The Olympics in South Korea. What Could Go Wrong?

Pyeongchang, the host for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games, is in a mountainous region near the eastern coast of South Korea.  It is 110 miles southeast of the national capital of Seoul (which hosted the 1988 Summer Games), takes two hours by train to get there, and is 15 hours ahead of the United States.  Seoul itself is not far from the North Korean border, where a state of war has been frozen in place since the fighting stopped in 1953.

Tensions have been ratcheted to the point where North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has all but promised to not only invade its southern neighbor, but to launch nuclear weapons on Japan and the United States (We don't need to tell you how much President Donald Trump is not helping the situation).  But in a rare gesture of making nice with the enemy, Kim has decided to send some of his athletes to compete with the South as a unified team.  After the Olympics, of course, they'll go their separate ways.

Athletes from all over the world are coming to Pyeongchang, but Russia will not.  At least not officially.  The International Olympic Committee banned them from the Winter Games for violations of their anti-doping program.  But 168 Russian athletes (at last count) are coming anyway as members of Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR), minus their own flag and national anthem.  And 28 more might come because their bans were overturned in court for lack of evidence.  Of course, there's this burning question:  If Russian President Vladimir Putin could influence an American presidential election, what could he possibly do with Olympic results?

Players from the National Hockey League aren't here, either.  The NHL didn't want to shut down their regular season just so they could travel thousands of miles to risk their stars getting injured, or try to interest a country that's not interested in ice hockey.  So the men's tournament will go on with college kids and minor leaguers making up the rosters, bringing the quality of play down to 1992 levels.  Or you can watch the women's tournament instead, where you can expect Canada and the United States to compete for gold once more.

NBC and its family of networks will broadcast hundreds of hours of these Olympics.  What's different this time is that Mike Tirico has replaced Bob Costas as host of the prime time coverage, which will now be seen live coast to coast.  What won't change is the way NBC sees the Olympics, which is more like an extended version of the "Today" show with a dash of "This Is Us" thrown in.  What frustrates viewers is that, with all the feel-good profiles and other trivia, you never get the sense that you're watching an event.  Instead, you're just watching a typical prime time TV show geared toward women, which advertisers covet

For the next two weeks, the athletes will be taking center stage in the mountains of South Korea, winning medals, hearts and endorsement deals.  But there's always the chance of an interloper to ruin things, be it someone who's faked a clean drug test or a drone attack from the North.  The world is watching.  Be on your best behavior.  And have a good time.