Feb. 18 | 6:10 p.m. ET

I really didn’t have room in my column on Shani Davis’ gold-medal performance to do justice to the silver medalist, Joey Cheek, who is one of the very best the Olympics and United States has to offer.

Cheek had already won the 500 meters and backed that up with a silver-medal performance in the 1,000. Unlike Chad Hedrick, Cheek showed complete support for Davis’ quest to win his individual race. Unlike just about everyone, Cheek has used his victories to help people who need his prize money more than he does.

The U.S. Olympic Committee pays medalists bonuses. It’s $25,000 for gold and $15,000 for silver. Cheek earlier this week gave his $25,000 to charity to bring famine relief to the Darfur region of the Sudan. He said that at least nine companies offered to match his donation, meaning at least a quarter of a million dollars will be going to a most worthy cause.

Saturday, Cheek said he’d also give his $15,000 second-place award to the same charity. This is pretty extraordinary, but Cheek is an extraordinary guy.

Cheek wants to go to Harvard next year, but he hadn’t been admitted. After winning the gold, he said Harvard hadn’t yet called, but Princeton and Georgetown did. Seems that an Olympic medal can help you get an education, too.

But if you wonder where all the good guys have gone, look to Davis and Cheek and the speedskaters. Their sport operates in the shadows in the United States, visible just once every four years. But it’s popular in many other countries, particularly in the Netherlands, the ardor of whose fans I’ve already written about.

And the athletes are pretty down-to-earth and — with the exception of Hedrick, who seems to be in it for himself, even when he’s talking about the team — support each other. Davis trains with the Canadians and has endorsement contracts with a Dutch bank. There’s multinationalism at work for you.

It’s too bad we see these folks just once every four years.

Seems I’ve made a few mistakes, so I’ll let the readers correct them for me. (I’ll be out in Turin checking out the “White Night” tonight, when the town stays open till dawn and all the museum admissions are free.

George Karrys from Toronto:

Hi Mike. Your piece was quite interesting. Usually, U.S. columns on the sport are either full positive or negative. One horrid factual error aside, yours was quite positive but also had two comments that really got my goat. Paragraph 1: It IS more of sport than billiards, darts and bocce. Paragraph 2: It is NOT "shuffleboard on ice." After eight years and now three Oly Games this is starting to get irritating.

Read these words and speak them aloud: CURLING IS NOT SHUFFLEBOARD ON ICE. Sigh. Regards, George Karrys Publisher, The Curling News Olympic Silver Medallist, Nagano 1998, Retailer of the Curling Calendar — curlnews.blogspot.com and thecurlingnews.com

Mike from Anchorage:

For what it's worth, it's Leland (first name), Rich (last name). He's a former President of the USCA (United States Curling Association), and an honorary resident of Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

Diane from Minneapolis:

Most of the people on both the men's and women's curling teams come from Minnesota, not Wisconsin. I don't know about the fans. (Obviously you don't live in MN or WI or you would know about the rivalry between the states and that you insulted MN by saying the curlers come from WI.) I'm a fan of all Minnesota Olympians, not just curling.

Joseph from South Pasadena:

FYI - Chad Hedrick has never held the world record in the 1000m. You incorrectly stated that he and Shani Davis had traded off on the record. I think you may be mistaking information from the 1500m.

Feb. 17 | 4:15 p.m. ET

There was a time when, if you woke up to a clear and sunny shirt-sleeve day in the middle of February, you thanked the weather gods and enjoyed it, knowing things would return to sub-zero normal soon enough.

We had that kind of day today in Turin, and it wasn’t just warm enough to qualify for April, it was the clearest day we’ve yet had — the first time I’ve actually seen the mountains north of the city.

Unfortunately, it’s getting harder to appreciate days like this. Especially when you read stories about how Greenland is melting away at a frightening pace. Warm days in February used to be nice surprises. Now, they feel more like sinister warnings of global warming.

I’ll leave it to others to worry about rising oceans, thawing permafrost and shifting fertile zones. My concern is if this continues, where are they going to hold the Winter Olympics in 2106?

Already, Italy feels like the spring Olympics. Only artificial snowmaking is allowing the mountain sports to go on. That’s fine for now, but it won’t be when Siberia is the breadbasket of the world and the Arctic Ocean is navigable year round and a destination for yachts.

The snows of Kilimanjaro are melting. Greenland’s melting. Alaska isn’t nearly as cold as it used to be. Are we going to have to hold all the games in the north of Finland? Or should we just start thinking about building a permanent site in Antarctica?

How do you hold a Winter Olympics if there’s no winter?

One thing the Olympics always insisted on was keeping the competition venues free of commercialism. That meant no ads, no sponsor’s logos, no selling of anything but the athletes and the competition.

Outside the arenas was where the IOC plastered the logos and bombarded us with official products. But inside was supposed to be pure.

I see some slippage in that determination lately. Once upon a time, even drink cups holding the officials beverages were devoid of logos. But now the beer comes in Budweiser cups and the soft drinks in Coca-Cola cups.

And the photographers who cover the games now wear armbands that identify not only their job status, but also the official camera sponsor — Kodak.

It’s not obvious, and it took me a week to notice it. But commercialism has started to leak into the arenas. So much for an Olympic ideal.

Feb. 16 | 7:15 p.m. ET

No sport is the object of more jokes than curling, which, it can be argued, isn’t any more a sport than billiards, darts and bocce. In this case, the argument will do you no good, since curling is in the Olympics, so there.

I’ve watched it on television like most other insomniacs, but I’d never seen it live, so I hopped a bus for Pinerolo, the outlying Piedmont town known for its wine and delightful old city center that is hosting the curling competition.

I’m not going to tell you to circle the next match on your calendar, but I’m obliged to report that the U.S. men’s team, a relatively young and aggressive crew, not one of whom sports even a hint of a beer belly, is in danger of winning a medal.

Mike Celizic / MSNBC.com It may look slow, but once a rock is launched down the curling lane, everybody on the team is involved.

This would be big news. The Norwegians, Swedes and Canadians are considered the cream of the curling crop. But Team USA, after taking out the Norwegians earlier in the week, on Thursday put the hammer down on the Swedes. It’s just the round-robin round of the tournament, but a berth in the medal rounds is looking very good right now.

Rich Leland, a veteran curler who is advising NBC on the sport, told me that curling, like golf, was born in Scotland. My suspicion is it was invented by men as a reason to get out of the house and have a wee nip.

It’s shuffleboard on ice. Each team has eight granite “rocks,” and all the ones in the competition come from a single quarry in Scotland, which yields a dense granite that won’t chip or fall apart from the constant banging the rocks take on the ice.

The rocks weigh 41 pounds each and can cost a couple thousand dollars when you add in a $500 handle with an electronic sensor in it that tells when it’s been released too late. Each team uses eight rocks during each end of the 10-end match, an “end” being the same as an inning in baseball. Teams alternate throwing last, with the team that’s behind getting the last rock in the tenth end.

Mike Celizic / MSNBC.com The American cheering section — that's a "rock head" in the middle — waits for it's moment to erupt into corny song.

The target area is a succession of circles called the “house.” The widest circle is 12 feet in diameter. All rings have the same scoring value – one point for each rock that’s in the house and closer to the center circle than the nearest opponent’s rock. It’s about 126 feet between the centers of the two houses.

The ice surface itself is sprayed with fine droplets of water to give it a pebbled surface, the better to allow the rocks to slide. To help them along, two of the four team members can sweep the ice vigorously in front of them.

It’s a game of strategy, and good shots elicit cheers from the crowd, some of whom wear hats that look like rocks on their heads — think of a cheesehead in granite. The American fans, most of whom, like the team itself, comes from Wisconsin, like to sing “Jeepers, creepers, where’d you get those peepers?” every time someone from the home team makes a particularly canny throw.

