Bizarre Olympic Moment - Day 15

Each day of the 2008 Olympics we're going to find a bizarre clip or story from a past Summer Olympics. Today we'll look at the 1956 Hungarian Water Polo Team.

The 1956 Melbourne Games are known for hosting one of the most infamous events in Olympic history.

The Hungarian water polo team was considered to be the best in the world. While training for the upcoming Summer Games in Melbourne an uprising against the Soviet rule began in Hungary. The team was moved to Czechoslovakia to complete their training away from the turmoil. When they finally arrived in Australia they learned that Russian troops and tanks rolled into Budapest and had brutally dealt with the uprisers. Many of the players realized it would be unlikely they would return back to Hungary at the conclusion of the Olympics.

Even with a war going on in their home country Hungary still decided to complete. They won their the opening rounds of the games which meant the team would play the Soviet team in the semi finals.

The Hungary-Russian water polo match has recently been compared by some media outlets to the recent Georgia-Russia beach volleyball match.

Comparing the volleyball contest to what the Hungarians went through it a bit of a joke by the media. Water polo is a contact sport for one. Also, the two Georgian volleyballers were born and raised in Brazil and have only been to Georgia twice. The volleyball match was something completely different than what happened in 1956.

The Hungarian water polo team thought this game would be a small way for them to regain some pride for their fellow countrymen:

"We felt we were playing not just for ourselves but for our whole country" said
Hungarian Ervin Zádor after the match

The was a physical affair right from the opening minutes with verbal barbs, kicks and punches being traded between the two teams. Hungarian Dezso Gyarmarti caught a Russian with a sucker punch, This helped to get the mostly Hungarian expatriate crowd into a frenzy.

With only a few minutes left, and Hungary winning 4-0, Russian Valentin Prokopov smashed Zador in the face with a massive right hook. The punch left a deep gash above his eye. When the crowd saw their star player with blood flowing down his face they nearly rioted. Zagor was forced to leave the game due to the injury causing many spectators to jump onto the pool deck and shout abuse and spit at the Russians.

Police calmed the crowd and with one minute remaining the game was called and Hungary was awarded the win.

Pictures of Zador leaving the pool with blood trickling down his face graced the sports pages of papers around the world. The media dubbed it the “Blood in the Water” match, although reports that the water turned a blood colour were an over-exaggeration.

Hungary won the gold medal match against Yugoslavia 2-1 to win their fourth Olympic Gold. After the Olympics, half of team defected to escape the turmoil that that been occuring in their homeland.

In 2006, the epic match had been made into a documentary. Freedom’s Fury that was produced by Lucy Liu and Quentin Tarantino and narrated by Mark Spitz. Here's the trailer:

(Information from this article was taken from Nation Master and Sports Illustrated)

Take a look at the 16 most bizarre Olympic moments in history:

Day 1 - Eric "The Eel" Moussambani
Day 2 - Betty Robinson
Day 3 - Sally Robbins
Day 4 - Abebe Bilkila
Day 5 - 1972 USA Basketball team
Day 6 - Bobby Pearce
Day 7 - Byun Jong-il
Day 8 - Stella Walsh
Day 9 - Spanish Paralympic Basketball Team
Day 10 - Ingeborg Marx
Day 11 - Vanderlei de Lima
Day 12 - Hans-Jurgen Todt
Day 13 - Liu Changchun
Day 14 - Dorando Pietri
Day 15 - 1956 Hungarian Water Polo Team
Day 16 - 1960 Tunisian Modern Pentathlon Team

Bizarre Olympic Moment - Day 14

Each day of the 2008 Olympics we're going to find a bizarre clip or story from a past Summer Olympics. Today we'll look at Italian Marathon Runner Dorando Pietri.

In 1896, at the first modern games in Athens, the showcase event was the marathon. The event was created to commemerate a historic moment in Greek history. In the 5th century BC, a man named Phidippides ran 39km from the battlefield back to Athens to declare victory and then dropped dead.

At the 1908 Olympics in London the marathon was extended to it's current length of 26 miles and 385 yards. The reason for the extension? The English wanted the race to start at Windsor Castle and end at White City Stadium which were 26 miles apart. The additional 385 yards was needed so the race would finish right in front of the King.

The favourite of the race, Canadian Tom Longboat, collapsed in the July heat at about the 20 mile mark. South African Charles Hefferon took the led and held it until he accepted a glass of victory champagne from a spectator. The alcohol made him sick and he was overtaken by Italian Dorando Pietri, a pastry chef by trade.

