28 Medals: A visual representation of the 28 medals the United States won in Sochi 2014

 Below is a visual representation of the 28 medals won by the United Stats Olympic Team at the Sochi Olympics in Russia.

GOLD MEDAL

SILVER MEDAL

BRONZE MEDAL

Sage Kotsenberg: Men's Snowboard Slopestyle, Hannah Kearney: Women's Moguls, Jamie Anderson: Women's Snowboard slopestyle Slopestyle, USA Figure Skating: Team Competition, Julia Mancuso: Women's Combined, Devin Logan: Women's Ski Slopestyle, Erin Hamlin: Women's Luge Singles, Kaitlyn Farrington: Women's Snowboard Halfpipe, Kelly Clark: Women's Snowboard Halfpipe, Joss Christensen: Men's Ski Slopestyle, Gus Kenworthy: Men's Ski Slopestyle, Nick Goepper: Men's Ski Slopestyle, Noelle Pikus-Pace: Women's Skelton, Matthaeu Antouane: Men's Singles Luge, Andrew Weibrecht: Men's Super G, Bode Miller: Men's Super G,  Meryl Davis and Charlie White: Pairs Ice Dancing, USA Two Man Bobsleigh Team: Two Man Bobsleigh, David Wise: Men's Ski Halfpipe, Alex Deibold: Men's Snowboard Cross, Ted Ligity: Men's Giant Slalom,USA Two Woman Bobsleigh: Two Women Bobsleigh, USA Two Woman Bobsleigh: Two Women Bobsleigh, Maddie Bowman: Women's Ski Halfpipe, USA Women's Hockey Team: Women's Hockey, Mikaela Shiffrin: Women's Slalom, USA Speed Skating: Men's 5,000 Meter Relay, USA 4 Man Bobsleigh: 4 Man Bobsleigh

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Canada's Gold Medal run in Sochi 2014 had Claude Jullian's fingerprints all over it: Why winning hockey might not always be 'fun' hockey

For many American hockey fans, the fact that this Canadian hockey team that did not dominate teams like USA did won the Gold medal this year feels unfair. But nevertheless, their lack of dominance, their teeth gritting, shot blocking all around grind it out style of play that earned them international hockey's number one prize for the second straight games was not accidental. 

The fact is that anybody who has watched Bruins hockey in the past 7 years knows this style well. Why? Because it is one pioneered and mastered by Bruins coach, Claude Jullian. After a period of Bruins history that saw the team go through 5 head coaches in 7 years, the team and their newly appointed GM, Peter Charelli came together prior to the 2007-2008 NHL season bent on finding a man who could bring long term leadership to this team in turmoil.  

Knowing that the number of times their fans would come back after playoff-less seasons was dwindling, they settled on a then 47 year old former player and journey man coach named Claude Jullian. Looking at his resume before Boston, Claude had already coached both the Montreal Canadians and New Jersy Devils but had proven to be a passive playoff coach and was actually fired from his Devils job before the team even gave him a chance in the postseason. But the Bruins saw something in him that they liked and it had to do not only with their team but the background Jullian brought with him. 

In hindsight while we do not really know why exactly he never fully clicked in his first two NHL jobs, a few fair speculations might include the fact that neither the early 2000's Canadians nor the 2006 Devils were teams with any interest in the defensive aspects of hockey. With guys like Brian Gionta and Scott Gomez, goal scoring was never a problem on the Devils in particular. But in the case Jullian, who spent his up and down 12 year hockey career as a defencemen, neither team was working to exploit his coaching experience.  

The Bruins however were different. At the time of the Jullian hiring, they were a team stacked with names tied to defensive dominance. Names like Patrice Bergeron, Zdeno Chara and PJ Axelsson were some of the most talented. All three of those men were strong hitters and selfless players who loved to skate without the puck and were willing to take anything that came their way so long as it either prevented a goal for the other team or scored one for theirs. Because of these players, it did not take long for Claude to thrive in Boston. In just his first year with the team, he led them to the playoffs and 1 year after that, to their first division title since 2003. By 2009-2010, Claude had further skewed the Bruins draft and trade priorities in favor of defense and grit, picking up guys like Milan Lucic and Shawn Thornton and pushing March Reccie towards the more physical sort of game that he owned in his final years with Boston.