It’s corny and a little goofy, but these guys are serious. A good curler — and these guys are all good — can stop a rock within an inch or two of his aiming point. The Americans won Thursday when their skip — that’s captain in the real world – Pete Fenson, twice caromed his rock off two Swedish stones, knocking both out of the scoring circle.

I don’t want to put pressure on the team as we tend to do with anyone who’s a medal hopeful. But they’ve got a shot. And if ever any team would play well on Letterman, these guys are it. I’m hoping for a gold just to see them demonstrate the sport down Broadway.

Feb. 15 | 5:10 p.m. ET

Chad Hedrick was frustrated and disappointed when he and his teammates were eliminated from the three-man pursuit, and I don’t blame him. He wanted to win five gold medals in speedskating, as Eric Heiden did in 1980, and now that’s not going to happen.

But let’s be clear about the five-medal thing. Hedrick would have matched Heiden’s take, but he would not have matched the accomplishment. When Heiden raced, there were just five events in speedskating — the 500 meters, 1,000, 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000 — and all were individual events. Heiden was the world’s fastest skater in the sport’s equivalent of the 100-meter dash as well as the fastest in an endurance race covering 6.2 miles. That’s astonishing.

For Hedrick, there are six events — the five Heiden skated plus something called the team pursuit, a three-man race covering 3,200 meters. Hedrick is not entered in the 500, and instead hoped to use the pursuit to get his fifth gold.

Five gold medals is a great achievement, but one team medal is not the equal of an individual medal, not in speedskating. To equal Heiden, someone will have to sweep the individual races, although Heiden himself told MSNBC’s Chris Jansing that if Hedrick had won the five, he would equal his own accomplishment.

But just because Hedrick isn’t going to win five doesn’t lessen his quest. If he can win three more to go with the gold he won in the 5,000, it will be one of the greatest Olympic performances ever.

One good thing about Hedrick’s loss is the new plotline for Saturday’s 1,000-meter race. It’s considered the race that will be most difficult for Hedrick to win. It’s also the race that his teammate, Shani Davis, is most likely to win. The two have traded the world record in the event, with Davis holding it for the moment.

Davis opted out of the pursuit to focus on his own race. And Hedrick has said all along that if Davis had skated with the team, the chances for gold would have been very good. So now there’s a revenge motive for Hedrick.

He’s not talking about it, but you know he has to want to deprive Davis of a gold because he believes Davis did the same to him. It should be good theater.

Meanwhile, the American team continues to fail to live up to expectations. Wednesday, Jeremy Bloom, the moguls skier who wants to play in the NFL, failed to medal. He wasn’t the only one. The doubles luge team of Mark Grimmette and Brian Martin, one of the best tandems in the world, crashed on their first run and are out of the competition.

Still, the United States, which finished second to Germany in 2002, is tied for third with Germany in the medals standings with eight, one behind Russia and three behind Norway.

Feb. 14 | 10:00 a.m. ET

I got an e-mail from a regular reader who was concerned about the number of crashes in general at the Olympics, and, in particular, about those in skiing. “Does all of this detract from the Games? Should they be worried about safety?” he asked.

This is what happens when people watch skiing – or any snow-and-ice sport – just once every four years. You expect that the athletes will always land on their feet and never get anything worst than a first-degree boo-boo.

The reality is that snow and ice make you fall, and that goes for everyone, world-class athletes included. And when you get going at 80 mph. on skinny little high-tech boards or a little bit of a sled, the wonder isn’t that some athletes crash, but that they don’t all crash.

Four women, including American medal hopeful Lindsey Kildow, crashed Monday in training for the women’s downhill. Kildow’s wreck was spectacular, but somehow she managed not to break anything, although she’s going to have some exceptional blueies and may not be ready to answer the bell for the race itself. A Canadian tore a knee ligament. A snowboarder knocked herself out in the halfpipe. Several lugers also suffered spills. Read all about it here.

Tuesday, a couple of skiers crashed in the downhill portion of the men’s combined. One was taken off the slopes in a sled.

Gee, that’s a lot of wrecks, isn’t it?

Well, yes and no. It is a lot of wrecks, but it is the Olympics. The courses for everything are set up to be a supreme test of the athletes, and the athletes themselves are not going to choose these two weeks in Turin as the time to hold anything back.

When you watch a great downhill run, it looks almost easy, especially on television, which doesn’t give you a true sense of how steep the slopes are. Driving to the Kandahar course, site of the men’s downhill, and you get a view of the entire mountain, and all you can think is: “They ski down that?” Stand at the bottom of the hill and you notice that the final stretch to the finish line looks like a sheer cliff, only steeper.

Downhillers hit about 75 mph. on this course. On other famous courses, they might get up to 85. They ski on snow that has been injected with water to freeze it. The only thing holding them in the turns are the razor-sharp edges of their skis.

All it takes is a tiny misjudgment or an unexpected bump to lose an edge, and you're done, say goodbye to the course.

Remember Nagano when Hermann Maier, the best skier in the world at the time, went off the course upside down, landed on his head, and went on to win two gold medals? If one of the all-time greats can crash, everybody can crash.

Luge isn’t any different. Nor, really, is figure skating. Why do they always fall in figure skating? It’s a good question with an obvious answer: Because they’re trying tricks that are barely humanly possible, and they’re doing it under enormous pressure that makes them tighten up so much it’s almost impossible to do everything perfectly. Even the best skaters miss their biggest moves all the time. If they think they have a 60 or 70 percent chance of hitting a move they know they need for a medal, they’ll try it. Do that several times in a program, and the miracle is that everyone doesn’t crash.

Skiing has improved the safety barriers – usually rows of breakaway fencing that absorbs the speed of a fall and keeps racers from continuing their crashes into the woods or over the edge of a precipice. In the Olympics, where the barriers are blue, crashing is called by the athletes “visiting the blue room.” During the rest of the year, the barriers are red and they visit the red room.

Yes, people have died in crashes. Bill Johnson, the 1984 gold medalist in the downhill, almost died while attempting a comeback four years ago. You won’t hear him complain about the sport’s danger though; within a year, he was back on skis.

All racers know the risks, and still they leap out of the starting gate, poling for more speed down a sheet of ice. They do it because for two minutes, they are as alive as they are ever going to be, every nerve fiber in their bodies lit up with danger signals. And when they make it to the bottom and win, there’s no euphoria to match it.

Crashing is part of the game. There are videos of the best crashes; one of the best known images in the business is ABC Wide World of Sports’ agony-of-defeat footage of ski plummeter Vinko Bogataj. Ski Magazine offers a list of the five greatest crashes, featuring the ones in which no one was seriously killed, just maimed a bit.

Skiers accept the risks inherent in their sport, and whenever possible, make fun of it. And some of the most fun writing on the topic I’ve found was provided by Jackson Hogen, again in Ski Magazine. In life, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. In skiing, what doesn’t kill you makes you funnier.

Feb. 13 | 5:10 p.m. ET

Shani Davis could help the U.S. speedskating team to a gold medal in the men’s pursuit, whose preliminary rounds begin Wednesday. His participation wouldn’t guarantee a medal — the Dutch and Norwegians have deep and talented teams. But he would give the U.S. a great shot. Without him, the Americans’ chances are slim.

But Davis has a problem. He holds the world record in the 1,000 meters, and the individual races in that event are two days after the pursuit finals. As the pursuit is a two-day event, with races running 3,200 meters for the three-man teams, it’s a lot of work, a lot of strain on a skater. He’s decided not to race with his team to concentrate on his individual events.

Some people think he’s being selfish. And Chad Hedrick, whose quest to tie Eric Heiden’s record of five speedskating gold medals in one Olympics, has said, “We have a really good chance to win it if Shani skates, but I'm not going to beg him to skate with me."

Davis is being selfish, and he gets testy if you talk to him about it. But I find it hard to condemn him for his actions. Davis could make history, or he could maybe win a team medal. He thinks he can’t do both.

Davis, you see, is after more than an individual gold in the 1,000, the 1,500 or both. He’s trying to become the first African-American to win an individual gold medal in the Winter Games. And that would be quite an accomplishment.

