held on Feb. 6, and will continue through Feb. 22. (Photo: Getty Images)
There’s just always something special about the Winter Olympics.
Maybe it’s the timing of the year, in between football and baseball seasons. Perhaps it’s the scenic locations in mountainous regions. Or maybe it’s that in these cold days of winter in the Northeast, there’s not much else to do other than watch the Games on TV.
Whatever the reason, it’s great to be enjoying some Winter Olympics action. Probably the main reason the Winter Games are so popular is the unique nature of the events. These are not your everyday sports competitions.
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Take the Summer Olympics, for instance. Swimming, track and field, gymnastics, basketball, soccer, and volleyball are all fun to watch on the global stage, yet these are sports that are played everywhere pretty much all the time.
The Winter Games, however, feature sports we really only see once every four years, such as alpine skiing, bobsledding, curling, figure skating, luge, ski jumping, snowboarding, and speed skating.
New this year is the sport of ski mountaineering, a skiing discipline that involves climbing mountains either on skis or carrying them — depending on the steepness of the ascent — and then descending the hill back on the skis toward the finish line.
This year’s Winter Olympics are being held in Italy, with a joint bid by Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo emerging as the host cities at sites across Lombardy and Northeast Italy. By the numbers, the Games include 93 nations, 2,871 athletes, and 116 medal events across eight sports, divided into 16 disciplines. That’s an increase of seven events and one discipline over the Beijing Winter Games in 2022.
With all this below-freezing weather we’ve been having, watching some competitive Olympic action is definitely a good way to ease some of the winter blues if you’re a sports fan.
Some of our local priests have enjoyed tuning in to the Games. Father Ed Kachurka, pastor of St. Gregory the Great in Bellerose, is a known sports fan, so following the Winter Olympics is a fun quadrennial pastime.
Father Kachurka has an athletic background in several winter sports. He used to hit the slopes, so he enjoys alpine skiing events; he likes watching bobsled because he’s tried it before; and he thoroughly enjoys ice hockey contests since he’s played hockey extensively.
“I love the game (hockey),” said Father Kachurka, an avid New York Islanders fan.
Though we do experience NHL hockey every year, ice hockey during the Winter Olympics hits differently. The nation-versus-nation setup stirs such national pride, especially given the tumultuous times we live in.
Father Bill Sweeney, pastor of St. Francis de Sales, Belle Harbor, has followed hockey during the Olympics since the famous 1980 “Miracle on Ice,” when a bunch of upstart American college players defeated the mighty Soviet Union — which had won four straight gold medals — in the medal round.
It’s a seminal moment that’s still talked about today, and the legend has been further inflated by the Olympic stage — truly not a run-of-the-mill hockey game.
In addition to hockey, Father Sweeney said he also watches some of the other unique sports that become mainstream only during the Winter Olympics.
“Skiing and ice skating … not that I could do either of those,” he joked, “but it’s always interesting to watch.”
We still have a few more days to enjoy these Games, as the Olympics wraps up Feb. 22. Next up on the Olympic stage will be Los Angeles hosting the Summer Olympics in 2028, marking the first time since Atlanta in 1996 that the U.S. has hosted the Summer Games. The U.S. last hosted the Winter Olympics in 2002 in Salt Lake City.
Italy will then pass the proverbial torch to France, as the French Alps get set to host the Winter Olympics in 2030.
The official motto of this year’s Winter Games is “IT’s Your Vibe,” and for those who have tuned in to the Olympics, the vibe has been whatever they want it to be.