Even despite the crushing collapse his team suffered in 2009 against the Flyers in the playoffs, the Bruins liked where Jullian was taking the team and did not fire him following the season. With his job safe, Claude proceeded to push Peter Charillie towards a young man named Brad Marchand whom they would draft prior to 2010-2011. With one of the best Bruins teams in years assembled before him, Claude went all out that season nudging his team towards the path of fighting body checking and instilling a culture of 'defend your blue line' within his defenders that made breakaways a rare thing that Boston goalies would have to deal with. Everyone played rough that year, even Tim Thomas who not only fought Carey Price in the regular season but also reminded us that it is still legal for a goalie to deliver a body check. 

7 seasons into his NHL career, Claude Jullian has rebuilt the Bruins into that rough and tumble team nobody wants to play against. He has won 2 Conference titles, 1 Cup and now, and now he has won Olympic gold, but with another but similar team. 

Whether it be the Bruins or team Canada, Claude Jullian proved this year that he does not care who is players are so long as they are willing to do what he wants them to. With a Canadian team that included Sideny Crosby, Ryan Gestlaf and even John Tavares, many predicted them to win not by defense but instead by offence. Those people could not have been more wrong.  

On their way to winning all 6 of the games they played at the tournament, the Canadian men notched just 1 6 goal game and actually scored just 17 goals overall thus averaging less than 2.9 goals per game. If you exclude the 6 goal rout of Austria, than that average drops to 2.2 goals per game. But lucky for Canada, their offence was not the only part of their game that did not conform to pre-tournament expectations. Riding an unexpected goal-tending charge made by Carey Price and a phenomenal penalty kill, the Canadians allowed just 3 goals in the entire tournament not once letting a team score twice on them in the same game. 

Much like the Bruins, these Canadians forced players to the outside and worked with a selfless back checking unit. Additionally, their penalty kill shut down offences at a  100% clip and did not hide the fact that when it came to defense they went not to their head coach but instead to the 54 year old assistant to his left, Claude Jullian.  

All and all, Boston fans watched Team Canada win gold in Sochi this year and they saw a team that looked like theirs. Though other coaches like John Tortarella try to convince their teams to block shots to a ridiculous and reckless extent, Claude Jullian is a man who has begun to change the world of hockey in a way no one else has succeeded at. To him a win is a win and in his mind, the way to get that win is to pack it in and make teams afraid of playing against you. Now that style works in the long run as represented by Jullian's already being among the winningest coaches in Bruins history but it also sacrifices goals. It turns teams like these Canadians from ones who would love to win in track meet 6-4 games to one that wins in nail biting, maddening 1-0 finals. 

Honestly, Bruins fans have no right to complain about this man who has brought the Bruins back to a level of constant victory but for those outside of Boston, it may be smart to question the real undelying truths to how these games are won. Is this new, pack it in, win by 1 style of play really for the better hockey? 

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Top 5 homegrown moments of the 2014 Olympics: TJ Oshie, Bode Miller will be forever remembered

1) TJ Oshie's stellar shootout performance



Down two nothing going into the 3rd period, the United States not only came back to tie the game but survived through overtime and deployed TJ Oshie heavily in the shootout. After already taking 5 shots and scoreing on 3 of them, Oshie skated slowly in towards goal in the 8th round of the shootout and ripped home the goal that won the game.

In the immediate wake of the game, TJ Oshie was vaulted to superstar status and hailed as a national hero. Oshie however downplayed the praise by saying "the real heroes are whereing cameo"

2) Mikela Shiffren becomes youngest winner of slalom gold in history



Penciled in as the last run of the day, 18 year old Mikela Shiffren started down the Rosa Khutor course knowing that a good run would hand her Olympic gold. In a run that almost ended with a crash midway through, Shiffren navigated the tough slalom course faster than any other slalom skier in these games and became the youngest skier to win Olympic gold in the history of the sport.

