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The NFL combine was a busy place last weekend and the NFL Network was on the scene for the whole event. NFL fans got a chance to watch future professionals in the largest job interview in the world. Players such as Tim Tebow, CJ Spiller, and Jahvid Best all likely improved their draft stock with impressive 40-yard dash times while Mitch Petrus and Georgia defensive lineman Jeff Owens likely shot up draft boards with their bench press results. Watching the NFL combine workouts has its moments of excitement such as when a tailback busts a sub 4.40 forty-time or when a lineman falls in a three cone drill, but for the most part, the drills are not that exciting. Several high school football coaches told me that they enjoy watching the drills as they have picked up a few things to implement into their summer practices. Otherwise though, I would just keep the channel locked to college basketball and catch the “highlights” on ESPN instead of wasting a Saturday afternoon watching dude in their tighty-whiteys.

The Winter Olympics came to a close last weekend with a fine closing ceremony that more than made up for the opening ceremony which was quite lacking. Before the closing of the Games though, the US Hockey team squared off against the host Canadians in what might have been the most watched Winter Olympic event ever. Several NBC hockey commentators predicted that close to 35M of Canada’s 40M residents were likely watching the game, not to mention the several million folks in America that tuned in to see if the underdog Americans could pull off another “miracle.” Canada clearly failed to “Own the Podium,” like they tried to do (and even created a campaign to try and do so) but the Canadians won more gold medals than any other country, including the medal-leading United States. The game last Sunday was a chance for Canada to claim the manifest destiny of winning the gold medal on home soil, and sure enough the Canadians pulled it off…in overtime. The Americans scored with less than thirty seconds left that had to have sent NBC execs high-fiving into the other room as the largest rated event ever likely just got even bigger ratings. Radio shows across the county including Fox Sports Radio were all over the story, even bumping a college basketball guest back to stay live with the hockey from the two co-hosts. On CBS you could hear the Purdue fans chanting USA, USA after the late equalizer from Zach Parise to force the OT. All of the networks and sports fans alike realized how big this game was, even if it didn’t have the draw of the Cold War ala 1980, it was still perhaps the biggest game the Olympics has seen since that day in Lake Placid. The Canadian team was more or less the 1992 US basketball Dream Team but on skates. The best player in the world Sidney Crosby scored the game winning goal in OT to give the host team the medal and NBC was likely high-fiving again, knowing that Crosby will probably be scheduled on multiple games on the Peacock network for its NHL coverage. Hockey will also see a bit of a bump much like soccer did back in 1994 after the World Cup when the US did relatively well. And in this day and age, hockey needs all of the help it can get.

Finally, Chuck Dowdle was named to the Braves post-game coverage on the Braves radio network. Dowdle participates in the Georgia Bulldog football broadcasts and also hosts the Mark Richt show as well as the Mark Fox show. Dowdle worked with WSB for 24 years before retiring last December. The postgame show will feature Dowdle working with a rotation of Mark Lemke, Tom Glavine and Don Sutton.