Is anyone in Decatur County watching the Winter Olympics?
As patriotic as this town is, I’d expect to hear more buzz. The U.S. has more medals than any other country, sitting on a nice pile of nine gold, six silvers and 11 bronzes.
Behind us is Russia with 25 medals and Canada at 24. The competition is close, but our boys and girls over in Sochi, Russia will bring home the good stuff for our country, no matter what. We ought to be thrilled with their performances.
We have the best freestyle skiers, slopestyle snowboarders and mixed ice dancers in the world. If things keep running the way they are now, we’ll have the best hockey players.
Sadly, the women’s hockey team lost 3-2 to Canada for the gold medal Thursday night. The ladies in red, white and blue had their opponents beat, but let the win slip through their fingers in the end.
The men’s hockey team saw a similar loss to Canada in the semifinals. Friday, I was staring at my computer screen watching the clock wind down, praying that the U.S. slaps the puck in Canada’s goal. Canada ended up winning 1-0. I wish I could’ve watched the game on a live stream instead of hitting refresh on the scoreboard every 10 seconds. I’m sure we’ll see footage of the match eventually, and I’m sure we’ll see our boys working hard, but coming just short.
The Olympics comes only once every four years. Some of these men and women will never get a shot at redemption against the Canadian hockey teams, which is disappointing. The finality of these competitions is a good source of motivation for many of these athletes. It’s now or never. Get the job done, or go home with nothing.
Even though the men and women hockey teams both lost to our neighbor country (whose number one sport is hockey, to be fair), our American athletes shouldn’t come home with a dampened moral. They fought for the gold, and that’s worth talking about.
The 2014 Winter Olympics wins Sunday. There is still a chance the U.S. can come home with the most medals.