3) Bode Miller's emotional and record setting Super G performance



Bode Miller, a skier who has made history with his daring and sometimes reckless mindset when tackling speed competitions came into Sochi knowing that these would be his final games before retirement. Having lost his brother to a freak seizure the year before, Miller however was a changed man from that wild skier of years past and yet what he still wanted more than any other was to win a medal in these games that would distinguish him as the greatest alpine skier in history.

That medal however would prove to be one of the hardest to win.

As we neared the final few days of these games, Bode Miller had just 1 legitimate chance left to win an Olympic medal and that chance took the form of Super G. With desperation running high, Miller survived a mistake filled 2nd run to tie for bronze and win the 6th medal of his career. His history will be remembered by many but what distinguished this moment from others was the crushing, tear filled post race interview that sparked much criticism for Christen Cooper and the NBC broadcast team.

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Failure in sucsess: A look at the United States' dominance when it comes to winning bronze in Sochi

In Sochi 2014, just 1 country has won more medals than the United States of America. The USA, having won 27 medals by the end of Saturday's events has been a mastermind of different trends these games some of which including a lack of distribution of medals throughout all events. Though they have dominated the sports of freestyle skiing (7 medals), snowboard (5 medals) and alpine skiing (5 medals), the US failed to medal in speed skating, flopped in their hockey tournaments when the lights were the brightest and was absolutely demolished in lesser sports such as ski jumping or curling. 

Additionally, these games were ones dominated by young or rookie Americans, namely Mikala Shiffren in slalom and Lolo Jones and Lauren Williams in bobsled.  

Yet through this all, one of the most peculiar trends was that regarding what color the USA's medals were. All and all, 11 of 27 medals were bronze. That translates out to roughly 40% of their haul earned as a result 3rd place finishes and their highest bronze medal percentage since 1988 in Calgary. That is 8 different games. 

Now for some, winning bronze is achievement enough. But at the same time, it can be treated as a consolation prize by others. It all depends on opinion and the number of outlets an athlete has to perform in and therefore it makes since why a bronze medal in hockey is treated as a table coaster and one in say moguls is treated like a key to lifelong prosperity. Good thing is that none of these 11 bronze medals have been won in hockey. 

As for the sports they have been won in included but not limited to sliding sports (bobsleigh, luge, skeleton), Super G skiing as well as freestyle skiing, one thing they all have in common is the appreciation for the work and sacrifice it took to win that medal.  

It is that self-respect and pride that I believe should be brought to all Olympic medal events and in cases like that of the 2014 men's hockey team it simply was not there. After the USA lost to Canada the day before, there was no interest in the bronze medal game against Finland and so, they lost. 

As we leave these games, we must look at this medal count and see the 11 3rd place finishes in the games not as a failure but as a true success and a testament that of all the millions of Olympic hopefuls and hundreds of actual Olympians, these bronze medalists were among the top 3. 

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Beaten in Bronze: USA Men's Hockey falls 5-0 to Finland

Wow. Just wow. 

After mowing down nearly anyone who came in their way in the first week of the 2014 Men's Olympic Hockey Tournament, the goals charged United States failed so score a goal in their second straight game falling 5-0 to Finland in a lackluster Bronze Medal game. 

All and all, disappointment was a common theme within the world of USA Hockey. 

"I'm kind of embarrassed where we're at now," Ryan Suter said to an ESPN outlet following the game. Patrick Kane seemed more displeased with his own play than anyone else. "Just didn't really capitalize on anything," he said, mainly referencing not one but two penalty shots he failed to convert on. 

"Whether it was confidence or not getting enough chances, who really knows at the end of the day. I thought I had opportunities. ... You think you're in three times against the goaltender alone and hopefully you could score a couple of times out of that. It just wasn't meant to be."

To sum up all that anger and discontent, David Backus said "They played hard and taught us a real good lesson for 60 minutes,". 

Especially in the 2nd and 3rd periods of the game, Finland played the role of college lecturer, schooling the US team in the most embarrassing of ways. After they held off the Red White and Blue power play twice and then stuffed a Patrick Kane penalty shot all in the first period, this defense/goalie oriented Finnish team came out in the 2nd period and proceeded to storm Johnathan Quick and his noncommittal defense. As a result of their scoring twice in a span of 11 seconds at the start of the period, the Finns had blown the game wide open before the United States had time to even comprehend what hit them. And yet once the reality of the quick change in the game's complexion sunk in, still nothing changed. Once again, Kane was stuffed on the penalty shot and once again, the Finland defense stood tall in the face of adversity, limiting the USA's chances and owning the neutral zone. 

