I don’t know what happened to the month of January went. I had ideas for things I wanted to write about, and then life got in the way. Now we are roughly two and a half days away from the Opening Ceremonies. Being so close to the start of the Winter Olympics has made me a bit reflective. I’ve been thinking about what I remember from past Games. In some instances I remember the specific performance of specific athletes. In others I remember more of who I was with as I was watching. Those are the stronger memories for me and part of the reason I love the Olympics as much as I do.

1994 Lillehammer Winter Games

The 1994 Winter Games were the first Olympics, winter or summer, I have any memory of. Looking back, the fact that the Opening Ceremonies for those Games were the beginning of my love for the Olympics is a bit surprising. The strongest reaction I remember feeling while watching was profound confusion. As I sat watching the artistic performance, I had no idea what was going on. I was just too young to understand the point of the performance or understand the story they were telling. That confusion, however, didn’t matter in the long run. More important to me, was getting to sit there and watch it with my Dad. Even at that age, watching sports with him was special to me. Despite my confusion about what I was seeing on the screen, I understood that he found it important. I found it important as a result. That feeling hasn’t left me in the 32 years since that moment.

1998 Nagano Winter Olympics

The Nagano Olympics were all about American Skier Jonny Mosely. His Gold Medal Moguls run enthralled not only me, but my cousin as well. She was watching me and convinced my parents it was ok for me to stay up waaaayyyy past my bedtime to see his appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman. I was so enchanted with what I saw, I drew (an admittedly very poor) drawing of him for her. We still joke about it to this day.

The other major stars of those games for me were the US Women’s hockey team. I don’t remember how or why, but I ended up watching more of Cammi Granato and company than I did their male counterparts. They were an easy team to root for.

2002 Salt Lake City

I have a lot of memories of the Salt Lake Olympics, most of which center around hockey. I had reached high school at this point. My friends and I were still at school for an event when the US/Russia hockey game kicked off. We had all grown up on the legend of the Miracle on Ice and for us it was our first experience with that particular rivalry. (The appearance of the 1980 team during the Opening Ceremonies probably added to the excitement.) We ended up ignoring the event we were there for and commandeered a tv in a corner of the school to watch the US defeat Russia 3-2 in the tournament semifinal. Two days later, we gathered at a buddy’s house in hopes history would repeat itself and the US would claim Gold. Unfortunately, Canada didn’t like that particular script and won 5-2.

Aside from the hockey results, the 2002 Winter Olympics are defined in my mind (fairly or unfairly) by the figure skating scandal. The controversy, which resulted in the Canadian pair of Jamie Salé and David Pelletier and Russian skaters Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze sharing the gold medal and Figure Skating overhauling its scoring system also lead to a lot of French judge/Russian judge jokes.

2010 Vancouver Olympics

I don’t recall all that much of the 2006 Torino Olympics. I was in college and life just got in the way. I do have a lot more memories of four years later in Vancouver. My favorite memory from those Olympics involves the Canadians reminding all of us that it is ok to poke fun at ourselves if things go wrong on the largest stage. As part of the torch lighting, the organizers had an elaborate cauldron that had four legs which were supposed to rise out of the the stage for the big moment. Unfortunately, when that moment arrived, only three of those legs appeared. The organizers rolled with the issue on the fly. When the time came for the Closing Ceremonies, a well known comedian/mime was brought out to work on the defective piece, much to everyone’s amusement. I hope if something like that happened here in the US, that we’d be able to adapt and make fun of it as well as the team in Vancouver did.

The final day in Vancouver found me with a different group of friends in front of the tv watching the US Men’s Hockey Team face of against Canada in the Gold Medal Game. Once again Canada closed out the Olympics with hockey gold. Compared to the 2002, the US’s loss was much more heartbreaking as the game was decided by an overtime goal scored by Sydney “Bleeping” Crosby.

2014 Sochi Olympics

Again! My enduring memory of the 2014 Olympics again involves hockey. With the US once again facing off against Russia, I woke up early (for me on a weekend) so I wouldn’t miss it. The game didn’t disappoint. Finishing 2-2 after regulation and overtime, the game went to a shoot out. TJ Oshie took six of the US’s eight shootout attempts, scoring on four of them. That moment lead to Oshie becoming one of my favorite hockey players and my long quest to track down my own Olympic jersey.

2018 PyeongChang Olympics

I don’t remember when I first started watching curling in the Olympics, but 2018 is when things really became one of my favorite Olympic sports to watch. I knew the basics of the gamer and what it meant to have the hammer, but that is it. But every time it was on, I was watching. It definitely helped that Team Shuster won the Gold for the US that year.

Its funny though the 2022 Beijing Olympics were just four years ago, I don’t remember them that well. Its not that I didn’t watch them, I definitely did. Its more that they occurred in that weird tail end of/ immediately after the pandemic phase where honestly, everything is largely a blur.

As we approach the start of the Milano Cortina Games I find myself wondering what will I remember from these games 4, 12, and 32 years from now? Will it be the some heroic events on the slopes or ice? Will it be more about who I am watching them with? For those reading, I hope the Games produce a bevy of exciting memories for you.