TVSquad

One of the athletes to watch tonight is not an American. It's Croatian Alpine Skier Janica Kostelic, who won four gold medals in her sport in Salt Lake City. Her brother, Ivica, won the silver medal in the slalom last night. Americans Julie Mancuso and Lindsey Kildow, who was injured during a training run earlier this week, are also in medal contention.

There are some Americans to watch, too. Apolo Anton Ohno races in the 1000m speed skate and hopefully he'll be able to stay on his feet for this one. Also, gorgeous Jeremy Bloom (seriously, girls, look at him) competes in the moguls.

Here's tonight's line-up on all of NBC's stations:

The Olympics. An event where athletes from every country in the world gather to compete in sports. It's a time of unity. Of heroes. Of peace. Somebody needs to clue Brian Williams in.

He joined Bob Costas as the commentator for the Opening Ceremonies of the Turino, Italy Olympic games last night. And I almost through threw the remote control through the television set. Williams felt the need to share his news knowledge with the rest of us by mentioning some not-so-happy news events related to specific nations as they paraded into Olympic stadium. Denmark? Williams mentions the cartoon that triggered riots in Muslim nations. China? He talks about human rights and environmental standards. Iran? He says that country's leader has called for the destruction of Israel. I much prefer the interesting factoids about the nations, their Olympic history, and notable Olympians.

His comments were unfair to the athletes of those nations. The news and controversy surrounding certain nations lately are not representative of the athletes who are competing.

**Apparently, the Daily Nightly commenters agree.

Most of the action today is going to be on the ice, in the form of figure skating and speed skating. Figure skating pairs begin competition with the short program. Expect to hear a lot from the commentators about how the judging has changed since Salt Lake, when Canadian and Russian pairs ended up sharing the gold medal. Also today, Chad Hedrick begins his quest for five gold medals in speed skating. Plus, the Americans face the very strong Chinese women in freestyle skiing. All the high profile events will air during NBC primetime.

Here's the schedule:

I am a total sucker for the Olympics, but I really hate all the cheesy, promotional crap that goes with it. This time around, NBC and Chevrolet are teaming up to feature some camera-friendly Olympians in their very own mini-movie. Oh, joy. It airs during Las Vegas on NBC in February and it'll also be included with advertisements before the trailers start at AMC, Cinemark, Regal, UA and Edwards movie theaters. Now, I clearly remember the little mini-movie that Chevrolet did during the last summer Olympics where a bunch of athletes call each other and drive their own Chevrolets to Athens (way to carpool, guys). I wanted to throw something at the movie screen everytime I saw it. Why? As a general rule, athletes can't act. You hear that, advertising geniuses? Athletes. Cannot. Act. This time around, the lucky Olympians are halfpipe snowboarders Kelly Clark and Ross Powers, alpine skiers Eric Schlopy, Ted Ligety, and Julia Mancuso, freestyle skier Toby Dawson and snowboarder Seth Wescott. They're all somehow paired up with the cast of Las Vegas and then whisked off to Torino, Italy for the competition. There will also be a behind-the-scenes mini-mini-movie of the mini-movie on NBC's website.