Hot. Cold. Sochi.: Conclusion

English: Skyline of Sochi, Russia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Olympic Winter Games of 2014 are now over.  No incidents warranting breaking news coverage.  The 'ring of steel' around Sochi, Russia has held.  And everyone will be going back to business as usual soon enough.

The Russians topped the medal chart with 13 golds, 11 silver and nine bronze for a grand total of 33.  That should more than make up for the men's hockey team's failure to medal, and to keep President Vladimir Putin happy.  The United States finished second with 28 (nine gold, seven silver, 12 bronze), Norway third with 26 and Canada with 25.

The Americans had a pretty good Olympics, considering that some of their high profile athletes were big flops when it counted.  No medals in speed skating or individual figure skating, where they had done well in the past.  A silver in women's hockey.  The men's team picked the wrong moment for its offense to disappear, getting shut out by Canada and Finland in their last two games to return home without a medal.

But there was at least one new American star in the closing days of the Games:  Mikaela Shiffrin, at 18, became the youngest American to win gold in the women's slalom event.

Canada shut out Sweden 3-0 to win its ninth men's ice hockey gold medal, and the third since professionals were allowed to compete.  Hope you enjoyed the tournament, because the National Hockey League is seriously considering pulling its players from future Olympics.  NHL owners are weary of shutting down during the regular season so that a few players can travel halfway around the world, risking injuries that might prove costly for their teams' playoff chances.   Can you imagine amateurs from the United States and Canada going up against Russian professionals?  Oh wait, that's why the NHL'ers were brought in in the first place.

Another figure skating controversy erupted when Adelina Satrikova won gold for Russia in the women's final, with defending Olympic champion Kim Yu-Na of South Korea coming up silver.  If you listened to enough figure skating experts, you can believe that either Satrikova won fair and square or was the beneficiary of a home-country decision among the anonymous judges.  Figure skating is a subjective sport, no?  Well, it depends on who is doing the subjecting.

Now a word for one of the Olympic sponsors:  McDonalds spent billions to promote its brand during the Games.  So how could they imply in their ads that a gold medal tastes just like a Chicken McNugget?  Yuck.

As Sochi fades into the rear view mirror, the focus shifts to the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea and the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo.  No controversies there, right?  Right?