If he were to do that, he’d be famous and, as is usually the case with Olympic heroes — especially groundbreaking ones — probably reasonably wealthy. Most Americans would sign on for that assignment.

Put yourself in his skates. You can do something that no one has ever done before, become a role model for untold numbers of kids, a source of pride for your people and your country, an all-time Olympic highlight. Or you can risk that by taking part in a team event that your team might not win even if you do skate on it.

Even Hedrick, who would like the five golds, said last week that the team pursuit wouldn’t be the brightest medal in his collection. “I didn't train 28 years of my life to come here and do the three-man pursuit,” he said.

Even if Davis skated and everything went right for Hedrick, his five golds wouldn’t equal Heiden’s anyway. Heiden won every individual race, from 500 meters to 10,000. Hedrick, who is better at longer distances, didn’t skate in the 500 and is anything but a sure bet in the 1,000, which takes place after the team pursuit.

So should Davis risk his chances to help someone else with his own selfish quest? Why is Hedrick winning five medals more important than Davis winning one or two?

Sure, Davis could pick up a gold in the pursuit, but does anyone really remember the winners of ice-skating relays? We can’t demand that he be a team player if we’re not willing to give him the same reward for that race as for a historic individual win. And, from everything I’ve ever seen, we’re not.

So let Davis do what he thinks he has to do. If Hedrick wins four and misses the team, no one will hold it against him; he won’t be less the hero. Nor should anyone hold it against Davis is he wins his two but doesn’t skate the team.

Both quests are selfish. Both men are going for history. Let each do it the best way he can.

Feb. 12 | 11:20 a.m. ET

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote something about Bode Miller and got an e-mail from a man who knew a lot about skiing and ski racers. We traded e-mails after that, and one day he asked if I wanted to talk to Bill Johnson.

I don’t know if you remember Johnson, but you should. Some people say he was the Bode Miller of the 1980s, but he made Miller look like a choirboy. When you looked for adjectives with which to describe Johnson, you started with wild and worked your way up from there.

Johnson made the 1984 U.S. Olympic ski team that went to Sarajevo. The downhill track there was relatively flat and technical, a piste made for a glider, and between parties, Johnson had made himself the world’s best glider, copying Peter Mueller, a Swiss skier who was recognized as the best, then taking Mueller’s technique into a wind tunnel to make it even better.

When Johnson saw the Sarajevo course, he announced that everyone else was skiing for silver. That was a bold statement considering that Johnson wasn’t even one of the top ten skiers in the world. But he knew what he was talking about; he won the race and the pot of gold at the end of it.

I won’t go through the gory details of what followed. Bill Donahue, in a 2002 article for Outside Magazine, tells the story far better than I ever could. So I’ll just fast forward to 2001, when Johnson, having lost a child, his money and his wife, decided to make a comeback at the age of 40. It ended badly, in a horrific crash in which he bit his tongue almost completely off and suffered critical damage to his brain.

Somehow, he survived, but when he came back, he had lost six or seven years of memories. The '90s, he told me, no longer exist.

“You’re talking to a memory-gone person,” is how he put it.

But he remembers the race in 1984 perfectly. And he still loves skiing. Eight months after his accident, he was back on Mt. Hood, skiing. He doesn’t dream of competing anymore, though. “I just get down,” he says.

He’s still proud of what he accomplished. “I was the first American male to win an Olympic event, period,” he says.

He lives in Oregon with his mother, D.B. Johnson, is involved in raising funds for the Brain Injury Association, and recently helped host the Bill Johnson Vertical Challenge ski day in New Hampshire.

He said he was coming to Sestriere to watch the men’s downhill and the other Olympic races. He felt Bode Miller and Daron Rahlves were serious threats for medals, and he didn’t believe everything the media was saying about Miller and his drinking.

“The press put lies in your mouth,” he said, “Some of the quotes have been way out of context. From what I’ve seen and what I’ve noticed about the events, both have won races.”

I was planning on getting together with him at the downhill today. D.B. Johnson was keeping me apprised of his progress to Italy and how to get in touch with him.

Then this morning, I got an e-mail from D.B.:

“Bill is on his way home and will not be attending the downhill after all.  Not certain what happened, but will know more when they arrive Monday night late. . . I am as bewildered as anyone. . . He so much wanted to be there to cheer our boys on to podium status.  He expects them both to be winners.”

As it turned out, neither Miller nor Rahlves finished in the medals. It’s probably just as well that Johnson didn’t see it. Just the same, I’m not going to rest easily until I know he’s all right. I was looking forward to meeting him.

Feb. 11 | 6:30 p.m. ET

There are no better speedskating fans in the world than the Dutch. That’s not an opinion; it’s a fact. You can debate it if you wish, but it will be like debating the theory of evolution — you might make an argument that sounds plausible, but you’ll still be wrong.

Mike Celizic / MSNBC.com The arch supporting a bridge connecting the Athletes Village to the transportation hub is reflected in the windows of the Oval Lingotto speed skating arena.

They come dressed in orange from toe to head, their ensembles topped off by all manner of headgear from the curious to the hilarious. The arrive for the first race and don’t leave until the final race, and they cheer every skater, no matter his nationality.

At today’s first session of the Olympic speed skating tournament, it seemed as if at least 80 percent of the Oval Lingotto speedskating arena was occupied by the orange horde.

Skating is a national passion in the Netherlands, the land that gave us the story of Hans Brinker and the silver skates. Each year that the weather allows in the north section of the country the locals know as Friesland, there is a 200-kilometer race called the Elfstedentocht. It winds over natural ice through 11 cities and it’s the New York City Marathon of races. More than 15,000 enter when it’s held. They start at 5:30 a.m. and the race ends at midnight; if you haven’t finished by then, you don’t get a medal.

Mike Celizic / MSNBC.com Dutch speed skating fans cheer everyone, said "Bof" - "Even the Americans. Even if they win."

A tall fellow whose neat mustache nicely set off as wonderfully bizarre a costume as you’ll find this side of Cleveland’s Dawg Pound, took some time between sessions of the 5000-meter races to talk about the event.

He gave his name only as “Bof” from the town of Creil and he wore a banner from the race, which he finished years ago, around his shoulders. Now 50 years old, he’s retired from skating. One of the skates he wore in the race is now embedded in the orange helmet he wears on his head. A stuffed lion nests in the boot. He also wears a curly blonde wig, Olympic rings on his cheeks and tops it all with lots of sparkles.

Bof was reasonably well lubricated as he entertained some reporters with tales of traveling to Albertville, Lillehammer and now Turin to watch speedskating. (He didn’t make the overseas games; “I’m in a little bit of fear of airplanes,” he confessed.)

Bof confirmed that Dutch fans take it as a point of honor to cheer every skater.

“We cheer for Norway. We cheer for Korea. We cheer for Italy. We cheer for everybody.”

Even the Americans?

“Even if they win.”

They don’t make fans better than that.

Feb. 10 | 5:45 p.m. ET

OK, we’ve done the whining, Turin has done the will-we-get-done-in-time thing, we’ve had the fireworks and pageantry and puzzlement of the opening ceremonies — along with one of the all-time great torch lightings. Now it’s time for the actual Olympic Games.

After three days of walking for miles around town and sitting under the fluorescent glow of the home office working on the obligatory hype pieces, I’m ready for some actual action.

It seems as if the Games will never begin, then, when they finally do, it’s a blur of activity and buses, hustling here, bustling there, guessing at where the big stories will be and hoping you won’t guess long.

The first week seems to last a month. The last week goes by in the blink of an eye. And just when you’re utterly and totally wrapped up in it, it’s over.

That’s the way it’s always been. I suspect that’s the way it will be this time around.

I’m scheduled for speed skating today to see if Chad Hedrick can take gold in the 5,000 and have a shot at the Eric Heiden quinella. Then it’s off to pairs figure skating — shudder — to see how the new Olympic scoring system is working out and what effect it will have on America’s darling, Michelle Kwan.

