Friday Link Heptathalon; Space Olympics Cancelled

Yeah, that's what I'm calling it from here on out, unless I get a better idea.  Seven seems like a nice number, so seven links you shall get every Friday for your edification.  Read 'em, get better informed, etc, etc.  Also, I'm going to try and incorporate a video or two each Friday, as well.  Some informative, most funny, many will involve women's gymnastics.  Anyway, onto the links:

1. The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) has announced that Sochi 2014 will use the international rink dimensions, as a opposed to the smaller, NHL-sized surface that was used in Vancouver in 2010.   The international rink is roughly 200 ft x 100 ft, as opposed to the NHL rink, which is 200 x 85.  Historically, the international surface is used in, well, international events and Vancouver 2010 is the first Olympics I'm aware of that used the smaller surface; even Salt Lake City 2002 used the international dimensions.  The IIHF also announced that, logically, the international size will remain the standard in Europe, while the NHL rink will be used even for international competition in North America.  Ultimately, as anyone who watched the 2010 hockey tournament (my favorite sporting event, ever) knows, the dimensions don't matter so much when the world's greatest players are on display.
2. RIA-Novosti interviews Orietta Moscatelli, New Europe Project Chief at the Apcom Press Agency, about the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.   RIA is affiliated with Apcom, so fyi on that. 
3. Duncan Mackay at insidethegames.biz reports that Kommersant was awarded the  "Sochi 2014 official supplier in the printed media category."  Kommersant is owned by Alisher Usmanov, who also has a stake in Arsenal and Facebook and is ungodly rich, and provides the newspaper the right to use Olympic symbols, publish special Olympic editions (not Special Olympics editions), etc.  
4. Not gay Figure Skating gold medalist Evan Lysacek talks on video about what he's been up to, getting ready for Sochi and his relationship with all-around gold medalist Nastya Liukin.
5. Russian airline Aeroflot dropped over $2 billion on eight new Boeing planes, part of a larger order as the company gears up for what it hopes will be increased international travel as 2014 draws closer.
6. The Boston Globe reports that ski jumping is set to go co-ed for Sochi.  In case you somehow didn't know (and how wouldn't you???), women were shut out of ski jumping at Vancouver, with the IOC contending that there simply wasn't enough depth and geographical diversity to justify adding the women to the program.  That situation, apparently, has changed, and the IOC is expected to approve the program shortly.  The only other event that is only for men?  Why, that'd be nordic combined (ski jumping and cross-country skiing).  No doubt because it might affect women's abilities to have children.
7. Those of you who were hoping to compete in space swords, space disk or space luge, I gots bad news.  The Space Olympics have been totally cancelled.

Olympic Torch in Space?

Lighter note today, as numerous media outlets reported that Russia was maybe, possibly, thinking about considering a plan to send the Olympic torch to the International Space Station as part of its trip around the world in the run-up to the 2014 Olympics.  The deputy head of Russia's Federal Space Agency, Vitaly Davidov, has said that the idea is "theoretically possible."  In the understatement of the year: 

"The idea itself is very interesting and, in theory, could be implemented. But ways of its realization must be studied painstakingly," Davydov said. "Frankly speaking, we have not studied possibilities to deliver [the] Olympic flame to the ISS. This is a very specific issue. Naked flame onboard the space station is prohibited for safety reasons," he added.

Unfortunately, I can already report that "tradition prevented Russia from taking the novel step of lighting the torch in space from sunbeams."  I don't even really have a joke here for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that this story kind of stands on its own.  But close your eyes and imagine an open flame in a space shuttle for days on end.  Then hit yourself in the head for even thinking about it.

Of course, I guess it's no more or less silly than projecting and evaluating Russia's 2014 hockey roster in February.  Of 2011.