King Kaufman's Sports Daily

Olympics: Speed skater Joey Cheek thinks outside the rink. Plus: Courageous skaters, crazy rules and curling.

Read more: Sports, Olympics, TV, NBC, Ice Hockey, King Kaufman, Sports Daily, Darfur, 2006 Olympics

Feb. 14, 2006 | I know you want to talk about Joey Cheek, the American speed skater who says he's going to donate his gold-medal bonus to charity, or about the pairs figure skating, where the Russians won the gold again but the real story was the amazing comeback from a fall by the Chinese pair.

But I want to talk about Monday morning, when I woke up early but already had six hours of curling waiting for me on the DVR. The U.S. men knocked off the defending gold-medal winners, Norway, though the U.S. women stumbled badly against the same country, twice giving up three-point ends on the way to a loss.

And the Italian men, who never would have qualified but are in these Games because the host country gets a pass, gave powerful Great Britain a scare. Later in the day, the U.S. men lost to Finland.

These Olympics have been a disappointment so far to a lot of people on these shores, not least NBC, which has had to explain that it intended for the ratings to be lackluster.

Some of the biggest American names have done a collective swan dive in the first few days in Turin. Bode Miller, Daron Rahlves and Apolo Anton Ohno all lost on the opening weekend, and Michelle Kwan, biggest star of the Games, withdrew with an injury.

And the last two Olympics have spoiled us. At this point in both Salt Lake City and Athens, we already had a juicy story to follow, the crazy figure-skating judges in 2002 and the lackluster showings by the U.S. men's basketball team in 2004, which was really just an appetizer for the gymnastics controversy.

No such luck so far this time, though the NHL gambling scandal may pick up some steam once the men start playing on Wednesday.

But no complaints from this corner. USA, one of NBC's hench-networks, is covering curling lavishly. These are the days. As I type this in the wee hours Tuesday, Canada's women have jumped out to a 6-0 lead over the U.S. after two ends.

But back to Cheek, who blew the thigh muscles off the competition in the 500 meters Monday, winning by .65 seconds, which is the speed-skating equivalent of about 10 minutes.

He announced that he would donate the $25,000 that the U.S. Olympic Committee gives to gold-medal winners to a charity called Right to Play, which is run by Cheek's skating idol, 1994 Olympic champion Johann Olav Koss of Norway.

Next page: Figure skaters get a do-over after spectacular crash. Plus: Women's hockey