One note on living in Italy: The Italians have it figured out. Tonight, before the opening ceremonies began, the Italian staff of drivers and runners sent out for pizza and platters of prosciutto, ham, salami, cheese and bread, and broke out many bottles of wine to wash it down. I’m told a good time was had by all, and nobody was hurt.

Feb. 9 | 5:00 p.m. ET

It wouldn’t be an Olympics if the pampered reporters who are getting paid to travel around the world and watch the biggest events on the planet didn’t whine about what they have to put up with. So, because the Games have yet to start, and I have nothing better to write about, let me get the obligatory poor-me column out of the way now. That way we never have to visit the subject again. (And feel free to tell me what a spoiled jerk I am. It won’t be anything I don’t already know.)

As usual, the primary whining involves the accommodations. On my first day here, I wrote about how we’re stationed in a sprawling former military complex. I had been told it was a former barracks, but I’ve since learned it was an Italian army hospital that was built in the first decade of the 20^th century. One version of the story has it that it’s the hospital Hemingway used as a model for the facility that the protagonist in “A Farewell to Arms” is taken to after he’s wounded in the mountains as an ambulance driver in World War I. It’s a good story whether it’s true or not, and if Hemingway was here, I feel better about the place already.

Although NBC seems to have rented all or nearly all the rooms, the facility is run by the Turin Olympic Organizing Committee, and it’s being run as a profit center.

The rooms are clean and new, but they have all the charm, but not the comfort, of monk’s cells. The showers are about two feet square with a curtain that wraps around two sides and sucks in at you when the water is running. There literally is not room to turn around, and, if you’re not careful, the curtain can drag over the drain and block it, causing the entire room – bedroom, too – to flood. I know because it happened to me.

I told the front desk about the mishap and that I cleaned it up. But, I said, I would need some new towels. That evening, I got back to a room that hadn’t been visited by the service staff.

But I’m not complaining about that. The only thing I do in the room is sleep, so who cares what it looks like?

I am complaining about the bar, though. I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived and learned that the bar is open 24 hours. It’s not unheard of at the Olympics to get done at four in the morning, and it’s nice to be able to get a beer at that hour.

Last night, I ambled over to get that brew, dreaming of fine European beers along the way. But the only beer available – the official beer – was Budweiser. Nothing against Bud, whose taste I find to be utterly inoffensive and completely forgettable, but I didn’t fly 6,000 miles for a Budweiser. But it’s Bud or nothing.

My real complaint, though, is with the laundry service. I came here directly from the Super Bowl, and when I arrived, it was with bags full of dirty laundry. So I loaded up a bag and took it to the front desk only to discover that it costs ten Euros – more than $12 - to wash and press a dress shirt and two Euros to launder a pair of socks. Shorts were around four Euros each.

This is called a rip-off. I suspect the organizers are trying to balance their budget with laundry, and it’s hardly the way to make visitors feel kindly about things. I’ve since taken a walk and found another laundry with more reasonable prices. But I’ll still have a bill of more than $70 for less than half a load of laundry.

Other than that, I’ve nothing to grouse about. The buses have been running on schedule. Everyone is friendly, but not suffocatingly so. The weather has been pleasant. Turin has places worth exploring. And I’m at the Olympics, getting paid to watch the biggest sports show on earth.

End of whine. For now and the rest of the Olympics.

Feb. 8 | 5:40 p.m. ET

Turin says it’s ready for the games of the XX Winter Olympics to begin, and I can only assume that they mean that the venues are ready to go. Because the city still has work to do and not a lot of time to do it.

Not being ready for the games seems to be becoming a trend. Fewer than two years ago, Athens was still pounding nails and laying bricks and slathering paint even as the fireworks were going off at the Opening Ceremonies. But even by Athens’ standards, Turin is late.

The outdoor theater in the Piazza Castello looks as if it’s going to be pretty glitzy – when it’s finished. Wednesday, it was a pile of construction materials in the midst of shiny structures that still need to be test fired.

In the Piazza San Carlos, the Today Show set was fully operational and ready to go. But in the middle of the piazza, three men were busy scrubbing a statue of somebody locally famous on a horse – you can’t go two blocks without running into a monumental bronze of somebody who was once famous, and most of them are on horses – while a water truck was trying to wash a thick coat of yellow dirt off the cobblestones and a street sweeper was following behind trying to suck up the dirty water. The entire plaza – and it’s big enough for a couple of football fields – was dug up for an underground parking garage, and the dirt is left over from the fill that was covered with cobblestones. As local projects go, this one is probably ahead of schedule.

In front of the old city hall, more workers were stringing up hundreds of red, green and white lights in small (maybe six to eight inches on a side) translucent cubes over a stage that was also under construction. I’m not sure what they’re going to do there, but the lights will provide an effective ceiling made of the national colors over whatever happens on the stage. Directly behind the stage is another monumental bronze of a crusader slaying not one, but two Saracens. It’s an unfortunate scene to draw attention to in the current international political climate, but it probably seemed like a swell idea at the time it was erected.

I checked out the Duomo di Torino in the Piazza San Giovanni, where the famous Shroud of Turin resides, but the shroud itself isn’t on display. (It’s not due to be shown again until 2025, but one always hopes they’d make an exception for the Olympics.) There was, however, a picture of the shroud on display which looks exactly like the one on the Shroud’s Web site.

The duomo is built on top of ruins from the old Roman city of Turin. Nearby, the biggest surviving structure from Roman times, the Palatine Gate and part of the wall it was built in, still stands, and the city is building an archeological park around it. It looks like it will be impressive when it’s finished, but, I’m told, it was never scheduled to be done for the Olympics; 2007 is the projected opening time.

In the Piazza Solferino, a few blocks from the medals plaza, stands the Sponsors Village, whose entrance is made of two curved walls covered in overlapping convex mirrors that will be very impressive if they manage to get the construction barricades down in time.

I have little doubt that Turin will be ready for the Games. As in Athens, a few things may not get done, but the important sites will be up and ready to go. And once the Games begin, no one will care that much about it.

Slide show   The Week in Sports Pictures The Giants on top of the football world, getting ready for the London Olympics and more. more photos

Beyond the new construction, Turin is not nearly the gray, featureless city that some have called it. And the only thing it has in common with Detroit – the American city with which it’s compared – is a hurting auto industry. The city does have a lot of neighborhoods that look exactly the same – middle-class and nothing to write home about. But when you get downtown, you find things that go back 2,000 years, and anytime you have continuous urban habitation for two millennia, you’re going to have some interesting buildings whether you want them or not.

The center city, which is where most of the places mentioned above are located, is old, crisscrossed with trolley lines and amply supplied with Baroque buildings, many of which can hold their own anywhere. There are plenty of shops along arcaded sidewalks, and it seems as if there’s a café on every block where you can get a wonderful cup of cappuccino that even the Starbucks crowd would have a hard time finding fault with.

To the east of the center, the Po River runs broad, deep and placid on a north-south axis. You can walk for several miles along the river – I know because I did it – mostly through parks, and if you don’t mind all the passing joggers showing off their health and fitness, not to mention the rowers in four-man sculls on the river, it’s quite a pleasant way to kill an hour and stretch your legs.

Feb. 7 | 2:40 p.m. ET

Monday morning, I was in Detroit. Tuesday afternoon, I was in Turin, which, I come to find out, is Italy’s Detroit, both because it is the home of automaker Fiat and because it’s a city that’s been a bit down on its luck and is hoping that hosting an international sporting event will launch it back to prosperity.

So far, I’ve seen very little of the city. The first day of any Olympics is eaten up by getting credentialed, finding your living quarters, finding your working quarters, and trying to figure out the transportation system.

