American Hannah Teter said her gold medal winning performance in the halfpipe was "sick."

The Associated Press 2006

Other articles by Tom Archdeacon:

After 2 snubs by China, U.S. player on verge of Olympic dream Candrea redirects his focus on games Heated times call for cooler heads

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TURIN, Italy — Here are some of things I'll bring home with me from the Winter Games of Turin:

● Best Olympic performance: That was by Norwegian cross country coach Bjornar Hakensmoen, who cost his team a medal in his country's most important sport and yet won the admiration of people around the world and especially from many people back home.

Here's what happened. Canadian Sara Renner was out in front in the third lap of six-lap sprint relay when her ski pole snapped. Suddenly she was floundering around like a goose with a broken wing and it wasn't long before a Finn passed her, then a Swede and a Norwegian.

As she came stumbling past, Hakensmoen didn't think about medals or nations, just about what was the right thing to do. And that's when he tossed her his ski pole.

It helped her regain race form and Canada ended up winning silver behind the Swedes.

And the Norwegians? They finished fourth.

"Nobody in Norway has said anything bad to me," Hakensmoen said. "They expect me to do that. Yes, cross country is very big in Norway, but winning is not everything. If you win but don't help somebody when you should have, what win is that?"

● Lucky He's Not Dead Award: Italian ice dancer Maurizio Margaglio got the kind of stare-down here that every man who's ever really ticked off a woman has gotten.

Margaglio and partner Barbara Fusar were in first place in the ice dancing competition and just about to finish their flawless routine in front of the adoring home fans when he lost his balance and the pair went sprawling onto the ice.

Fusar got up and, standing just inches from Margaglio — who had stumbled and caused them to fall at the Salt Lake Games in 2002, as well — gave him a minute-long glare that could have melted the ice.

As the Italian newspaper La Repubblica described it: "Barbara, with horror in her stare, an emptiness inside, would have shot him immediately if she had a pistol."

● Favorite winner: For me, hands down, it was the irrepressible 18-year-old snowboarder Hannah Teter, who's like the reincarnation of Spicoli, Sean Penn's goofball character in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High."

Teter was "stoked."

That's how her dad, Jeff, the former hippie who now makes maple syrup, described her effort.

"Sick" is what Teter and her brother Amen shouted in unison as they high-fived after she won gold in the women's halfpipe.

"On the last run I wanted to totally represent my brothers," Teter grinned. "For fam! It's the syrup!"

On how the medal might change her life, she thought maybe she'd get her teeth whitened or buy a boat.

As for the medal itself, she planned to "staple it to the wall."

● Best fans: Nobody matches the Dutch skating fans — dressed from fright-wigged heads to toes in orange, except those dressed as 6-foot tulips or those in tall, windmill hats — who packed the Oval Lingotto speedskating venue night after night and turned every competition into a raucous party.

They raised mugs of beer, cheered like mad and sang along with their very own band, an 11-piece oom-pa-pa bunch that wore wooden shoes and had the name Kleintje Pils, or "Small Beers."

"They cheer louder for their own skaters, but they still cheer for everyone," said Canada's Cindy Klassen.