Evan Lysacek will skate Thursday night for a chance at Olympic gold. Perhaps he should summon the swagger of his look-alike, Don Draper from AMC's "Mad Men." One thing is for sure: Draper (played by Jon Hamm) would never allow his opponent to talk smack about his skating.

For French skier Marion Rolland, a lifetime of training and four years of anticipation led to five seconds of skiing in the women's downhill at the Vancouver Olympics.

One shouldn't laugh at the collapse of an Olympic dream, but when it's this funny, one doesn't have a choice:

It was the first Olympic appearance for Rolland, who finished fifth in last year's world championships and is currently seventh in the World Cup downhill standings. She injured her knee on the run and is questionable for the super-G.

Goals. The U.S. needs them. Norway seems to give them away like free candy, based on its game against the Canadians.

A few things to watch for in Thursday's Olympic men's preliminary game between the U.S. and Norway. The top line of Patrick Kane/Paul Stastny/Zach Parise needs to get rolling for the U.S. after having pretty much one good shift in its win over Switzerland. The U.S. defense needs to cut down on the number of odd-man rushes it surrendered against the Swiss.

As for the Norge, watch for starting goalie Pal Grotnes, who had a very strong first period against Canada before it remembered it was Canada.

The game begins at 3 p.m. EST/noon PST. Please join yours truly and the usual gang of knuckleheads from Yahoo! Sports' Puck Daddy hockey blog and Fourth-Place Medal Olympic blog for complete coverage. Tell a friend, and as always, bring the funny.

Vera Wang's name is synonymous with wedding dresses, but she is just as likely to have designed a gorgeous ice-skating costume. Her latest creations are worn by U.S. skater Evan Lysacek, who will skate for gold during tonight's men's free skate.

Wang, once an elite skater herself (who still takes to the ice), worked with Lysacek to make his costumes for both his long and short programs this season. She was impressed with Lysacek's line and how that could be enhanced by simple clothing with thoughtful embellishment.

"He has a beautiful line and he's learned to use that line and I think he was very conscious of me wanting to preserve that line." The costumes for both programs are black, "a sleek and sexy color," [Lysacek] says. "It was exciting and really cool that she took so much interest and really took pride in this project and took it on full steam."

Lysacek's costumes make him stand out from his competitors. The other men in the top three after the short program, Russia's Evgeni

The Hockey Story sets the scene and the storylines for the day's Olympic ice hockey action, in a handy and easy-to-follow numerical format.

1. Oh no, it's the Swiss again.

Thursday is the fourth anniversary of Canada's epic 2-0 defeat at the hands of goalie Martin Gerber and Switzerland in Torino. The players are well aware of it, and aware that the goalie for this current Swiss team, Jonas Hiller of the Anaheim Ducks, is quite capable of a Gerber'ing. Canada needs to crash the net as well as the Americans did against the Swiss and never give this team a sniff of an upset in their preliminary game (7:30 p.m. EST; U.S. TV: CNBC, joined in progress at some point). Martin Brodeur gets the start for Canada.

2. USA sets its goals on goals.

Norway has become the broken ATM of the Olympic tournament: Kick it, and watch the riches flow freely. Canada grabbed eight goals from the Norwegians in the opener. The U.S. is seeking some serious offensive momentum heading into Sunday's showdown with

Wednesday was one of the best days in history for American Olympians. For American Idols, not so much.

NBC's coverage of the Winter Games handily defeated Fox's 9 p.m. Wednesday airing of "American Idol," the first time the talent show juggernaut has been bested in its 222-episode run. An estimated 29.4 million viewers saw the United States win an unprecedented three gold medals (and six overall) in speedskating, downhill skiing and snowboarding. That was 11 million more viewers than watched the final Hollywood round of "Idol."

Thus far, ratings for Vancouver are outpacing those from the 2006 Turin Olympics. Could it be that the critics are wrong and NBC, gasp, knows what it's doing by refusing to air live coverage of some events during the day and holding back all live coverage from the West Coast? Nah.

The peacock network should expect another big night Thursday, when men's figure skating and Lindsey Vonn's second attempt at gold will dominate coverage.

The Olympics are a prime target for culture jamming, since the IOC and organizing committees tend to be kind of arrogant and zealous about image control.

It almost invites a really futile and stupid gesture. And Olympic Jesus, as he's come to be known, was just the one to do it, lighting a marijuana cigarette off the torch. The video has gone viral.

Cue Andy Bernard: "Saboteur! Saboteur!" The working-class hero explained himself thusly in comment thread with the video:

"I was trying to steal the fire like Prometheus & return it to the mortals. And also light a doobie with the flame for super irony."

Well, at some point it seemed like a good idea.

Does Remarkable Swag sound familiar? It should. It's Fourth-Place Medal's remix of Ball Don't Lie's Phenomenal Swag. See anything noteworthy? Let us know.

Wednesday night Lindsey Vonn took the victory podium sporting that knit hat she's been wearing all around Vancouver. Wednesday night, you could have owned your own version of that hat. Not anymore.

Less than 12 hours after the hat was revealed to be a Ralph Lauren boys cap with matching mittens, it has sold out. That was quick.

The funny thing is, the hat had been available on the Ralph Lauren site for a while, even late Wednesday. Back when the Opening Ceremony outfits were unveiled, the label released an entire line of Winter Olympics gear. Apparently no one checked out the boys section.

But once Vonn won the gold, the chances of getting one of the $95 hats grew slim.

They're sure to be available again soon, though, whether through eBay or another release of the hat-and-gloves set. And when they are, you can be sure that