We flew into Milan and took a bus for two or three hours to get to Turin. I can’t give you the exact time, as I slept through half of it. We’re another couple of hours from the mountains, and the land is mostly flat and given over to woods and farms – it looks a lot like Northeastern Ohio, where I grew up, except that all the houses are masonry and have red tile roofs.

Tomorrow, I’ll let you know what I find in my first exploration of the town. Right now, I’d like to give you an idea of what it takes to be the official broadcaster of the Olympics.

This is going to sound like a crass attempt to curry favor with NBC, which is a partner in MSNBC, the outfit that actually pays me to have fun, but there’s no way to talk about the job the network does without being amazed at it all.

You’ll hear a lot about the IBC – the International Broadcast Center – which is where the broadcasts of the games themselves originate. And you’ll see a plethora of hosts and analysts covering every square centimeter of action.

What you don’t see are some 3,000 other NBC employees who make it all possible. About 2,700 of them work for NBC Sports in getting out a record 416 hours of coverage on seven NBC Universal networks. That’s 24.5 hours of sports in every 24-hour day.

Another 350 or so people are here with NBC News. They include all the local affiliate anchors who do live reports from the games along with the staffs of the Today Show, the Weekend Today Show, the Nightly News and the Weekend Nightly News.

The News division folks work outside the IBC in an enormous exhibition hall called the Palazzo de Lavoro, a picture of which I found here. In addition to offices, the network uses the building as an indoor garage for its fleet of cars.

NBC runs its own commissaries for both its news and sports staffs, as well as at all 17 venues. Logistically, it’s like supplying a brigade.

Some of the equipment, including generators and kitchens and HVAC equipment, is shipped over on container ships and trucked to where they’re needed. This is the fourth Olympics I’ve done for MSNBC.com, and with every one, I’m more aware of – and amazed at – what goes into it.

Every employee who needs one gets a cell phone for the duration. Since we’re using laptops here, every news employee who needs a computer is also provided with one. The office telephones are connected directly to the United State – dial “1” and the number as if you were in New York or Los Angeles or Iowa City.

Every employee has to be housed and transported, some for months before the games begin. Without adequate hotel space locally, NBC took over an old Italian army barracks that was renovated into single-bed rooms.

It doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, planning for the Beijing Olympics, still more than two years away, is already underway. It’s that big a production.

Feb. 6 | 12:45 a.m. ET

I saw Mick Jagger do “Satisfaction.” I can die now because I’ve been to rock ’n roll heaven.

I don’t do concerts, never have, and the last of the few I have gone to was 28 years ago when I saw Jimmy Buffet at Belmont Park. The others were pretty good — Grand Funk Railroad, Alice Cooper, Jethro Tull, Charlie Daniels, New Riders of the Purple Sage — and it was back when they and I were young.

But if there was one group I wanted to see, it was the Rolling Stones, for my money the best rock band that ever lived. So for the first time in about 15 years, I stayed in my seat for a Super Bowl halftime show.

Usually, the shows are too much pyrotechnics and not enough music. Not this one. It was just three songs and the Associated Press’ entertainment writer didn’t think much of it. But it was enough. Jagger is amazing for a guy who should be collecting social security, or whatever it is they call it in England. “Satisfaction” is his definitive song. Seeing him sing it was like seeing Jordan dunk or Reggie hit a home run or Koufax freeze a hitter with his curve. Doesn’t have to be the most spectacular dunk, dinger or yakker — you’ve just got to see it.

Just as good as the Stones was listening to Aretha Franklin belt out the national anthem. First Lady of Soul. ’Nuff said.

No person or thing, not even Donald Trump, is as great at celebrating the wonderfulness of itself as the NFL. And the place the league does it best is at the Super Bowl. The game is between two teams, but it’s really about building the league’s brand.

When you go to the game, you’re bombarded by it constantly. Now, the NFL even provides its own broadcasters who narrate highlights of past Super Bowls and give information on the teams on the big video boards during the game. Anybody who wants to study marketing should start with the NFL.

Everything at the Super Bowl is bigger and better, even the flip card that the media gets to keep track of the teams. The cards have the starting offenses, defenses and specialists on it along with a depth chart and an numerical listing of all the players on the front and alphabetical and numerical rosters on the back along with the vital stats of all players — height, weight, college, years in the league. Normally, they’re the same size as a sheet of paper — 8½ by 11. For the Super Bowl, they’re about 50 percent larger.

At the Super Bowl, even the coin toss is a major event, requiring a specially minted coin, because a quarter from the ref’s pocket simply wouldn’t do. This year, more than 40 people, including six co-captains from each team, assembled at midfield for the ceremony. Why teams need six captains is beyond me, but that’s how they do it.

Best moment of Super Bowl XL: Jerome Bettis running out on the field by himself when the Steelers were announced, then standing on the 30-yard line as the fans screamed, waiting for his teammate to join him.

Feb. 3 | 12:30 a.m. ET

Reports of Detroit’s demise, I’m happy to report, are greatly exaggerated. And I sincerely apologize to the city’s gritty and determined residents for suggesting otherwise.

I can also report that during a leisurely stroll of nearly five hours — with stops for coffee and vittles and conversation — I neither saw nor was the victim of a shooting, mugging, car-jacking or anything more unpleasant than a chilly drizzle. I did see a city that has a lot of problems, but also a lot of hope, thanks to the people who refuse to leave the town they love.

I can thank Nida Donar for my eye-opening day. I met her via an e-mail that was both an invitation and a challenge. “Want to meet real Detroiters?” she asked, adding that I was welcome to come to her place and she’d show me around.

I had written a blog when I arrived in the Detroit area in which I quoted Super Bowl volunteers who told me it wasn’t safe to walk less than a mile from the Renaissance Center — the Ren Cen in local parlance — to Ford Field, site of Super Bowl LX. I wondered how much of a city Detroit could be if that were the case.

Scores of Detroiters wrote to tell me how wrong that advice was. Several offered to show me around. I picked Nida because she was deeply involved in the community through the Central United Methodist Church, of which her husband, the Rev. Edwin Rowe, is pastor.

The church, whose cornerstone was laid in 1866 when Detroit was heavily Roman Catholic, is across the street from Comerica Park, where the Tigers play, and two blocks from Ford Field. We agreed to meet there, at the corner of Woodward and Adams, at 1:30 p.m. Friday.

“Not what you expected,” she said when she recognized me. “A white lady in Detroit.”

It wasn’t a question but a statement, and she was right. The first thing people tell you about Detroit is that all the white people ran away a long time ago, after the race riots of the late 1960s. Those that stayed fled to their little enclaves.

It’s not true. Although the city is more than 80 percent African-American and is one of the most racially segregated cities in the United States, there is significant integration, especially among the middle class. Nida and her husband live in a co-op development that, she said, is about 70 percent African-American.

Central Methodist, according to its literature, has been called “the conscience of the city.” It is an anti-war and pro-peace congregation that is half white and half black. It led the way in integration in Detroit in the 1940s under the leadership of the Rev. Henry H. Crane, who brought both blacks and Asians, including Japanese into the church. Rowe continues the church’s tradition and is active internationally in promoting peace.

The church itself runs numerous programs for the city’s poor, of whom there are too many, including a free lunch program that serves 600-700 people twice a week, an employment counseling service, a public health outreach program, a program for battered women, a thrift shop, art gallery and a program that provides assistance for those who can not pay for heat and power.

Mike Celizic / MSNBC.com Nida Donar in the sanctuary of the Central United Methodist Church, which stands next to Comerica Park in downtown Detroit.

It is a cliché to call the work of Nida and her husband a labor of love, but there is no other word for it. Nida grew up in Detroit and has lived in and around the city all of her life and has never been the victim of crime. When she was younger, she had been married to a physician and lived in Bloomfield Hills, a Detroit suburb that is one of the wealthiest in America. When she divorced, she moved back to Detroit, married Rowe, and has lived there ever since.

