Rock On

Snow country

The numbers are in, and the numbers say if you absolutely, positively can't exist without short track speedskating (ski jumping, figure skating, hockey, etc.), you live in the Frozen North.

NBC released its Olympic ratings, Friday, and through the first 14 days, all but one of the seven markets that drew the highest percentage of viewers were snow cities.

First on the list: Salt Lake City, which drew a 22.2 rating and a 37 share.

Other markets, in order, were Denver, Milwaukee, Seattle (technically not a snow city, but it's next door to Vancouver), Minneapolis, St. Louis and Columbus.

Which raises a couple of questions.

First, did hosting the Games in Salt Lake turn us all into card-carrying curling geeks? Answer: We were already geeks; we just added curling.

And second, since they apparently weren't watching the Games in Buffalo, what were they watching?

Waffle maker

These are real headlines that ran in the Deseret News in the last year:

"Boozer keeps trade rumors swirling with Miami his latest love," "Boozer says he doesn't plan to return to Jazz," "Carlos Boozer says he may stay with the team," "Boozer happy to be in camp, Jazz happy to have him" and just the other day, "Boozer wants to stay with Jazz."

Coming soon to a newspaper near you: "Boozer replaces Brett Favre as waffler in Sears Blue Crew commercials."

Mad men

I thought I'd surprise my wife, last Saturday night, with tickets to Pioneer Memorial Theater's production of "Twelve Angry Men."

When I told her, she said, "Wait. Is this about the BYU basketball team?"

Gloomy returns

Meanwhile, the Utes used last Saturday's game to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Huntsman Center.

Interesting side note: Merrill Cook, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, has been running for office 26 of the 40 years the Huntsman Center has existed. So far his election score: Cook 2, Opponents 10.

Which brings up a tantalizing trivia question: Which is lower, Cook's election rate or Jace Tavita's 3-point field goal percentage?

Tasting success

BYU guard Michael Lloyd was munching a candy bar on the sidelines when called into action, Saturday against New Mexico. He ended up having the game of his career, coming off the bench to notch 19 points on 8-of-9 shooting.

No word on which candy bar he was eating, but here's guessing it was a Skor.

e-mail: rock@desnews.com