THE XXI WINTER OLYMPIAD -- AND SO IN CONCLUSION

Congratulations to our Canadian brothers and sisters on a great Winter Olympic ice hockey game and a famous victory. This game may become nearly as famous as when the Canadians defeated the USA team in Salt Lake City.

Ice hockey started anciently with groups of guys on ice hitting flat rocks back and forth with sticks. Over the ages, we build up around the game expensive infrastructure, all that money in salaries and betting, and all kinds of nationalistic baggage to hang over a simple sport. Then we cover it all in alcohol. We should not regard these as steps in the right direction.

I always preferred the elegance of the Winter Olympics to more the sweaty gladiator aspects of the Summer Games. Unforunately, winter Olympic games’ costs have skyrocketed rather out of control.

By February 2010, experts estimate the total cost of the Games, including all the infrastructure improvements for the region that occurred, at $6 billion, with $600 million spent on hosting the actual games. Price-Waterhouse projects benefits and revenues to the city and province in the range of $10 billion; an eport projects direct revenues in the range of $1 billion. This is a long way in the wrong direction from the guys having fun with sticks and stones on ice.

Xtreme sports have no place in Winter Olympic games. Therefore, that luge track on which athletes clutching sleds the size of cookie platters can travel 95 miles an hour still concerns me. We find Luge and Skeleton exciting enough without the extreme speeds, thank you very much.

I have compiled a list of The top seven medal-winning countries in the last four Olympiads,
ranked by all medals

1 Germany three times
United States once

2 Germany once
Norway once
USA twice

3 Canada twice
Norway once
Russia once

Austria all four Olympiads
Canada all four Olympiads
Finland 1998
France 2002
Germany all four Olympiads
Italy 2002
Russia all four Olympiads
Netherlands 2002
Norway all four Olympiads
South Korea 2010 – shape of things to come?
Sweden 2006
Switzerland 2002, 2006
United States all four Olympiads

The interesting emergence of South Korea aside, the Winter Olympic games remain the domain of North American and European countries with mounds of money to spend on such frivolity. This is also not quite a step in the right direction either.