PASADENA, Calif. — Stephen Colbert: Olympic saviour or jerk?

For some, it's the burning Olympic issue of the day, little more than a month before the Winter Games are underway in Vancouver.

For others, it's a welcome distraction in a Winter Olympics that, for many television viewers in the United States, revolves around peculiar sports like the biathlon, skeleton and short-track speedskating.

In an uneven, seemingly disembodied news conference via satellite with reporters Sunday at the winter meeting of the TV Critics Association, NBC Olympic veterans Bob Costas, Al Michaels, Mary Carillo and NBC Universal Sports & Olympics chairman Dick Ebersol laid out their plans for the network's coverage of the Winter Olympics for a U.S. audience.

The news conference was oddly subdued and predictable — the Games will look spectacular in high-definition video; Carillo is happy with Vancouver's TV-friendly time zone, etc. — until a reporter from Canwest News Service raised the spectre of Colbert.

The late-night funnyman, host of the Emmy Award winning satirical news program The Colbert Report, has publicly adopted the U.S. speedskating team as his personal mascot after Dutch bank DSB — the team's primary sponsor — went bankrupt. Colbert has helped raised funds for the team on his Colbert Nation website, and was the focus of a recent Sports Illustrated cover story emblazoned with the heading "Stephen Colbert saves the Olympics."

Colbert has indulged in a litany of tongue-in-cheek Canada-bashing on The Colbert Report, dubbing Canucks "syrup suckers" and playfully accusing Vancouver Olympic skating officials of playing fast-and-loose with the rules and the concept of fair play.

Colbert's lively sense of fun didn't sit well with U.S. speedskating star Shani Davis, who has been training at the Olympic speed-skating venue in Calgary, site of the 1988 Winter Games. Davis, asked last month for his take on the mock pundit's roughshod treatment of Canada and Canadians in particular, famously replied: "He's a jerk," then added, "You can put that in the paper."

Saviour or jerk, which is it?

"He is not a jerk," Costas said, with a straight face. "He's a genius."

Costa has been an occasional guest on The Colbert Report in the past, where he learned to appreciate the cut and thrust of Colbert's candour in conversation. The truth can hurt, and so can truthiness.

"I've long been a fan," Costas said. "I don't know that the Olympics needs saving but it certainly gets a boost from Stephen Colbert. Shani Davis is mistaken."

Carillo described Davis as a speed-skating phenomenon, but Colbert is "hilarious," she said. "I cannot imagine our friends up north taking anything he says too seriously."

"Remember," Costas added, deadpan. "Speedskating lacked the requisite trash talk that distinguishes most modern sports, until Stephen came along."

Ebersol, NBC's Olympic chairman and executive producer since 1998, credited Colbert's business acumen and sense of timing.

"I think he has the most astute marketing mind on the entire planet," Ebersol said.

"He didn't put up a dime of his own money. He pledged he would raise more than $300,000 to erase the deficit of the U.S. Speedskating Association. It's a great marketing opportunity, and God bless them. I hope they run with it all through the Games.

"As a matter of fact, I'm a guest on Colbert next week."

Better bring his wallet, then. U.S. cash only, please. None of that Canadian funny money. Colbert — the mock-pundit Colbert and not the real Colbert — wouldn't stand for it.

The Olympics air Feb. 12 to Feb. 28 on NBC in the U.S., and on CTV and TSN in Canada.