At the same time, Tuukka Rask's 27 saves for his team went a long way towards providing them with the security to go on the offensive especially in the 3rd period. In true dominant fashion, the United States was out shot in the final 20 minutes by a margin of 9-5. Though he has been great throughout the tournament, Johnathan Quick stopped just 6 of those 9 shots and finished his 2014 Olympics undoubtedly dealing with a bit more of a sour taste in his mouth than the rest of it. No matter what kind of shots you are facing, allowing 3 goals in a period, 3 goals on 9 shots is never a good thing. 

But regardless, Dan Bylsma stood by his disheveled goalie during the post-game mob scene.  

"Absolutely not second-guessing the decision to go with Quick in net," U.S. coach Dan Bylsma said. "He was our best player in the semifinal game. He was excellent again tonight. He made five, six or seven excellent saves in the first half of this game. And no, I did not consider pulling him as the game went to four and five."

Quick finishes his Olympics with a record of 3-2. 

But enough of that, enough of this negativity. Contrary to the mood in USA hockey right now, someone did win this game and it just was not us. 

The fact is that a Bronze medal for Finland is not a consolation prize, it is a legitimate prize. Honestly, this game, even after what happened against Canada the day before was one favored to swing in the direction of the US so therefore, Finland's winning from this underdog position that has followed them all tournament long has to feel pretty good. 

As for their captain, Teemu Selanne, this feels even better than pretty good. He has repeatedly said that he will retire come season's end and seeing as his team, the Anaheim Ducks will likely not be able to compete with postseason juggernauts, Chicago, Boston or Pittsburgh, this may be the last big win for the embattled NHL vet. He has now won 4 Olympic medals (3 bronze, 1 silver) and has been the staple of this Finland national team for over a decade. No doubt, his team would have loved to at least get into the Gold medal game but regardless, it cannot be understated how much this really is an accomplishment for them. 

Selanne knows that. 

"It was just something special," he said. "I'm so proud."

His coach echoed similar praise. 

"Maybe this was his last game for national team and as a captain," said Erkka Westerlund. "It was excellent game to finish."

A little less than 2 weeks after it first started down its path to Olympic domination, this band of NHL players driven by patriotism to represent their country on the international level has put us through quite a bit. With all the ups and downs, the goals, the TJ Oshie orchestrated moments, we cheered and yet when the hardened veterans who have all been here before jumped in the way of the USA and said 'we will not lose' these men conceded. 

As for what happens next, well, were back to North America to begin the feverish string of competition that stems from teams pushing towards a much bigger prize than Olympic gold: the Stanley Cup. 

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3 men without a flag: The story of India at the 2014 Olympic Games

In the United States of America, we are a nation tied deeply to this sense of national pride and patriotic independence that won us the rights to our own land almost 250 years ago. From the days where musket-balls and bayonets helped defend these borders to these days where drones and surgical missiles help defend democracy and human rights across the globe, those who salute the stars and stripes and those who were that flag on their arm and place camouflage across their chest are hailed in this nation as true heroes. While scoring a goal for your country cannot be compared to taking a bullet for your country, the American pride continues into more trivial forms of patriotic representation such as the Olympics or most other international competitions.

In situations like these, the United States Olympic Committee recruits hundreds of athletes and spends millions of dollars to house, pay and otherwise support athletes in tens of different disciplines ranging from skiing, to lugeing to sprinting and soccer playing in the Summer Games. Frankly, this committee does not gain much money from these games in fact in several cases in the past they have actually suffered serious losses financially and yet they have never wavered in their commitment to their athletes, their sport and the pride they gain by driving a man or women of American blood to Olympic success.

