The Thaw
It seems like just the other day we were celebrating the start of the Winter Olympics and now they are 3/4 of the way over. I feel like the time has just flown by and I am sure the athletes feel that even more that I do as a spectator. It's funny how Curling becomes the talk of the town every time the Winter Olympics come around. People (including myself) get really into it and then six months to a year later they kind of lose interest until the next winter games roll around again.
I mentioned in another post that the town I grew up in has a Curling club with a pretty new and impressive facility a bit down the road from where I live. I'd be interested to know what their numbers look like after the Olympic games and then how much it tapers off after the hype has worn off.
Nevertheless, the Italian team has been doing quite well after a really good showing at the last Olympic games. I was under the impression they were just doing so well because they were the host country and it would be embarrassing otherwise. Actually, it's a pretty common occurrence that the host country does better than they usually do during the Olympics. I think part of it probably has to do with having a home crowd there to cheer you on and also you don't want be the host country and look like a bunch of losers.
As I said though, Italy has been on this trajectory for a while now in curling. Perhaps it was in anticipation of these games, or perhaps they have just made an overall commitment to the sport.
Needless to say, Norway is still the top medal earner in the winter games and that seems to be the norm from what I have heard in some of the broadcasts. I've had the games on pretty much all day each day I have been in the office. I keep the sound off, but I have them playing on a monitor just to my left.
As I said, Norway has 32 total medals with 15 of them being gold. Italy comes in second with 25 medals 9 of them being gold, and the US rounds out the top three with 22 medals and 6 of them being gold. The most recent I think was from the women's figure skating last night. The young lady from the US did a great job in her short program. I didn't watch the long program.
Netherlands is in the four spot with 13 medals and 6 of them being gold, then Sweden comes in at number 5 with 13 medals and also six of them being gold. The key difference between the Netherlands and Sweden right now is one medal flipped between bronze and silver with the two countries.
It's honestly kind of crazy to see China way down in the 19th spot and as we talked about before, Russian not really even being represented.
Despite the relative success of the US curling teams, the real impressive thing to watch for me has been the US Women's Ice Hockey team. They have been dominating this years games and it will be interesting to see how they fare in the Gold Medal game against Canada on Friday of this week. I'm really looking forward to watching that game. I have a feeling they won't get a shutout, but will their offense bring it like they have in the previous games?
Check back to find out!
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