SALT LAKE CITY – The Olympics are a wonderful soap opera for those who like their soaps wrapped up in under two weeks. From skating judges to ice hockey, the words fly and the press jumps all over them and runs with them for days.

The press does that because that is exactly the kind of dissension that makes soaps popular. A little human drama on the tube and you have the Olympic soaps.

Ice skating competition goes on all over the world year round. Judges are charged with corruption and unfairness and then the skaters and judges move on to the next event. Few ever hear about those quarrels because few really care anything about ice skating until the Olympics roll around.

Then all heck breaks loose and the system gets challenged, men in suits say they will investigate, and proposed changes are announced. Then the Olympics end and the skating world goes back behind the screen and the same old, same old goes on.

In ice hockey, teammates in the NHL become opponents, and, oh, it can get nasty.

Matt Sundin is from Sweden and plays for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Wayne Gretzky is Canadian. As the world has learned this week, he is a proud Canadian who is tired of the entire world licking their chops and hoping Team Canada leaves Salt Lake City without a medal. That’s how the Great One sees it, anyway.

Gretzky understands why Sundin was staring down Canadian fans after an Olympic game this week. At least that’s what Sundin saw.

“He [Sundin] has to read all those Canadian papers since he plays in Toronto and they are always talking about how hockey is Canada’s game and how the greatest players are from Canada. I can understand how he would get upset about that.”

Sundin thought he was playing for Sweden and that obligated him to play hard against the rest of the Olympic teams, including Canada. Therefore, Canadian fans weren’t his favorites for the moment. That will all end when the Olympics sign off, but what a tasty drama for a few days.

Then there are dudes on the half pipe. Three Americans came away with the medals in snowboarding and suddenly everyone on TV and in the press were talking and writing as though they couldn’t complete a sentence, just like the dudes.

One of the dudes said he didn’t realize all the attention he was going to get at the Olympics for winning a medal. He said he just came for the “beer and the babes.”

Everyone laughed and quoted the line. When the Olympics end and your kid comes home from school with the “beer and the babes” line I want to be there to see all the laughter and frivolity that will encompass the household.

Then there is the “sombrero rule” of travel. It goes like this: Don’t ever buy a sombrero when traveling.

The rule applies to all those stupid items you just have to have when you are in Tekee-Tekee land because the Tekee-Takers all wear them and they just look so cool; like sombreros.

Of course, when you get home from Tekee, the wooden sandals made from really good green wood and tied with really green bamboo shoots, are mostly rotten and don’t have a lot going for them in the snow.

That brings us to the Roots’ Olympic berets in Salt Lake City that people are standing in line for three hours to buy. Wait for the yard sales in the spring. The Olympics will be over then and so will the soap operas.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and NBC sportscaster.