I love the Olympics. And what real hockey fan wouldn’t be up right now watching the pre game show getting ready for the gold medal game?!

There is a reason the polls put on here are dubbed non- scientific :)

Time to show our stuff and win the gold

I love the Olympics! Go Canada Go!

I first voted no. Then I voted yes

The Olympics are on?

These polls are always from one extreme to the other, not very accurate at all. To get a better sense why not give a couple more choices?

It is a sports event. I would expect that the majority are not interested in it.

The majority do not even know what some of the events are, not do they care.

Let’s do a scientific poll on how many watch hockey on TV categorized by the average number of hours/week over the season and compare that to how many watch Olympics with the average number of hours per week over the 2 weeks of the event.

Then, just for the fun of it, how many watch the Canada Winter Games on TV with the average number of hours per week.

Comparing 2014 to 2010 total medal standings:

1. 15 countries won more medals

2. 4 countries won the same as last time

3. 7 countries decreased their medal count

4. Russia had the greatest gain with 18 more which more than doubled their last count

5. The Netherlands had a gain of 16 over the previous 8 which tripled their count

6. Canada lost one medal, so pretty well had status quo

7. Germany was the biggest loser with 11 medals less than 2010 for 1/3 fewer.

8. USA had the second highest drop with 9 fewer medals for 1/4 less

9. South Korea was the largest proportional loser with almost ½ less.

Not statistics that one will normally find in the media. However, I would expect each country will be looking to see what they did right and where they could improve.
Canada, especially considering the number of people we have, is continuing to be with the top two or three countries in the world.

Russia needs to be congratulated for being the overall winner, no matter how the counting of standings is done – total gold, total silver, total medals or the old system of 3points for gold, 2 for silver, and 1 for bronze.

The Netherlands deserve a huge pat on the back for their improvement as well as the number of medals they managed to get for such a small country. Denmark, right next door for instance, got no medals.

Norway, was the second best based on medal count, but given the population of the country, they far outdistanced the others in the top 10 countries.

In the end, it is all about the athletes and their coaches. It is their vocation or perhaps their recreation still in a few cases, the others are just onlookers.

I wonder how many watch the Winter Olympics in countries such as Australia, Brazil, Iran, Peru, Iran ….

The last 4 are likely hooked on Soccer …. world diversity …. ;-)

Ooops, the second Iran was supposed to be Iraq ….. :-(

Total number of medals, Winter Olympic history:

Norway-118-111-100-Total-329
U.S.A-96-102-83-total-281
Canada-62-55-53-total-170

Norway kicks butt at the cross country ski events.
The Dutch pretty much own speed skating.

The poll was probably stacked by a couple of perpetual grumps who are against the Canada Winter Games.

The problem with this pole and to be honest most on here is very poor word choice. For this one it was the term ‘hooked.” I voted no despite watching a couple to more hours per day. I took hooked as I would feel some for of lost once it was over, or ended suddenly. Definitely a need for more options, or at a minimum a question that had validity (validity being that the question measures what it intends to measure).

Bread and circuses. The Olympics, and hockey, football and welfare (and when I say eelfare, I mean all government cheques). Take those away and we can have our own “Ukraine”. Gotta keep the population fed and entertained lest they revolt. Right? Being shot by a sniper while unarmed should be in the Olympics. Ukraine would definitely win gold. According to LiveLeak. com anyways.

And the cheerful, positive, comment of the day goes to … Harbinger. ;-)

Glad to see someone on here has a “Polyanna Syndrome”.

Yes Harbinger. Life us wretched then you die. Only fools with rose coloured glasses support achievement, goals , dreams, self improvement and good old fashioned fun. The Olympics transcend sports and are a remarkable celebration of hard work and achievement. But of course I fail to see how awful we all should be feeling about life.

I would be the first to admit that normally I don’t watch a whole lot of sports, live or on tv as, frankly I would much rather be out participating than watching…But I gotta say I do like to watch the Olympics (winter). Way to go Canada!!! All the athletes have done us proud!!

I’m fine with catching the hightlights at night. With all due respect to our wonderful athletes I just simply cannot sit through curling, speedskating or anything like that. The only things I watched were mens hockey vs USA and the mens hockey winning gold.

I really enjoyed the Olympics, mostly because I don’t otherwise have the opportunity to watch winter sports where I live. It’s a good reminder that we have so much to be proud of as a nation. I am however worried about the implications of spending $50,000,000,000 on a complex sporting event with obscure or non-existent long term desired outcomes for Russia and the region overall. I’m trying to focus on the fact that at least the $ wasn’t spent on the Russian war machine.