Pietri was in front at the 26 mile mark and was the first to enter the stadium. Four years ago, the race would have ended here but this year Pietri still had 385 yards to go. The Italian was severly dehydrated and started to head in the wrong direction until officials pointed him the right way. In the last 200 yards he collasped five times until, with the urging of the crowds, officials helped Pietri up and assisted him across the finish line.

Pietri won the gold but the American team lodged a protest. Pietri was eventually disqualifed for receiving illegal assistance and American Johnny Hayes was awarded the gold.

Pietri spent several days in hospital and nearly died. He became an international star and was awarded a silver cup by Princess Alexandra in honour of his achievement.

Take a look at the 16 most bizarre Olympic moments in history:

Day 1 - Eric "The Eel" Moussambani
Day 2 - Betty Robinson
Day 3 - Sally Robbins
Day 4 - Abebe Bilkila
Day 5 - 1972 USA Basketball team
Day 6 - Bobby Pearce
Day 7 - Byun Jong-il
Day 8 - Stella Walsh
Day 9 - Spanish Paralympic Basketball Team
Day 10 - Ingeborg Marx
Day 11 - Vanderlei de Lima
Day 12 - Hans-Jurgen Todt
Day 13 - Liu Changchun
Day 14 - Dorando Pietri
Day 15 - 1956 Hungarian Water Polo Team
Day 16 - 1960 Tunisian Modern Pentathlon Team

Our Date with Hockeywood...

Buon Giorno. Welcome to the Waikiki Hockey Ristorante.

Today we won't be deciding which tantalizing meal to have but instead which hockeywood power couple we would like to share that meal with.

We're not looking to see who is the best looking couple or who has the most money or power. We are trying to determine which hockeywood couple would be the most interesting to have a dinner conversation with. We are able to invite both current couples and couples from the past as we recently picked up a flux capacitor online.

We plan on visiting the ristorante once a week where we will take a closer look at another five couples ... so make sure you check back into Waikiki Hockey regularly to see who gets selected for our dinner date. Click here to see our second visit.

Let's get started ... in no particular order:

Tara Reid and Sergei Fedorov – Briefly dated in 2004
In 1999, Tara was a pretty big thing. She was one of the stars of the popular teen movies American Pie, Cruel Intentions and Van Wilder. Since then her star has faded. She’s been in a bunch of movies you have never heard of, did the odd guest spot in a sitcom and even got naked in public on more than one occasion ... classy!

Sergei’s career has tracked pretty closely with Reid’s. From 1990 to 1996 he was scoring at a point-a-game pace and was one of the biggest and most marketable stars in the league. His best season was in 1993-94 when he scored a massive 120 points. He has won the Stanley Cup three times and has been named to six All-Star teams. Since the lockout in 2004, Sergei’s star has also faded ... now a 50 point season would look good for Fedorov.

Dinner Potential: We would love to hear some stories from the Red Wings Stanley Cup runs but we would be worried about Tara's behaviour if we happened to order a bottle of wine.

Quality Quotient: 5 (her) + 8 (him) = 13 total

Mike Comrie and Hillary Duff – Currently engaged ... we think
Being a successful movie and music star gets Duff a few extra points as most stars usually embarrass themselves in one of the two areas. She’s been in 20 movies and 10 TV shows. When you also consider she has released three major studio albums it’s looking like Ms. Duff is a pretty big star. The only problem is all of her movies and albums a horrible… in Hillary's defense, we're probably not the target market for Lizzy McGuire and A Cinderella Story. Duff’s earnings in 2007 were over $15 million which goes a long way to help us overlook her movie and music choices.

Mike Comrie was selected 91st overall in the 1999 Entry Draft by the Edmonton Oilers. The WHL product quickly became a fan favourite in the Oil when he racked up 33 goals and 60 points in only his second season with the team. His status as fan favourite quickly changed when he decided to sit out the 2003-04 season in a contract dispute … a classic douchebag move. The Oilers eventually traded him to Philadelphia (after passing on a deal from the Ducks for Corey Perry and a 1st rounder... ouch!) but not before some Oiler fans started up a nasty rumour about Comrie. Since his days with the Oilers he has played for four teams over four years …which pretty sums up his value as an NHL player.

Dinner Potential: Things could get tense with Comrie if his Edmonton exit comes up but we would like to get some financial advice from a multi-millionaire.

Quality Quotient: 7 (her) + 4 (him) = 11 total

Sheldon Souray and Angelica Bridges – Currently married with two kids
Angelica has starred on Days of Our Lives, The Bold and the Beautiful and Baywatch ... she's a very gifted actress obviously. She has graced the pages of FHM several times and has been named to FHM’s '100 Sexiest Women' list in both 1998 and 2003. If that was not enough, she is also the lead ‘singer’ of the pop group Strawberry Blonde (click at own risk).

