I missed a good chunk of the night's coverage because I was watching "RuPaul's Drag Race" (I have priorities! Don't judge me!), but I was still able to catch parts of snowboard cross and pairs figure skating. And also: POLAR BEARS!

I believe snocross is a fairly new Olympic sport, combining snowboarding and racing. It seems like a particularly challenging sport to master - how do they keep their speed on the straightaways? - and the announcers last night literally said just finishing the course is an accomplishment in itself. I believe that. The gold-medal match featured two Americans, a Canadian, and a Frenchman, so we were guaranteed at least one medal. And it turned out to be gold, after Seth Wescott - who won gold in the same event in Torino four years ago - made a mad dash about halfway through the course to eclipse the other three racers that had left him far behind toward the beginning. He beat out Canadian Mike Robertson by mere inches at the finish line for another spectacular finish at these games.

As for pairs skating, I was torn. I love figure skating, and I love pairs skating in particular. I just think it's so freaking tough to pull off what they do singly, much less trying to do it at the same time as someone else. But I have to tell you, I am not a fan of this new scoring system. I just can't fathom how some of those couples were pulling in some of the scores they were getting, especially given how sloppy most of the performances were.

Basically, almost nobody was skating cleanly last night. Couple after couple got onto the ice and either fell - sometimes repeatedly - or had mistake after mistake. Even the gold-medal couple, China's Shen and Xue, had issues; she literally fell off his back in the middle of a lift! The commentators (god bless Scott Hamilton and Sandra Bezic, who I think do a terrific job in the announcer booth) even stated bluntly that if we're noticing more falls than before, it's because the new scoring system essentially encourages the skaters to pack their programs with more elements than they can realistically pull off, in the hopes that they'll land most of them and score points. I'm sorry, but that isn't what the Olympics are about. They're about showing off the best in the sport, masters of the craft. And when couple after couple takes to the ice and makes mistakes, it makes them all look bad. It makes the SPORT look bad.

I can recall Olympics, even national championships, where the medals were decided by the slightest of errors. Under-rotated spins, non-synch'd jumps, etc. This year, the silver medalist couple - Germany's Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy - had a huge fall (the man actually fell twice after the same jump); the bronze medalist team of Yuko Kavaguti and Alexander Smirnov (Russia) ran out of steam halfway through, looking sloppy and ungainly by the time they got to their linked spins. It all looked so messy, so unprofessional, and it made me think that the current crop of ice skaters are a far cry from skaters of the past.

I know that's not true. But there was a time, not that long ago, that falling during the Olympics meant that you were finished; that you had almost no chance at a medal. Now that is clearly not the case. And I don't understand that, especially when teams that skate cleanly (I thought the fifth-place Chinese team did an absolutely lovely job in comparison to the leaders) end up off the podium. The judges seem to be looking at something that the casual viewer is not, and at this point I don't even know who the performances are for anymore. The athletes? Because they're careening all over that ice like a bunch of pinballs. For the audience? I love a good spill or two to liven up the night, but not when every couple is biting it one after another. Who does this new system serve?

Tonight we move to the men's short program in figure skating, plus women's snowboard cross, more speed skating, the biathlon, alpine skiing, and more. And, of course, it's "American Idol," so I'll be missing at least a chunk of it. Ack.