"I can't believe that they're taking a chunk of history, especially when we're hosting it in our country," said Hockey Canada president Bob Nicholson. "They're putting Team Canada at a disadvantage in its own country.

FIGURE SKATING: The most marquee of marquee events at the Winter Games lately has been figure skating, most specifically the women's singles. A possible leading indicator of the results occurred at the recently-completed Skate America competition, held in a country that has appeared on the medal stand every cycle since 1948 and has claimed three of the past five gold medals thanks to Kristi Yamaguchi, Tara Lipinski and Sarah Hughes. But in Everett, Washington, the United States was blown out, with South Korea's Kim Yu-Na dominating the competition and Japan claimed the other two podium positions. Kim, the 2006 world junior champion looks like the early favorite for 2010, and would be the first medalist for her country in the sport. Here's her short program from the 2007 world championships.

SPEED SKATING: Two weekends ago, a World Cup short-track event that helped break in the venue that will host that competition in 2010 -- the first test event of the Vancouver runup. Canadians used the home-ice advantage to win eight medals -- since the sport debuted in 1994, Canada has claimed 20 Olympic medals, tied with China behind powerful South Korea (29, 17 gold). American five-time medalist Apolo Anton Ohno, perhaps the world's most popular short-tracker, was bumped around and edged out in the 1000m final by Canadian Charles Hamelin.

SOFTBALL: Two stick-and-ball sports that are popular in the United States but few other areas, baseball and softball, were eliminated from the Games' program and won't appear in 2012. But with two open spots that will be filled when the IOC meets in Copenhagen next summer, softball is lobbying for re-entry against golf, karate, sevens rugby, squash and roller sports. Its strategy, slowly being rolled out with its members, is to completely break its ties with baseball.

“This move will prevent some of the confusion that exists surrounding softball’s links with other sports,” ISF president Don Porter said in a statement Thursday, adding that all members should be independent within two years. “We’re confident that all our national federations are strong enough to stand on their own.”

In Lausanne, the capital of the Olympic Movement, IOC president Jacques Rogge is going about his campaign for a second term (an uncontested one), and in a press conference last week announced that the continued pursuit of doping cheats will be his top priority when re-elected next summer in Copenhagen to serve through the Sochi 2014 Winter Games. He also claimed that the governing body's finances are solid, despite a worldwide credit crunch that has affected plans for both Sochi and London 2012. But he was cautious to claim smooth sailing for the IOC. “It would be naive and shortsighted to say that nothing will happen. Yes, the situation is so volatile that it is too soon to draw conclusions,” he said.

Rogge noted that the Vancouver 2010 financial situation looked sound, helped in large part by strong early ticket sales. Expensive VIP packages being sold in the campaign's first phase are sold out,

In the city where the following Winter Games will be held, Sochi, Russia, mayor Vladimir Afanasenkov has resigned. The reason has nothing to do with the preparations or the associated financial trouble, he is leaving office due to health problems. Dzhambulat Khatuov, formerly mayor of the neighboring town of Armavir, will take over -- he may be the one who accepts the Olympic flag in 2010 at the Closing Ceremony.

No weekly update would be complete with some drug news, but this is a more positive development. As a followup from an earlier story, the 300 tests from Beijing 2008 that had been reported missing by the World Anti-Doping Agency were located, and all were negative. The lab temporarily lost them.

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