Souray looked like he was going to be a borderline NHL player. He was six seasons into his NHL career and had a career high of only 11 points in a season. In 2003-04, he got his career back on track with a solid 35 points in only 63 games. Souray really broke through in 2006-07 season when he scored 26 goals and an incredible 64 points for the Canadiens. He parleyed the fantastic season into a $27-million dollar five year deal with his favourite team as a kid, the Oilers (a deal that Edmonton has to be regretting after one injury filled season). The jury is still out whether Souray is a big time defender or if he was just a product of Montreal’s vaunted power play (see: Streit, Mark).

Dinner Potential: Since we've just opened up the Waikiki Hockey Ristorante we would like to get a bit of advice from Souray who owns a restaurant in Montreal with Martin Brodeur. Angelica would likely have a few good Hoff stories but she may want us to listen to her CD .. that's not worth the risk.

Quality Quotient: 3 (her) + 6 (him) = 9 total

Alyssa Milano and Wayne McBean – Dated from 1988 to 1990
We’re surprised that Alyssa has only dated one hockey player. She has no problem dating sports stars as she has been romantically linked to Brad Penny, Joba Chamberlain, Carl Pavano, Russell Martin and Barry Zito. Also, since she has designed a line of clothing for NHL.com, she must be a big hockey fan. In her days as Samantha on Who’s the Boss, she met and dated McBean when she was 16 and he was 19. In her post-Wayne years, she went on to star in the TV series Charmed and other than a few guest spots on sitcoms not much else.

McBean was a WHL star and won the Memorial Cup in 1987 and 1988. He was drafted fourth overall in the 1987 Entry Draft in what would amount to one of the bigger draft busts in history as McBean went on to score only 49 points in 211 games. His best season was in 1990-91 when scored a whopping 18 points for the Islanders.

Dinner Potential: Alyssa could answer a burning question we have always had: who really was the boss? On the other hand, we envisage lots of awkward silences with McBean … “What was your name again?”

Quality Quotient: 5 (her) + 1 (him) = 6 total

Tie Domi and Kelly Carlson - Dating since February 2008
Kelly is an actress who is best (only?) known for playing Kimber Henry on Nip/Tuck. We have never seen the show and have no real desire to. Not a good sign for Kelly Carlson being invited to dinner.

Domi is one of Waikiki Hockey’s least favourite players. We took great pleasure in seeing Bob Probert pound Domi to bits in the 90’s. We will try to be impartial here, but with Domi it’s very hard for us. Domi played over 1,000 games and racked up 3,500 penalty minutes. We won’t even bother telling you what his point totals were because that’s not what he got paid for. He may be a jerk, a thug and a dick but he’s definitely got some good stories to tell after his long career. Unfortunately he can't remember any of them after taking so many shots to that gigantic melon shaped head of his.

Dinner Potential: Physical harm may come to us when our dinner conversation exposes our anti-Domi bias.

Quality Quotient: 1 (her) + 4 (him) = 5 total

Tia Carrere and Tie Domi - Briefly dated in 2006 (while Domi was married)
With starring roles in classic films like Wayne’s World and True Lies, Carrere was a pretty big star in the mid-90’s. Since then things have tapered off a bit for Tia. She starred in the lead role of the TV show Relic Hunter and a lot of movies most of us have never heard of.

Dinner Potential: Tia grew up in Hawaii and spent part of her life in Waikiki so we here at Waikiki Hockey would have a great conversation starter. Tia would always be welcome at our ristorante but we’re still a bit leery about inviting Domi in the door.

Quality Quotient: 6 (her) + 4 (him) = 10 total

Check out what couples we discussed in our second visit to the Ristorante.

The Kipper Kid...

Brendan Peters is 11 years old and a big Calgary Flames fan. He also has a parent who has too many dollars and not enough sense. You see, Brendan dresses up as Mikka Kiprusoff and impersonates the real Kipper's every move at Flames home games:

We're pretty manly here at Waikiki Hockey but we'll put our tough guy facade aside for a second and admit that little Brendan looks pretty cute doing his routine.

The point that the announcers raise at the end of the clip is a good one ... this kid is either going to turn out to be a massive fan or a stalker (That link really scares us, by the way)

There are been a lot of careers ruined between the posts (right) and we've seen unemployeed goalies going through some tough times ... so things are looking rough for Peters future.

In the short term, Brendan has become a bit of a celebrity. He's been featured on many local and national sport shows and was even invited to come and accept an award on Kiprosoff's behalf at the 2008 NHL Awards:

Let's just hope for Brendan's sake he doesn't wear a full set of goalie equipment to the games when he's a fully grown man ... that would be pathetic:

We hope Brendan's dad saw that clip