I know there’s a lot of debate about how exactly to decide these matches when a clear winner does not arise from regulation time. I’m not up to speed on the details of that debate, but it occured to me while watching the penalty shoot out that it might be more interesting to have a different challenge to decide the winner. It would be fun to see something the highlighted some of the other skills of the game, like maybe a two on two challenge. In any case, I do still like the penalty shootout but I understand why some folks do not.

In short, it was a great game to watch with some very exciting play from both sides. And, although Zidane left the game ignomineously he did contribute to the Germany 2006 final highlight reel before his red card moment of madness. In the end, it was a great game to my inexpert eyes and a joy to watch. I’m very much looking forward to South Africa 2010.

Recently, I was surprised and happy to see that the Australians have qualified for the round of 16 or whatever the proper term is. Oddly enough they did it by drawing against Croatia while having seven players of Croatian descent on the roster. Of course, there were also three players on the Croatian roster who were raised in Oz. Isn’t international sport fun?

Anyway, I’ve decided I’m going to root for the Socceroos. Solidarity with the other large but empty ex-British colony is probably not a good way to choose a team to support, but I’m going to do it anyway. Not that my support matters much in the end.

It would appear that the fastest women on the long blades must now be the favourite to be chosen Canada’s female athlete of the year. And, that in a year that is still mostly ahead of us. Truly remarkable.

In short, my conclusion on the film is that it’s too long for my taste, but has some very good parts. Highlights for me were the acting of Jack Black (surprising, actually), Naomi Watts, and the team of Andy Serkis and the Kong Animators. The scenes with just Kong and Ann Darrow were really excellent. Once I got to the last two reels I noticed a definite improvement. The whole New York sequence was absolutely amazing.

On the lowlight side, I’m not a big fan of “monster movies” so I could have done with a less of most of the Skull Island action sequences. They’re a part of the story, but I found them a bit boring. The effects work was very good, but seeing a bunch of dinosaurs and giant bugs in a film isn’t really remarkable anymore. And, I definitely thought the Kong fighting off the three Tyrannosauri was far and away too indulgent. If I wanted to see giant beasts fight I’d watch one of the Godzilla vs. Whatever films.

Often times these days the DVD editions of films come out with deleted scenes or extended editions. King Kong is one movie that I’d love to see a shorter edition with less of the grandiose effects scenes and more of the interesting character bits with Kong, Ann Darrow, Carl Denham, and Jack Driscoll. But, like I said I’m not really into monster movies so my opinion is probably moot.

Given the nature of both, I don’t see any effective way to prevent conflict between the two as presently organized. However, I think it could be organized a little bit differently and still be very good. I really enjoyed the World Cup of Hockey in 2004 and I think it was a fairly successful event. That got me to thinking about how the ice hockey events differ from comparable events in the world of football (soccer).

The FIFA organization has always ensured that the World Cup and the Olympics do not compete for status even though both are quadrennial events; the World Cup has always been the marquee event. Over the years the Olympic tournament has taken many different guises (not unlike Olympic ice hockey), but recently they’ve established it as an under 23 tournament. And, that really makes a lot of sense to me. It creates a marquee type event that stands between junior level tournaments but doesn’t really compete with the World Cup (not that anything really can).

I would really love to see the NHL/NHLPA and the IIHF come up with something similar for the Olympics and the World Cup of Hockey. That is, the World Cup of Hockey should be established as a long term quadrennial event (offset from the Olympiad) with a straightforward qualification system. And, the Olympic tournament should be limited to younger players. My knowledge of player ages is not sharp enough to decide on that limit, but it could probably be anywhere from 23-25.

This would allow the World Cup of Hockey to be organized in the off season, and feature all the best professional players each participating nation has to offer. And, it would allow for a great Olympic tournament that wouldn’t necessarily involve shutting down the entire NHL for the duration (maybe a short breaks and some games short a few players per team).

Obviously, none of this is my decision to make (and maybe it isn’t even a good idea), but I do stand by it as something worth thinking about.

On top of all that Cindy Klassen picked up her fifth medal. And, I would be remiss to leave out Claudia Pechstein, a true living legend, who put out a great race for her ninth medal in her career.