I know there are many downsides to shutting down your sport for three weeks in the middle of the season.

However, the rating for Saturday’s U.S.-Russia game underscores why the NHL needs to participate in the Olympics.

From NBC:

NBCSN averaged 4.1 million viewers for Saturday’s thrilling USA-Russia Olympic men’s hockey game (7:30-10:30 a.m. ET/4:30-7:30 a.m. PT) – setting a record for the most-watched hockey game in the network’s history (previous: 4.0 million for Blackhawks-Bruins in 2013 Stanley Cup Finals Game 3), according to live plus same day fast national data released today by The Nielsen Company.  Viewership for the game peaked at 6.4 million from 10-10:30 a.m. ET during the tension-laden, eight-round shootout and is the most-watched half hour in NBCSN history.

Mind you, this was for a game that started in the early morning hours on a Saturday. Imagine the rating for a primetime start.

Yet, this is more than about ratings for the NHL. Hockey was the big story of the day on Saturday. Hockey in February. And it will be through this week with the U.S. going for a gold medal. Frankly, the Stanley Cup Final doesn’t receive this kind of attention.

If you are looking to extend your base and lure more casual fans to the sport, how can the NHL not be in the Olympics? There isn’t a better marketing opportunity than being part of the chase for gold. Then again, I’m guessing Gary Bettman already knows that.

That’s why NHL players are in Sochi. And even though it will be another major pain, it is why they will be in South Korea for the 2018 Olympics.

Update: Bode Miller defended Christin Cooper during an interview with Matt Lauer on Today.

Matt Lauer:  We saw a very emotional side of you, Bode, after the race, not only in a tweet you sent out, but also in that interview that’s getting a lot of attention, and the interviewer is getting attention as well. Christin Cooper is being criticized for some by pushing too far on questions about the death of your brother. I just would like your take on that?

Bode Miller: I’ve known Christin a long time and she is a sweetheart of a person. I know she didn’t mean to push. I don’t think she really anticipated what my reaction was going to be and I think by the time she sort of realized it, I think it was too late and I don’t really, I don’t blame her at all. I feel terrible that she is taking the heat for that because it really is just a heat of the moment kind of circumstance, and I don’t think there was any harm intended. So, it was just a lot of emotion for me, it’s been a lot over the last year and that you sometimes don’t realize how much you contain that stuff until the dam breaks and then it’s just a real outpouring.

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Another day, another sideline reporter under fire.

In December, Heather Cox caught flak for a post-game interview with Jameis Winston about his off-the-field problems.

Sunday, it was Christin Cooper. The Internet erupted after Cooper asked repeated questions to Bode Miller about his brother, Chelone, who died last year in a snowboarding accident. The negative fallout got so intense, Miller felt compelled to come to her defense.

This morning, NBC felt compelled to issue a statement:

“Our intent was to convey the emotion that Bode Miller was feeling after winning his bronze medal. We understand how some viewers thought the line of questioning went too far, but it was our judgment that his answers were a necessary part of the story. We’re gratified that Bode has been publicly supportive of Christin Cooper and the overall interview.”

Here is a link to the video.

The transcript:

Cooper: Bode, such an extraordinary accomplishment, at your age, after a turbulent year, coming back from knee surgery, to get this medal today, put it in perspective. How much does this mean to you?

Miller: I mean it’s incredible. I always feel like I’m capable of winning medals but as we’ve seen this Olympics it’s not that easy. To be on the podium, this was a really big day for me. Emotionally, I had a lot riding on it. Even though I really didn’t ski my best, I’m just super super happy.

Cooper: For a guy who says that medals don’t really matter, that they aren’t the thing, you’ve amassed quite a collection. What does this one mean to you in terms of all the others.

Miller: This was a little different. You know with my brother passing away, I really wanted to come back here and race the way he sensed it. This one is different.

Cooper: Bode, you’re showing so much emotion down here, what’s going through your mind?

Miller: Um, I mean, a lot. Obviously just a long struggle coming in here. It’s just a tough year.

Cooper: I know you wanted to be here with Chelly, really experiencing these games. How much does this mean to you to come up with this great performance for him? And was it for him?

Miller: I don’t know if it’s really for him but I wanted to come here and, I dunno, make myself proud, but …

Cooper: When you’re looking up in the sky at the start, we see you there and it looks like you’re talking to somebody. What’s going on there?

At this point, Miller breaks down and cries.

OK, America, was it too much? Richard Sandomir of the New York Times thought so:

He was holding up, but tears had started to trickle down Miller’s face.

He was being a stand-up guy, even if he was being pulled through a wringer.

