My Take on the Olympis...and Other Things

Everyone knows the Vancouver Olympics wrapped up on Sunday. Let me just say that they definitely saved the best event for last. The gold medal game of the men's hockey tournament was definitely the best part of these games. It was exciting and intense. It also didn't hurt that it was US vs Canada. It was quite obvious that these two teams had a not quite so friendly rivalry going on. The game was hyped by the network and it didn't fail to deliver. Canada wasn't the only winner of that game. The world discovered that the US is a force to be reckoned with in hockey. Hockey itself was, probably, the biggest winner. I have a feeling that there are quite a few more hockey fans in North America now and it wouldn't surprise me if there is a league wide attendance rise across the NHL.

Though there were a lot of positive aspects to this years Olympics, the most glaring blemish, the death of a Georgian luger aside, is the reaction of the Russian government to their country's "abysmal" showing at these games. The Russian president and prime minister even went as far as to call the efforts of the Russian athletes embarrassing and calling for the firing of certain Russian athletic officials. If I recall correctly, it was back in the cold war days that the Soviets viewed their showing at the Olympics as a direct reflection of their political and military standing in the world. It's well known that Putin is old school KGB and that Medvedev is pretty much his lackey, but I thought the Russians had moved past all that. I would think that both Putin and Medvedev would have more important things to worry about rather than how many medals Russian athletes win at the Olympics. The world has moved on boys, it's time you did too.

Time to jump off the ol' soap box give a review of my weekend. I started coming down with a sore throat on Wednesday and by Friday I had a nasty little cold. I was on call all weekend and though we only got called in four times, three of them were late at night. As the amount of sleep each night shrank my cold got worse and eventually developed into a full blown upper respiratory infection. I got so little sleep last night from all the coughing that I decided to stay home from work today and go to the doctor. After some antibiotic, cough syrup with codeine and some sinus meds I'm finally starting to feel a little better. Hopefully, after a good night's sleep I'll be ready to get back to work.