Let The Games Begin...
Yes, that's right. The XX Winter Olympics begin today, and I couldn't be more excited. Call me an old-fashioned sentimentalist, but I am just nuts about winter sports, and the Winter Olympics capture all the glory and passion that is embodied in these endeavors. As a child of Michigan, the great winter wonderland, I was raised playing pond hockey, going cross country skiing and, of course, sledding down the biggest, meanest hills we could find. I don't get to do much of that anymore, so the closest I can come to these boyhood activities is the Olympics. Ah, what a glorious two weeks are these!!
Of course, part of my fascination with the Winter Olympics dates back to Lake Placid, and the Miracle on Ice that was the U.S. Hockey Team that year. In 1980 I was still young enough to believe, still young enough to be touched by a sporting event in an almost spiritual way (the last time I would feel like this was 1984, when the Detroit Tigers won the World Series). In some way, I watch the Winter Olympics because, though I know, at an intellectual level, it's unlikely (I'm far too aware of the corruption and commercialization that has overaken the Olympics), some small part of me hopes that it might be possible to feel the way I felt then, sitting on the floor in front of my father and my older brothers, watching an old Zenith, and cheering our hearts out for a ragtag bunch of American.
