MICHAELS' RETURN: Negotiating a new contract with ABC in 1992, Al Michaels had it included in his deal that he would replace Jim McKay as host of the Olympics. After all, ABC usually telecast the Olympics and was confident it would win rights to the 1996 Atlanta Games.

Instead NBC won those games, and every subsequent one except the 1998 Nagano Games, which were televised by CBS. It was a dream unfulfilled for the veteran broadcaster.

Now that he's at NBC, Michaels is back at the Olympics for the first time since 1988. Bob Costas is entrenched as the network's face of the games, but Michaels has been hosting daytime coverage.

"I really missed it at first and I never thought I'd have a chance to do one again," Michaels said.

The Vancouver Games mark the 30th anniversary of his career's signature moment: announcing the United States' epic upset of the Soviet Union in ice hockey at Lake Placid. Michaels' call as the final seconds ticked away - "Do you believe in miracles?" - is burned into history.

His question was hardly premeditated. He recalls walking to the arena with broadcasting partner Ken Dryden and saying that he hoped the score was close enough - say, 3-1 Soviets in the second period - that ABC didn't lose its audience. No one thought the U.S. had a chance.

During the intense final seconds, the puck was sent out to center ice, giving Michaels the moment to blurt out the call. If you'd asked him a few hours later, Michaels said, he probably would not have remembered what he said. Instead, it became the everlasting lyric to the story authored by the American team.

There are many moments for which people remember exactly where they were - the Sept. 11 attacks, Pearl Harbor, President Kennedy's assassination. Here was one, Michaels said, that was positive.

"To be associated with that is tremendous," he said on Monday. "I never tire of it."

HIGHLIGHT: NBC's lack of ego in airing a report from Canadian television about moguls skier Alexandre Bilodeau and his older brother Frederic, who suffers from cerebral palsy. Hard to believe, but some in TV are unwilling to recognize good work by others. Not only did NBC feature the report, it showed the emotional ceremony where Bilodeau was given the first gold medal won by a Canadian on Canadian soil.

LOWLIGHT: Little too much caffeine for Alpine skiing analyst Todd Brooker. He said Swiss downhill skier Didier Cuche, competing with a broken thumb, "can be in a body cast and he'd still be in this race." He should also take care to clearly point out the technical trickery that allows NBC to show two competing skiers go down the mountain side by side, because some people believe that's a real picture.

BODE MILLER, PART TWO: Ever run into someone you loved passionately a few years after they burned you? The old lover may be perfectly nice, may even have matured, but you're going to keep him at arm's length. That's what NBC's treatment of downhill skier Bode Miller feels like. The network hyped him four years ago, and Miller was a disappointment, and NBC won't make the same mistake again. Listen to Cris Collinsworth's condescension after Miller won a bronze medal Monday: "He showed some of the passion we didn't see in Torino ... You're wearing the red, white and blue, you've got to at least care. And he showed that he did care today."

QUOTE: "These athletes prepare their whole lives for this one moment in time. The crew needs to do the same." - an annoyed speed skating analyst Dan Jansen, after trouble fixing ice conditions delayed races past prime-time.

RATINGS: Sunday night's telecast, the first of several nights with the marquee sport of figure skating, was seen by an average of 26.4 million people, according to the Nielsen Co.

Competition has yet to make a dent in NBC's dominance. The Olympics telecast beat what was on ABC, CBS and Fox combined, even those networks aired some first-run programming. Through three nights, the household rating for NBC's prime-time coverage was running 16 percent above the 2006 Games in Turin, Italy.