Sad to see it end...

Two weeks of athletic competition has come to a close and now it's back to the usual television programing. Russia won the overall medal count with a strong showing throughout the olympics and especially on the final day of competition today. The USA finished with the second most medals and overall had a strong showing in most events. Here are some of my observations and favorite moments from the past two weeks:

- Norway dominated cross country skiing
- The Netherlands dominated speed skating
- The Americans did the best in events making their olympic debuts
- The US did surprisingly well in the sledding events (Luge, Skeleton, and Bobsled)
- I was happy to see Bode Miller win a Bronze medal and disappointed that the NBC interviewer kept probing him questions about his dead brother when you could tell he was breaking down till he eventually broke down and cried and walked away
- There was a changing of the guard with young americans performing well in their first olympics
- Alex Bilodeau of Canada may be the most amazing Olympian/person ever! The story of him and his brother is amazing and heart warming!
- Mikaela Shiffrin is way to calm, cool and collected for being an 18 year old skiing phenom
- Curling is still the only sport I can compete in and possibly make it to the Olympics games
- It took a little while, but NBC finally let the competitions tell the story of these games rather than focusing on the political overtones

The biggest thing is that whether they won a medal or not, they competed at the pinnacle event of their sport. They competed for their country and against the best in the world.

Bring on the 2016 summer games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and then the 2018 winter games in PyeongChang South Korea!

Winter Olympics

The Super Bowl is over and college basketball teams are in the midst of their conference slates and the world of sports is shifting its focus to the Winter Olympic games being hosted by Russia in the city of Sochi. Although there is definitely some political turmoil revolving around Russia's anti-gay propaganda law, the threat of terrorism, and some inadequcies of some of the housing situations of the athletes and media, the power of sport will overcome.

The competitions actually started yesterday with the debut of two new events; snowboarding slopestyle and the first part of the team figure skating competition.  The opening ceremonies are tonight and I am really looking forward to see what Russia has in store.

I really enjoy the winter olympics because although there is a lot going on it's not as overwhelming event overload as the summer olympics. Plus with the twelve new events this year I think the games are going to be exciting to watch.

Let the games begin!!

Snowmageddon 2014

The biggest thing that happened this week was Portland getting hit by a winter storm yesterday that actually brought a legitimate amount of snow to the area. Of course in typical Portland fashion the city freaked out, schools made the decision to close early before a single snowflake fell, and traffic was snarled through the evening hours. Granted Portland doesn't get significant snowfall very often, so I get that it can be scary, but come on people it was only about 3-4" of accumulation. Pretty much every school district was closed today because of the snow and the threat of a second snow event occurring this afternoon. Even the University cancelled classes today, but of course athletics keeps going and the two of us who live closest to campus got the call to cover the room because the other three either couldn't, felt the conditions were too dangerous to get to campus, or too concerned about the impending next storm and how bad it would be for them to get home.

Well in any case I am actually pretty excited about this storm system. It's been so long since I've experienced a true snow fall. I've been transported back to growing up in Ohio and the snow storms that we used to get and the fun I used to have playing in the snow.

It started snowing again around noon and has continued through the evening hours and we've gotten an additional 2-3". So with all that snow out there I decided you know what I'm going to have some fun so I built myself a snowman! Unfortunately, the snow is actually pretty dry, so it isn't great packing snow, so my snowman is not of the greatest quality and/or shape, but hey you work with what you got.

Super Sunday

Well the Super Bowl has concluded and the Seattle Seahawks have won their first championship in franchise history. The Seahawks scored 36 unanswered points before the Broncos scored a touchdown and two point conversion late in the third quarter and then soared to a 43-8 victory.

Seattle played a flawless game in every aspect. Their defense lived up to their billing as the number one defense in the league. They got plenty of pressure on Peyton Manning forcing him and the Broncos' offense into a few mistakes and didn't give up many big plays.  The offense was smart and got the job down. Russell Wilson did what he does best, keeping plays alive by moving out of the pocket and protecting the ball. Special teams also did their job, by not allowing Denver good starting position and opening up the third quarter with a kickoff return by Percy Harvin for a touchdown.

The Broncos on the other side of the ball were not able to really get much of anything going. On the first snap of the game a miscommunication between Peyton and his center sent the snap flying over Peyton's head and into the endzone for a safety. Things didn't get much better from there with Peyton throwing two interceptions. The Broncos offense also fumbled the ball four times with the Seahawks recovering two of them. Defensively, the Broncos were unable to contain Wilson and were hardly able to get any kind of pass rush at the line of scrimmage.

Congratulations Seattle you deserve this win. The Seahawks outplayed the Broncos from the start and never let up! Congratulations to the former Ducks who won today; Max Unger and Walter Thurmond III.

I thought this was going to be a good game and held out hope that the Broncos would make a game of it until Harvin's kickoff return for a touchdown to open the second half. At that point I began losing interest in the game and started paying attention to the "Super" commercials. But, even they were a bit lackluster this year. There were a few that were really good. Budweiser went sentimental with a salute to the troops and how everyone of them deserves a hero's welcome home. I enjoyed the Coke Cola commercial celebrating America's diversity, Jaguar's commercial with movie villains was pretty cool, but the one I think a lot of people especially liked was Budweiser's "Puppy Love".

Oh and the strangest super bowl commercial had to have been the one for Scientology. I'm still scratching my head at that one.