For 118 years it has been this way. For 118 years the Stars and Stripes have been a feared precursor to Olympic defeat of anyone who stands in their path and so for 118 years, medals have been won, records have been broken and millions upon millions of dollars have been poured forth in order to pay for thousand dollar bobsleds, hundred dollar skies and 50 foot row boats that weigh close to nothing. In these 118 years, that devoted behind the scene work has brought 2670 different medals in the summer and winter games as well as a combined 1071 gold medal wins in the 48 games this country has sent atheleats to.

Though the US could probably get away with spending less money on their athletes, they support then, praise them and celebrate their accomplishments with the utmost enthusiasm.

Unfortunately even in nations with the resources to duplicate that, there is no support whatsoever. The relationship of India to its 2014 Olympic athletes and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that governs them is a perfect example of that negligence.

After it was founded in 1927, the Indian Olympic Association struggled to produce real contenders in any of the competitions it entered and has actually never won multiple gold medals at one Olympics. Overall, they have won just 9 gold medals and 26 all time. But as bad as things were, what has happened in this lead-up to Sochi 2014 has been dubbed by many within the very small Indian sports community as the biggest disgrace in the history of Indian sports.

Fact is, the anatomy of that disgrace has unfolded over just a few years and yet, for those involved with it has been hopelessly embarrassing. Beginning in December of 2012, a sudden intervention of the IOC into the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) was initiated as a result of the IOA's hiring of officials who were facing various charges of corruption. Seeing as they are most surely situated as a highly powerful committee in the sports world, the IOC came in and basically said that they do not like corrupt people working in any group under their jurisdiction. As these charges unfolded and began to seem more and more real, an additional crime on the part of the IOA was brought to the attention of the IOC. That being that India had failed to comply with the IOC's hiring standards of background checks, democratic voting and consultation with the IOC before any contracts were signed.

As a result of all of these infractions, the IOC announced on December 4th 2012 that the Indian Olympic Association had been suspended.  As a result of that, the IOA would not receive any support or inclusion in the Olympics until it complied with the written code and the ban was lifted. Unfortunately, as we learned earlier in these games in an article published by Samanth Subramanian for the New Yorker this ban has punished more people than just those directly involved in the scandal.

So long as the IOA did not fairly elect new officials, those who it sent to Sochi 2014 would not be allowed to do so under the flag of their home country. Instead they would compete under a meaningless white flag emblazoned with the 5 iconic "Olympic Rings".

I say meaningless because to each of the 3 "independent athletes" that India sent to these games, it was.

Shiva Keshavan, a man hailed as the greatest India winter athlete in history verbalized that feeling. 

“This has been so demoralizing,” Keshavan, said over Skype. “It must be one of the greatest humiliations in the history of Indian sports.”

Keshavan has 2 other unrepresented Indian teammates competing with him, one being alpine skier: Himanshu Thakur and the other being cross counters skier: Nadeem Iqbal. Though neither Thakur or Iqbal have spoken publicly about their thoughts on the suspension and the ensuing nomination as an independent delegation, it has been proven that in the rather tumultuous history of people competing as independent athletes, there has been very little pride and quite a bit of discontent

But there is something else that makes this suspension sting just a little bit more for these Indians.

"Unless your discipline of choice is cricket," Wrote the New Yorker's Samanth Subramanian in that same article mentioned before, "India is no country for athletes. Infrastructure is scant, government support is provided grudgingly, and sports associations are rife with politicking."

Of course, India is a nation that lies on relatively the same latitude as Florida and deals with the same heat plus some to the American resort state. However unlike Florida and the nation it is a part of, it does not relish any kind of obsession with any sport whatsoever. 

“I’ve never seen our officials prioritize Indian sports or Indian athletes at all,” Shiva said.  

Fact is for Shiva, he is a man unknown to anybody within much of India. Though he has won multiple luge distinctions and is a record holder among Asian lugers, Shiva is feeling the effects of there being no luge tracks whatsoever in his home country and has gone to great lengths to train anyway. Having made 5 trips to the Olympics, Shiva has on several occasions used a modified sled to race down a mountain highway. Additionally, once he had finished his training, Shiva was told that even though he had qualified for the games, the IOA would not provide him with the money to go and go or even buy a luge sled. Instead he would have to raise that on his own. 

