and the Black Hawks. There are now 30 teams. You’d have to be a real fan to name all 30 cities and the team nicknames. (24 are in the U.S., six in Canada.)

Garret

Oddly enough, going online during big TV events has the bizarre effect of boosting the ratings of whatever everyone is watching. Like the Super Bowl or Grammys or the MTV Video Music Awards, all of which saw big boosts in popularity in the last year. You don’t care about the show, you care about being able to talk about the show. This is called “community,” which is also the name of a terrible show on a terribly out-of-touch network called NBC.

Seeking to capitalize on the online water-cooler effect, NBC showed the Golden Globes live on both coasts for the first time this year, and the network reportedly wants to do the same for the Emmy Awards this fall, so the entire country can watch (and chat online) simultaneously.

Super-smart NBC has figured out that what all these big blockbuster Twitter-TV combo events have in common is that they are happening live. Shows that are broadcast at different times in different zones (and probably DVR’d anyway) don’t have the same effect. Yet, they have not applied this simple common sense approach to the Olympics.

Frustratingly, Olympic primetime ratings are also up this year and people are marveling about how sports fans will stay up long past their bedtime to watch events that they already know the outcome to, just so they can be a part of the phenomenon. It’s not because they prefer it that way. It’s because they have no other choice.

Deadspin

Deadspin

Speaking of moms, can we talk about how offensive that Proctor and Gamble Olympic campaign is? Not because it completely ignores the contributions of abusive, overbearing fathers in the creation of great athletes or glamorizes the most annoying tendencies of stage/soccer parents, but because the underlying message of every single ad is, “Thanks for supporting me, Mom. Now go clean my socks.”

Laundry detergent is for ladies. Don’t ever forget that.

Deadspin

Deadspin

And yet, in its infinite wisdom, the NBC mother network gave us another retrospective on the 1980 Lake Placid miracle in the middle of which Al Michaels–who, at this point, seems firmly to believe that he landed on Omaha Beach or something 30 years ago–said, “It seemed like we went from burning flags to waving them.”

Oh, Jesus H. Christ On A Power Play, just shut up already, please?

Slacker Monday

Deadspin