There is crime in the city, just as there is everywhere. Unemployment is high and good jobs are hard to find. There is little public transportation and many people who do not own cars. The biggest lack, Nida said, is good schools. Without them, it is very hard to get young married couples to move back into the city, and young families are what Detroit needs. There is also a desperate shortage of supermarkets, most of the big chains having fled the city over the years.

But the city has improved dramatically over the past decades. Downtown is expansive, filled with public art and restored buildings. The Ren Cen is a glittering tower on the river, and the city’s streets radiate from it like spokes on a wheel. A half dozen blocks from the center is Greek Town, a thriving area of restaurants and bars. An Irish enclave, Cork Town, is in another part of the city.

There once was also a center of the black community, Black Bottom, but it was destroyed years ago when a major freeway was built. The road is a reminder of the divisions that led to the riots; it was routed around Cork Town and through the heart of black culture.

We walked for several miles in areas that the whites who fled Detroit wouldn’t dare enter. There’s no reason for the fear. People say hello to strangers in the street. Whites frequent black-owned businesses and vice versa.

Mark Kory is one of those white businessmen. He and his brother own a video store in a small strip mall just outside the downtown area. A few years ago, they decided to open the Paris Café, a coffee shop and deli on Lafayette Street where people can stay as long as they like.

Kory makes a hot corned beef sandwich that would pass muster in New York and an excellent New England clam chowder. While we refueled, we met and chatted with Bertram L. Johnson, an African-American lawyer who got his law degree at Notre Dame and came back his home town to be a defense attorney.

“It can be dangerous,” Johnson said of Detroit, “but no more than any other city. It’s not that bad.”

He traces the city’s problems to the flight of the white residents, who took their money, jobs and businesses with them, and the influx in their wake of poor, uneducated blacks from other parts of the country, primarily the South. But Bertram, like Nida and Rowe, isn’t leaving. “It’s a city of opportunity,” he said.

Closer to downtown, just inside the Greek Town area on Monroe Street, is Happy Cream, an ice-cream store and deli opened in September by four African-Americans, including a police officer and the owner of a construction company that specializes in rehabbing old buildings.

“All of us are Detroiters,” said Ray Kerse, who owns the construction company, when asked why he and his partners invested their money in the city instead of somewhere with a surer promise of return. “We knew the city was coming back, and we wanted to be downtown.”

Kerse has the same infectious optimism I encountered in others I met. He said that in the past year, 7,500 new residents moved into the downtown area, and the Super Bowl has brought in visitors who are encountering the city’s charms and will report back to their homes that Detroit’s downtown is worth visiting, which it is very much is.

And, I’m happy to report, you can walk a long way without fear and meet a lot of people who just want others to give Detroit a break, to come and see for themselves instead of subscribing to the old stereotypes.

“I’ve been in love with this city for a long time,” said Kerse, as a steady stream of people come in from the NFL Experience and the Detroit Snow Blast going on outside his door.

Earlier, I had asked Nida why she chose to come back to Detroit when everyone like her was fleeing.

“Life is too short to let it be dictated by fear,” she told me. “Your life has to be dictated by what you want to do.”

And what she wants to do is live in the city she loves, a city that needs a lot of help but also has a lot going for it because of people like her and her husband, people like Mark Kory, Ray Kerse and Bertram L. Johnson, people who live without fear in a city that they see as filled with hope.

Said Nida of leaving Bloomfield Hills, marrying the Rev. Rowe and spending her life helping her city and her neighbors, “It’s the best thing I ever did.”

Feb. 2 | 3:40 p.m. ET

It should be pathetic that scores of grown men and women with expensive educations have to crowd cheek to jowl, standing on tiptoes, straining to hear someone answer a schoolyard taunt.

But this is the Super Bowl, and this bit of theater between the Steelers’ Joey Porter and the Seahawks’ Jerramy Stevens is the best storyline – the only storyline – we’ve been given. And so dense hedges of tripods and camcorders are planted around the elevated tables at which Porter and Stevens will sit and nests of microphones are built in front of their chairs.

It’s at such times that the only difference between covering the Super Bowl and covering Michael Jackson is that in sports, the guys you’re writing about are obliged to talk to you and don’t walk around with people holding umbrellas over their heads. Doubtless, some journalists relish such moments. But most honest sportswriters would much rather be sitting with someone like Dick Lebeau, the Steelers’ defensive coordinator, discussing blitz schemes and trading lies about the good old days.

Still, a story is a story, and so you join the mobs, first at Porter’s table and then, 90 minutes later, in front of Stevens’ perch.

Porter enjoyed the stuffing out of it. He’s a guy who needs to talk trash before a game, and the bigger the game, the more he needs to talk. It’s his way of pumping himself up, and he doesn’t pretend it’s anything else.

He talked about how inane it is for players on both teams to spend their week telling strangers with microphones and notepads what swell fellows the guys on the other team are. You’re supposed to hate the other team, he said, and want to hurt them so bad they “tap out” – quit.

So when Stevens said on Tuesday that it would be sad when Pittsburgh’s popular and aging running back, Jerome Bettis, would leave Ford Stadium in his home town of Detroit without the Super Bowl trophy, Porter took that as a personal affront and launched a counter-offensive.

But what Stevens said isn’t important. He could have said that he doesn’t like Iron City beer or that Puget Sound is prettier than the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, and Porter would have been off and blathering.

Most of the Steelers thought Porter was amusing, which he is. He certainly did them no harm, directing his wrath at the formerly obscure Stevens, Seattle’s starting tight end, but being careful not to call out the Seahawks as a team or question their character.

“That’s just Joey being Joey,” said Steeler coach Bill Cowher, who had asked his team not to say anything that could end up as a headline. For two days, Porter held his peace. Then he erupted, and Cowher quipped, “I was proud he lasted this long.”

The Seahawks, on the other hand, seemed more bothered by the distraction. Their coach, Mike Holmgren, while realizing that “going through a Super Bowl week without something like that coming up would be unusual,” nonetheless assured all that we wouldn’t “hear Jerramy say anything more the rest of the week.”

When Holmgren was done, Stevens was on stage, and, while he wasn’t agitated, it was clear he didn’t enjoy all the attention. He kept saying he meant no disrespect and didn’t say anything that warranted the reaction his comment generated.

If I were a Seahawk fan, I wouldn’t want one of my starters acting apologetic just because something might have been read the wrong way. I’d have preferred anger to have been put in such a position and defiance of anyone who wanted to twist his words.

Porter gained inspiration from the affair and a sense of added mission on the field. The Seahawks gained nothing.

It wasn’t much of a story, but if these things help anyone, this one helped Pittsburgh.

Feb. 1 | 11:45 p.m. ET

Every player and coach in the Super Bowl was given a brand new Cadillac to drive during the week. It’s just another reason why it’s good to be in the Super Bowl. It’s also good advertising for GM, the supplier of the official cars of the event.

After the Steelers held their morning media session Wednesday, instead of taking a couple of buses to the Lions’ nearby practice field (Who knew the Lions practiced?), the players all climbed into their spiffy cars — sometimes two to a vehicle, more often one car per player — and drove.

I was sitting on the media bus waiting to leave, so I had nothing better to do than watch the players’ parade of Detroit iron. As car after car pulled out, I realized that I saw no more than five people with their seat belts on. Several of the unbelted drivers were also talking on their cell phones as they wheeled out of the lot and onto unfamiliar streets in suburban Detroit.

Michigan’s seat-belt law requires all front-seat passengers to wear belts. The law allows police officers to pull over unbelted drivers. Recent statistics show that 80 percent of drivers in the United States use seat belts, a practice that the government estimates saves more than 15,000 lives each year and $50 billion.

As the players left, they passed within a few feet of a Michigan state trooper there for traffic control. The trooper neither advised anyone to buckle up nor stopped any of the players.

Yet another reason it’s good to be in the Super Bowl.

Win, or else
Seattle defensive end Grant Wistrom previously played six years for the Rams, participating in both Super Bowls St. Louis played in. The first was a victory over the Titans, which Wistrom said is the highest high he’s ever experienced.