Now was truly the time to stop. If you’ve made a medal winner cry, it is time to simply say “thank you” and move on. It was on tape, so NBC could have cut it off and gone to Matt Lauer in the studio. Instead, Cooper forged on, wondering whom he seemed to be talking to when he looked up in the sky before he started his run down the mountain.

It was not a bad question, but by this point, it was overkill.

“What’s going on there?” she said.

Miller’s helmeted head was bowed and he was unable to answer. The clock kept ticking, and I expected NBC to turn its camera elsewhere or for Cooper to say, “Thanks, Bode, you had a great race.” That did not happen. And there was no interview with the gold medalist, Kjetil Jansrud, to plug in and change the tempo.

Of course, it was too much. Sure, viewers like to see raw emotion, but please spare us a therapy session in these postgame, or post-ski, interviews.

The whole thing felt intrusive and highly uncomfortable. It wasn’t necessary for Cooper to get her Barbara Walters moment at that moment.

It was yet another example of the interviewer, not the interviewee, becoming the story. When that occurs, it is a sure sign that the interviewer crossed over the line.

Put it under the file of another lesson for discussion in upcoming sports journalism classes.

Have to say after years of NBC not airing Olympics events live to protect its primetime cover, it is amusing to hear how the storyline has changed for the network.

In a teleconference, NBC Sports chairman Mark Lazarus and research chief Alan Wurtzel basically said, “It’s not just about primetime, stupid.”

They told us to stop concentrating on just the primetime numbers, which actually have been solid. Lazarus even called it “an obsession” with media writers.

They said the bigger story is on the number of people consuming the Olympics live on various other platforms than good ol’ NBC.

“I know why we all focus on primetime, but to some extent that is a little bit of a legacy, because it doesn’t reflect the fact that it is not just primetime that is driving this Olympics being the most viewed Winter Olympics ever,” Wurtzel said.

Turns out letting people watch events live isn’t such a bad thing after all. Wurtzel noted there were 600,000 viewers for the video stream of Shawn White in the halfpipe Monday. NBCSN is doing huge numbers, as are NBC’s other platforms.

Lazarus: “NBCSN has also broken records both Saturday and Sunday and we continue to outpace what we did in London. We’ve put a strategy together of putting live figure skating there as well as many other live events, twelve hours of live content each day, that’s really paying off for us. The early weekday numbers have exceeded all of our numbers in London as well. So viewers are finding it and continue to come to NBCSN, which is continually becoming indispensable to the viewing audience. These Olympics further solidify that point, as we promised.

“We’ve done a lot of learning. We learned a lot in London where we aired certain events live that had previously been saved for primetime. We’ve applied that learning here. We’ll learn from these Olympics and we’ll continue to apply it to Rio and beyond as well.”

Wurtzel: “We love television but the future is not just about television. It’s about television complemented with all of the other platforms that we have. And when I say the audience responded, you know, how do we know that? Well for the past seven years, we produced something we call the TAMI, the total audience measurement index, and that reflects how people consume our content across the major platforms of TV, PC Internet, mobile and Tablets and VOD.

“So through Monday, February 10, the Sochi games have generated 160 million consumer media exposures. That’s 11% more than Vancouver on all of these platforms.”

Somebody has to come up with a 24/7 Curling channel. You know people would watch.

During a teleconference, NBC Sports research chief Alan Wurtzel discussed how curling is scoring again in the Olympics:

“We began coverage on Monday and on that day, 5 telecasts of curling delivered over 5 million viewers. It was the top-rated sport of the day on NBCSN, which, by the way, was the number one cable network. I don’t mean the number one sports network. I mean the number one cable network from noon until 7:00 p.m.

“On CNBC. curling delivered 1.2 million viewers, its highest viewer delivery ever for that Monday time period. And look, maybe a part of it can be attributed to the very fashionable Norwegian pants. You guys be the judge of that.”

Definitely the pants.

The worst eye infection in Olympic history will keep Bob Costas off the air for a third straight night Thursday.

NBC Sports chairman Mark Lazarus said yesterday Costas is receiving treatment and is remaining in a dark hotel room since his eyes are sensitive to light. Forgive me for saying this, Bob, but I’m sure Costas’ critics take great delight in the notion of him sitting in a dark room in Russia.

Yesterday, Lazarus spoke about the situation:

“Bob Costas’ eye problems have been very unfortunate for him and for us and for viewers. The doctors here in Russia have worked hard to clear it up but it’s a slow process. He’s very frustrated – more frustrated than any of us. But he did a great job in the early days of planning here and we’re thankful to have NBC News here to assist us by loaning us Matt Lauer, who pinch-hit for Bob last night and will again tonight. We’re taking it day by day and we’re hopeful that Bob will be back in the chair soon.”

