Juventus UNO!

There ought to be a designation for Olympic time, similar to the saying “dog years.” In “Olympic Days” there is so much that is compacted into 24 hours that you believe a week has gone by since breakfast. Today I was at the TOROC (Torino Organizing Committee) offices to secure an all-venue parking pass, at our hospitality office to pick up IOC credential cards, at our ticketing office to place an order for a few more event tickets, at the Piazza Solferino for a walk through of our activation area with the Coca-Cola GM of the Olympic Team and back to the hotel for hours of email and phone calls to reporters in Norway and the Netherlands.

So it was a nice break when around 8 p.m. I finally left the hotel with a colleague to have dinner with an NBC correspondent. We walked only a block from the hotel and decided to have a bite at a bar that billed itself as an Irish pub. (Yes two straight days of pasta and you will crave something different). Plus both dinner partners were smokers and the sign outside indicating a special smokers section caught their attention.

So here we are in the Peidmont region of Italy sitting in a place that for all purposes could double as the “Hand in Hand” Irish pub in Virginia-Highlands. Heavy oaken tables, upholstered bar stools and beers on tap like Caffreys, McLendon’s Stout and Guiness. Yet the clientele was pure Italian this night because all the flat-panel TV screens were tuned into a football match (soccer to the Yanks) pitting the storied local team Juventus against rival Roma.

The whole experience was a strange mis-mash of world cultures. Our Italian waiter, for some strange reason (given this was an Irish pub), spoke in Australian lingo ending every response with “no worries, mate.” And the NBC correspondent with us was an Austrian, whose day job was background research for all downhill ski events. He explained to us the intricacies of the Super-G and the history of the Austrian ski racer Herman Mier. On the TV’s the Juventus-Roma match blared away in Italian. To me it was a string of vowels punctuated by the names of players who were controlling the ball…”Perotta! Mancini! Tebaldi!”

When he brought the check our waiter reminded us that we should come back on Sunday night for a Super Bowl party. They plan on staying open until 4:30 a.m. so that American football fans can see the game. Hmmm.

Just then a frantic score in the game caused the whole bar to erupt in cheers as the announcers shouted “Juventus UNO!” How will the Super Bowl top that?