The second was against the Patriots and didn’t turn out happily for the Rams.

“Losing the Super Bowl is the most depressed I’ve ever been in my whole life,” he said. Wistrom compared it to being in a deep and dark hole. “I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I didn’t want to be around anybody,” he continued. “It took two or three months to get out of that hole.”

Wistrom figured that depression is why so many Super Bowl losers don’t even make the playoffs the following season. It also testifies to what a remarkable achievement it was for the Buffalo Bills to get to four consecutive Super Bowls despite losing every time.

Jan. 31 | 11:30 p.m. ET

I was going to riff on Media Day, but, other than comedian Gilbert Gottfried squawking questions like a wounded parrot to bemused jocks, there wasn’t that much loopiness going on.

In fact, the silliest part of the whole show comes courtesy not of the media but the NFL, which has hung banners all over town declaring that Super Bowl XL is the game’s 40th anniversary.

Slide show   Super Bowl playmakers Click to see the players who'll probably make the difference on game day.

This is quite a trick, since the first Super Bowl was played in 1967, and when you subtract that from 2006, the answer is 39. But little things like math have never bothered the NFL. If the league decides the 40th game is also the 40th anniversary, that’s what it is.

I just wonder what they’ll call next year’s actual 40th anniversary game.

In other business, I just checked my in-box, and found 147 e-mails from people defending Detroit as a much better city than it’s portrayed, particularly by people who live in its suburbs and have developed a mythology of mayhem about the place. Almost all of the correspondents – and I’m sorry if I can’t reply personally to every one – are more sad than angry.

Some have graciously offered to take me on walking tours of the city, both to show its attractions and to demonstrate that it’s hardly as dangerous as it’s portrayed. I thank all of you who wrote. Your messages have left me with the feeling that Detroit has a future as long as it has people like you are willing to defend it and work to make it better.

Alok from Detroit:

Hold On! I commend what the volunteers are doing, and I'm glad they are so helpful. But I had these concerns when I was helping put together material for the(ir) training. Many of these folks haven't been downtown themselves in a while, or stick to a handful of "safe" destinations. You can walk just fine anywhere in the CBD (Central Business District) which is bordered by the freeways. It's a couple minutes walk to the stadium if you've got your mobility. And just to let you know. Downtown Detroit has 26% less crime than the nation’s average downtown. Courtesy of study done by Wayne State University. Also see... Detroityes.com Detroitsynergy.org

Dante from Detroit:

Mike, unfortunately while Detroit may be the poorest large city in America from some socio-economic perspective, there is no denying that its metropolitan area is extremely ignorant of anything other than rumor and hearsay. I've lived within the city limits as well as the surrounding Detroit suburbs for 30 years and I must say that sadly many are born, raised, live and die in the suburbs like Livonia where you are staying and some will never go within the city limits let alone downtown or any other part of the country. Such is the life and disposition of many from Detroit. Those “wonderful” volunteers probably don't know the difference between Woodward Avenue and Jefferson Avenue and being mindful of their “wrong street” comments brings an old adage to mind: "Fear kills more men than death itself.” What a shame that their ignorant comments did as much damage as any bullet flying through the air.

Cyndi from Oak Park, Mich.:

Like everyone else reporting on Detroit, you mention the fact that Detroit is "down to 900,000 (citizens)". It's still the 11th largest city in the country. As for the cheerful volunteers imploring you not to walk...please bear in mind that the longest walk most people in the Detroit suburbs manage is from the last parking space at the mall to the mall entrance at Christmas. There's an organization in Detroit, Preservation Wayne, that gives walking tours of various Detroit neighborhoods from May to October. . . Check the web site for details. . . Detroit's a great place, warts and all - take a little time to explore it. Maybe even (gasp!) on foot.

Jean from Minneapolis:

Your commentary saddens me. I am a native Detroiter (Harper Woods to be exact) and hearing this is like someone talking down my mother. I agree it needs a lot of work, but I truly believe there is still potential. I'm not giving up, I plan on returning to my beloved state and yes, maybe even the city itself upon my retirement in a year or two. Detroit is like the disruptive child of the family, no matter what, I still love it.

Ben from Detroit:

Detroit is a city that is looking to the future and rebuilding. And yes, it will take some time. I don't know where Mike Celizic is from, but I'm glad he doesn't live in Detroit. What a snob!!

Nida from Detroit:

Dear Mike, I wish I had met you at the airport. I live less than a mile from Ford Field and my church, Central United Methodist, is a stone’s throw away on Woodward and Adams. Don't believe everything you see in the paper. Yes, we are the poorest large city in the country, but many of those of us who live here believe that there is enough for everyone if people were not so interested in entertaining you all with fancy sports stadiums and gambling halls. We love our city and believe it or not I walk my dog twice a day and have never been shot, mugged, or robbed. Want to meet real Detroiters? Come over and I will feed you a home cooked meal. Oh, by the way, our church gives out free lunches to about 700 people every Monday and Thursday. You are welcome to come over there as well.

Jen from Madison Heights, Mich.:

Mike, You are SO WRONG about Detroit. The people who told you not to walk down the street, a mile, at 9am are WRONG. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Detroit is a GREAT City no matter where you’re from.....it's people who are scared of Detroit before they even get here, that makes it seem worse than it really is. Take this advice from somebody who lives in the suburbs but attends school in Detroit AT NIGHT, IN THE DARK....I'm a 35 year old mom and I'm not scared to walk a mile in Detroit, no matter what time it is. P.S. - Have fun at the game.

Kate  from Detroit:

I am a 24-year-old, white, single female. I live downtown by myself and have done so for the past five years. Nothing bad - and I mean nothing - has every happened to me. I walk around freely, I party on the weekends - you just have to be cautious like in any big city. The friendly people that are telling you "Oh no, don't walk a mile" are most likely suburbanites that have not been downtown in over five years. I admit, there is a lot of work that needs to be done, but so much has happened. Detroit needs help, as do so many other old, industrial cities. But, our government is too busy across the globe spending all of our money on a useless war. Is that democracy? I love Detroit and don't plan on leaving... ever.

Jan. 30 | 10:30 p.m.

At the Detroit Airport, which is as spiffy and shiny and efficient as just about any airport in the land, the Super Bowl volunteers were everywhere, as friendly as people in the heartland always are and eager to help everyone enjoy their stay.

They handed out shiny brochures packed with information about all the swell things there are to do in Detroit during Super Bowl Week. Two of them even clambered onto a bus to keep me — the lone passenger on one of those big motor coaches — company on the drive to my hotel.

I was glad for the company. This is Detroit’s Super Bowl, but the little nub of a modern core that’s gone up around GM’s world headquarters downtown doesn’t have enough hotel rooms to accommodate the crowds. It’s not likely to have them any time soon, either, because other than the Super Bowl, which comes around these parts once every XXIV years — like clockwork — there isn’t anything coming to Detroit that can fill that many hotel rooms.

So we — fans and media — are scattered around the Detroit area. I’m in Livonia, 20 miles west of Detroit, in what looks in the dark like a business park. After a four-hour plane trip turned into a 10-hour Odyssey, the hotel is all I’ve seen of things.

But the two wonderfully nice people who kept me company on the bus assured me that Detroit is a happening town, nothing like what I may remember of it. I asked them if they were actually from Detroit, and both answered in the affirmative, adding that they don’t actually live there now. But they assured me I’ll have a great time there.

At the hotel were a half dozen equally cheerful volunteers — and I really can’t emphasize enough how gosh-darned nice and eager-to-please everyone is. I asked them about shuttles and credentials and Tuesday’s Media Day. It turns out the stadium isn’t much more than a mile from the media center.

“So I can walk to the stadium,” I declared.

“Oh, no!” was the reply, sung in chorus.

“Everybody’s been telling me what a great place downtown Detroit is,” I said. “And you’re saying I can’t walk a mile in the center of town at nine in the morning?”