Later, Lazarus spoke about the attention Costas’ eye problems are receiving in the U.S.

“I’m not surprised it’s attracted this much attention. Bob is America’s Olympic host and people have been watching Bob do this and do it extraordinarily well for several decades. So in a way, they’ve come to expect him being here and when he’s not it’s a story.

“So, it’s unfortunate, and as I said earlier, no one is more frustrated or bothered by it than him. Not just the physical, but the fact that he’s not part of something he loves so much and that he does so well.”

Yes, whining is a media specialty. That goes to the 10th power for an Olympics.

Kevin Blackistone, writing for the American Journalism Review, doesn’t have much sympathy for members of the media who don’t have Four Seasons quality when it comes to hotel rooms.

Blackistone writes:

This is what happens when a bunch of American journalists who, if they do travel abroad avoid second- or third-world countries unless they include some cordoned-off all-inclusive resort, conflating less-than five-star or suburban America or urban-bubble American accommodations (like gritty re-gentrified DC with a French bistro on every corner) into international stories of shock and awe. It isn’t news in parts of the world that the sewer system can’t handle paper products and you are asked to deposit toilet paper in a bin. Even here in idyllic Montgomery County, Maryland, nestled next to our nation’s capital, the sanitary commission recently warned residents not to dispose in the toilet those “flushable” wipes you wash your toddler’s bottom with because they frequently clogged the sewer system.

Later he writes:

Journalists should cover stories, not create them. But what we’ve been treated to the past few days out of Sochi are dog-bites-journalists’ stories that impact no one but them.

If American journalists, in particular, want to write about living conditions in the part of the world they’ll be living in this month, they should venture out of the Sochi bubble and see how Russians elsewhere live. (In South Africa at the World Cup, most American journalists lived with U.S. Soccer officials in a gated, guarded enclave that resembled any galleria shopping neighborhood in the U.S.) If athletes were suffering, that would be one thing. But they aren’t. Reuters reported athletes are pleasantly surprised against the reports of the appalled journalists, some of whom I count as friends and other as acquaintances.

*******

Meanwhile, Steve Politi of the Newark Star-Ledger had an amusing piece about covering skiing. Not his favorite assignment.

There is nothing worse than covering skiing. There is nothing close to being worse than covering skiing. I’m sure this strong of a statement will lead to discussion among my peers in the industry, and perhaps a journalist from another country could offer up something that would compete, but they are wrong. Skiing sucks in ways that no other sport can match.

Apparently, you can’t see much if you attempt to watch actual skiing.

Then, you stand at the bottom of the hill to watch, in the snow. This is probably better than, say, perched in a tree halfway up the mountain, but that means we literally watched three seconds of the Olympic downhill event live. Which is a short amount of time even for a sport that lasts two minutes.

So then the media, corralled in a small area between red plastic fences, will watch with the rest of the fans on a large, grainy TV screen as the announcer yells insightful things like “OH, HERE HE COMES” and “HE IS REALLY FLYING NOW.” Then, the skier flies around the corner, looks up at the scoreboard and does one of two things every single time.

1. Throws up his arms in celebration.

2. Puts his hands on his helmet in defeat.

Hope Politi’s rooms is OK.

Quick, somebody should start developing a Russian history TV series. At least based on the ratings for the Opening Ceremony.

From NBC:

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STAMFORD, Conn. – February 8, 2014 – NBC’s coverage of the Opening Ceremony of the Sochi Olympics averaged 31.7 million viewers to rank as the most-watched Opening Ceremony for a non-live Winter Games since the 1994 Lillehammer Games, according to live plus same day fast national data released today by The Nielsen Company. In addition, last night’s telecast ranks #2 all-time among most-watched non-live Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies (chart below).

NBC SPORTS GROUP CHAIRMAN MARK LAZARUS: “Like Team USA, we’re off to a great start, and we’re gratified that the American audience tuned in in such large numbers for the tremendous Opening Ceremony from Sochi.  It’s an early sign that our strategy of emphasizing primetime viewing is working, and we’re excited for the competition over the next two weeks.”

Viewership for the NBC telecast (8–11:08 p.m. ET/PT) was up 43% from the last non-live Winter Games Opening Ceremony (22.2 million for 2006 Torino Games) while last night’s 17.0/28 household rating/share produced a 33% increase over Torino (12.8/21).

