Looking back at what was Sochi 2014

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Pete Makarov, Editor in Chief - Online

Does anyone else find it a little fishy that the Russians won the medal count at the 2014 Winter Olympics? With Putin having high hopes for his countrymen and himself, I wonder if he happened to pull some strings with the committee or with the judges?

Anyways, this year’s Winter Olympics was filled with, well, events that people did not know were considered a sport. You are telling me that Nordic skiing wasn’t good enough? We had to give these athletes a gun? I guess the committee is trying to do anything to get people to watch.

Sochi 2014 cost $51 million and no, that money did not go toward the Russian army. There were 12 new events that debuted at Sochi and 2,850 of the world’s finest Olympic athletes competed.

Yes, these are the best in the world doing their sports, but watching figure skating, figure skating dancing, and speed skating really just does not do it for me. The fact that NBC averaged 21.4 million viewers really does not surprise me because millions of people are always need background noise. Those numbers are lower than the Winter Olympics that were in Vancouver.

That must mean some people didn’t know the Olympics were going on, or some just don’t care about the Winter Olympics.

Let’s be honest here, the Summer Olympics are better because they are sports we actually know and can relate to. Plus there are story lines. Oh, some Norwegian who is forty something and won the most medals ever. No one knows about this guy or what he did. Everyone knows about Bolt and Phelps and what they do. You see my point here?

Many did not know when the opening ceremony was on television. And if they did, they saw the miscue that took place with the ring. The opening ceremonies cracked me up. The Russians should have done the rise and fall of the USSR, then people would actually watch and enjoy it.

Okay, Russia did do a good job with hosting the Olympics, I mean teams made it back home just fine and no one was killed or sent to Siberia… well at least for all we know.

Let’s talk hockey. Really Russia? You cannot get to a medal game? You have some the best hockey players in the world and a president who wants to win more than I want to shave ex-Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev’s eyebrows.

It is games like the USA vs. Russia game when I wish Russia was still Communist or that the Cold War was still going on. Of course NBC had  to make it seem like that.  Got to love their passion, I guess. You would think  TJ Oshie won us freedom  from the Red Army or something after that game. I did not mind though; Minnesota got some recognition in front of the world.

Now that there are actual shows to watch on NBC, Sochi 2014 will go down like the rest of them: just another Winter Games. 2018 is in South Korea if Kim Jong-un  does not kill off his own people by then. If that is the case then the games will be held in Korea.

Until next time.