That’s what they were telling me. I might, they said, walk down the wrong street, and the implication was I wouldn’t like what happened to me if I did. It’s all you really need to know.

I’ll check it all out and report back, but the truth is that this city doesn’t need the Super Bowl, it needs competent government, good schools, decent housing. It needs jobs for all the people who were left without jobs when the auto industry started its long decline. It needs more hope than one Super Bowl every 24 years — at a cost of $700 million for the stadium to house it — can give it.

They’re buffing it up, but the reality is that Detroit is the poorest large city in America. It once had two million citizens. It’s down to 900,000, and, on average, every day one of them is murdered.

But the city has the Super Bowl. This is its week to shine, even if most fans can barely see the glow from 20 miles away. I hope it enjoys the week, because in a week, it won’t be the Super Bowl host city anymore. It will just be Detroit.

Jan. 29 | 10:30 p.m.

I’m in the midst of packing for both Detroit and Italy, so this one I’m going to throw over to reader responses. Specifically, I’m running responses to last Sunday’s blog about my objections to NFL jargon and broadcasters.

I also have to apologize to the hundreds of you whose E-mails on a variety of subjects I haven’t been able to personally respond to. I got so many on Terrell Owens, Bode Miller and Michelle Kwan, I finally did the only sensible thing — I gave up.

In general, you don’t like T.O., think Bode is an idiot, and think I’m an idiot for suggesting that our Michelle shouldn’t be given a special pass into the Olympics.

I remain eternally amused at how those who disagree with me equate a difference of opinion with mental retardation, moral turpitude and — gasp! — liberalism. Also, those who disagree with one statement in a column — or sometimes only the headline — go on to condemn my entire body of work.

As it turns out, there’s a reason for this, as reported on MSNBC.com’s science pages recently. Scientists put die-hard Kerry supporters and equally virulent Bush supporters into brain scan machines — though not at the same time, as that would have become messy — and discovered that true believers get rewarded with extra feel-good brain chemicals for ignoring contradictory statements made by their leader and for leaping on those made by the enemy. I suspect this applies to true believers of every stripe, from religion to professional wrestling heroes.

Now, let’s get to the mail:

Bill from Ohio:
Do what I have done for several years now. Turn the sound off and watch the game! Announcers have become statistic-babbling idiots that take away from the game. Whoever came up with "color analysts" should roll over in his grave.

Ben from Boston:
Thank you so very much for calling out NFL announcers in public. No one ever says anything about how asinine they can be. I know you stated that you would not mention names, most likely out of courtesy, but I will. Please to the powers that be take John Madden off the air! If I have to hear him say something along the lines of, "To win this game team x will really have to put up more points than team y" I think I might put my foot through my television. An announcer should add intelligent insight and analysis to the broadcast not the dribble that comes out of that man's mouth. . .

Dave from Meridian Idaho:
Regarding the announcers, good points. But I have another: just what the heck is "play action"? As in a "play action pass."

Mark  from Blue Springs, Mo.:
Mike, loved your comments on the announcers. I have to add my pet peeve, golf announcers who describe a golf shot as 'chasing itself to the hole'! I want to scream every time I hear that dumb saying. If they ever gave it the slightest thought they would realize how stupid it sounds. There, I feel all better now...

Robert:
How about "a high ankle sprain"  - what is that? By the way, I'm a physician.

Tom from Huntsville, Ala.:
I heartily agree with your assessment of football announcers and the state of NFL language. In fact, I haven't seen any sports broadcast that wasn't improved by the Mute button. Instead of celebrating Monday Night Football's anniversary, we should have been cursing it for throwing more bad announcers at us. Thanks to MNF, "play by play" and "color" have become incessant, inane banter approximating the white noise I see when the cable goes out. Not to mention the pre-game shows -- why do we need 5, 6, or 7 ex-jocks explaining every facet of the upcoming games? The games just don't have that many nuances. So, I don't watch pre-game shows; I don't watch half-time shows; in fact, I don't watch many games. I love sports, but the TV industry that has made so much more sports available, has also made them almost "unwatchable."

Ken from Oak Brook, Ill.:
How can commentators predict a "physical" football game? When isn't a football game "physical" and what would a "non-physical" game look like?

Peter  from Laredo:
I totally agree with you on the sports announcers. A certain announcer who did Monday Night Football and whose initials are JM - okay last name is Madden - always states the obvious. During a game, he said about a team who was third and long that they need to either pass the ball or run with it to get the first down. He once said that 9, 8 or 7 yards won't get the first down, but 10 will. Like Bushisms, there should be a desk calendar on Maddenisms.

Bill from Pasadena, Texas:
Both Phil Simms and Fran "Talkingon" cause me to turn down the audio. That stops me from shouting "Will you shut up!" to my TV! Are they paid by the word?

Libby from Braintree, Mass.:
Since you're an "old English major," I suspect you've noticed the chronic misuse of pronouns by just about every sports announcer on the air today. "Every Oakland Raider wants their stats..." or "Tony Dungy told Joe and I..."

Jan. 26 | 10:15 p.m. ET

Bode Miller needs to learn the same lesson Terrell Owens has yet to pick up. He needs to learn to shut up.

I defended his right to be honest and not get beaten up because of on the occasion of his 60 Minutes interview in which he admitted to skiing while “wasted.” And I defend everyone’s right to say what they’re thinking.

But his latest screed, in an interview in Rolling Stone, does neither him nor his sport any good. In it, he flat-out says that Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong take performance-enhancing drugs.

Miller doesn’t like that, because he has said he’d like to do some chemicals, too. But he doesn’t want to have to sneak them. He’d prefer drug rules to be loosened so that he can cheat fairly.

I understand why he wants to be able to use drugs, and it’s not the same reason others want to. They want to cheat to win. He wants to cheat to go as fast as possible and ski the perfect race. He honestly doesn’t care who wins as long as he has a perfect run. He proves it frequently by refusing to ski safe to finish races and build up World Cup points. For him, it’s not the result, it’s the process.

But it’s still wrong. The problem with his approach is that if you allow drugs, then you are also virtually demanding that all athletes use them. You can’t compete against people who are taking artificial aids unless you take the same drugs. That means you are demanding that people who want to be clean risk damaging their bodies and shortening their lives if they want to compete.

If Miller or anyone else wants to die young, that’s their call. But you can’t ask the guy behind you in the starting gate to do the same.

If Miller were playing a team sport, I’d be talking about dumping him. He doesn’t, though. Skiing is as individual a sport as there is. It’s you against the mountain, and it doesn’t matter what others on your “team” think of you or what you think of them. The way he helps his team is by winning races. In sports like that, you keep the guys who can win races.

But he’s got to understand that free speech doesn’t come without a price. You can say whatever you like, but you also have to answer to it. Miller has also said he hates the intense media attention he’s getting as the Olympics — the only time casual sports fans notice skiing — draw near. Then he sits down with Mike Wallace and does an interview with Rolling Stone. Those aren’t necessarily good ways to go about showing how little you like the media.

In many ways, he’s a refreshing change from the bland modern athlete. But when he starts calling people cheats by name, he’s on real shaky ground. I suspect as a world-class athlete, he knows something about how people cheat. I also expect that he’s heard stories about Armstrong within the athletic community.

But there’s a little thing called proof. If Miller doesn’t like media attention, he’ll really be unhappy when he starts getting attention from libel lawyers. Not to mention the beating he’s going to take from fans of the athletes he’s accusing.

Plus, fans simply don’t want to hear about it. If you talk about the possible benefits of drugs, even in a rational and reasoned way, you may as well walk into a tornado. He doesn’t want attention, yet he says things guaranteed to make him the biggest story — and the biggest target — in the entire Olympics.

It’s already too late to save himself. The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Federation is going to have to take reservations for its news conference in Turin. I know I won’t miss it.

I don’t think that’s what Miller wants. But because he can’t shut up, it’s what he’s going to get.

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