Compared to the live (ET/CT) 2010 Vancouver Opening Ceremony, last night’s telecast was off only two percent in household rating (17.3/30) and three percent in viewership (32.7 million).

NBC scored the most dominant primetime Winter Olympics victory on record in Adults 18-49 with an 8.7 rating, and 235% above the combined ABC/CBS/FOX rating (based on People Meter, which dates to 1987).

MOST-WATCHED NON-LIVE WINTER OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONIES, AVERAGE VIEWERS (P2+):

TOP 20 METERED MARKETS FOR OPENING CEREMONY:

Psst…Putin, over here.

Heard the media are complaining about the horrid hotels you’ve built for them in Sochi. Seems like you have an issue with some of them not being finished.

Don’t worry, I have a solution for you. Just give those angry media folks three weeks of double Marriott points. They’d stay in a racoon hole for that.

******

OK, it looks like ol’ Vladamir and Mother Russia are off to a bad start with the media. He invited the world to his country only to house many of them in housing just short of a gulag.

Maybe it was part of the plan, writes Dan Wetzel in Yahoo! Sports.

Right now everyone is laughing at Russia. From the photos going viral around the world to the snickering about an overambitious construction project falling short to the likelihood that posing in double toilet stalls will become the Sochi version of planking or Tebowing.

The only bright side for Putin is no one is talking about gay rights anymore. Or terrorism. Yet.

Of the accomodations, Wetzel writes:

To start, the word hotel means something different here apparently.

On the list of say, hot water, a door capable of closing, a television, light bulbs, clean sheets, a properly hooked up toilet and one pillow per bed, any guest should make like the NBA Finals: take four of seven and gladly move on. And bring light bulbs, they are so valuable on the black market you can trade one for a date with a Russian tennis player.

Caitlin Dewey of the Washington Post compiled a list of tweets from the media about the situation.

Not a good start for CNN.

Stacy St. Clair writes about her hotel nightmare in the Chicago Tribune.

When the water eventually came back on at my hotel — my temporary housing for a night until my scheduled room could be finished — the water that poured through the faucet was dark yellow. It was the color of apple juice or a performance enhancing drug test specimen. The shower left what looked like fish food flakes coating the tub.

I took a picture of the water and tweeted it out.

“On the bright side,” I wrote, “I now know what dangerous face water looks like.”

Better make that triple Marriott points, Putin.

My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center deals with stories these veteran Olympics journalists hope they never to have to cover in Sochi.

From the column:

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The Olympics are set to end with closing ceremonies on Feb. 23. If all goes as planned, and if these Games only are about the thrill of competition and the once-every-four-year quest for gold, everyone, and I mean everyone, will breathe a major sigh of relief. And then they will get out of Sochi as soon as possible.

Indeed, the threats of terrorism are real, alarmingly so. Despite unprecedented security by the Russians, there are no guarantees.

So it’s little wonder why veteran journalists of many Olympics are experiencing some trepidation about covering these Olympics. They know the story may not be about the Games.

The Chicago Tribune’s Phil Hersh admitted, “Yes, I’m a bit apprehensive. More so than Athens.”

The 2004 Summer Games were in Athens, not far from the terrorists’ havens across the Mediterranean. USA Today columnist Christine Brennan called it, “a home-game for the terrorists.”

“It’s a real miracle that nothing happened,” she added.

The concern, though, for Sochi seems different, more palpable. There is considerable unrest in the region with terrorists bent on disrupting Putin’s grand showcase.

ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap said in an email: “There’s often anxiety going into these events; although never before as much as now. The hope is that everybody stays safe. If that is achieved, the games can be enjoyable.”

Russia’s security will be a focus throughout the entire Games. Upon arriving in Sochi, Hersh did a post about being surprised by not being overwhelmed by the presence of soldiers and police.

Hersh writes: “At the venues, such freedom of movement undoubtedly will disappear over the next few days, as it always does. Yet being told where one can and cannot go does not necessarily add to a feeling of being safe.”

John Cherwa, who will be on-site coordinating the coverage for Tribune Co. newspapers, says his staff includes two foreign correspondents, one based in Sochi and another in Moscow. Given all the controversies about Russian’s policies and other issues, the correspondents will have ample material during the Games. However, Cherwa’s crew also will be prepared if the worst happens.

“I suspect if there is a terrorist attack that it will not be in Sochi,” Cherwa said. “We’ll feed them with whatever we get.”

*****

Here’s the link to the entire column.

I thought this was very well done. Once the Super Bowl ends Sunday, our attention will turn to the Olympics next week. It will be an Olympics unlike any other.