Shiva opened a fundraising site through a generic NGO and actually managed to raise close to 16,000 US dollars to compensate the Indian government for the fare. 

For him, competing independently was just another thing on the list of reasons for unhappiness.  

All and all, it is not just Americans who feel pride in representing their country on such a grand stage as the Olympics and as strange as it seems, no matter how much pain and neglect the nation of India has dealt its athletes, their harshest ailment is that caused by the lack of a meaningful flag tied to their name as it associates to these games. 

In blood and breath, these men are Indian but in the score sheet and in the eyes of an onlooker uneducated in the politics of why independent competitors are labeled as such they are without a flag. 

The Independent Delegation

Luge: Shiva Keshavan

Cross Country Ski: Nadem Iqbal

Alpine Skiing: Himanshu Thakur 

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A different man: Through 2010, Bode Miller was one of the greatest skiers in history but when his brother died he gained a new kind of motivation to win in Sochi

Writing this article was a spur of the moment thing, a feeling in my sparked by this outpouring of raw human emotion on the part of Bode Miller. Meer minutes after realizing the last installment of this utopian story of skiing for Miller, he sank into a slump and draped his arms over a short fence as tears streamed down his cheeks.

For several seconds, this scene was broadcast to the world for these tears came in the middle of an NBC interview. For several seconds, we watched as Miller, this famed, calm in the face of competition man was overcome with deep, raging emotion that poured forth in this deep, gut wrenching fit of sadness. Unlike these scenes we see of the champion crying these were definitely not tears of joy, they were tears of sadness, all stemming from one thing, the loss of one person. That person was Bode's brother who passed away last April. 

Born in October of 1977, Bode Miller was a mountain boy from the start. Within just a few weeks of his birth, his parents and all 4 of their then born children picked up and moved to an isolated cabin in a small town called Franconia. With a name that sounds fresh out of some story about magicians and a magical journey, Franconia was a town nestled between the green slopes of the Mt Lafayette and the ragged cliffs of Cannon Mountain, a vastly successful skiing destination and so Miller was born into this culture of mountain living and held within it for the better part of his childhood. Their house had no water or electricity and frequently got buried by the feet of mountain snow that that part of New Hampshire would regularly endure. But it was with these storms, these bouts of frigid cold that those closest to Bode began to recognize his skiing talents. Before long, Cannon's slopes became a regular destination for the Millers and just as quickly, he even outgrew that. Miller was locked in with a full scholarship to  Carrabassett Valley Ski Racing Academy before he even finished his junior year in high school. It was at Carrabassett that Miller first snagged the attention of the US Alpine Skiing team whom he would eventually be a part of for the 1998 Olympic Games in Nagano Japan. 

At last, big bad Bode had arrived. 

Since then, Miller has become without a doubt the greatest male alpine skier in the history of the sport and had already racked up a phenomenal 7 medals in major races before he even hit his 30th birthday.  Of course, it was the 2 silver medals in Salt Lake City, 2002 that were the most remembered. 

From the beginning of his career to this present day, Bode Miller has been a man who has won races by doing things other racers will not even think about. He takes tighter lines in slalom, hits jumps with more speed in downhill and super G and simply stays in the racing tuck, longer and in more technical situations than anybody else in the sport. 

Though this reckless style has certainly brought about its fair share of crashes Miller came into these Sochi games coming off a 1 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze, performance in Vancouver and sitting just 1 medal away from breaking the all-time record for most won by a men's skier. 

Long story short he got it done. After finishing 8th, 12th and 7th in his first 3 races of these games, Miller had one last shot and though he made mistakes, though he nearly skied off course midway through the Super G, Bode tied for bronze and so the legacy had been completed. But as we begin to get some time between that moment and this present moment, the lasting memory of the 2014 Super G final in Sochi Russia will not be the actual race. No, it will be what happened after it, the interview. 

To give a little more background, just as Bode Miller loved and dominated his route to skiing fame, his younger brother Chelone Miller loved snowboarding and was following a path similar to that that led Bode to Nagano 1998. Chelone of Chile as he was called by many, was a gifted freestyle snowboarder who was favored to be sent to Sochi with the US Olympic team right alongside his older brother. 

But nevertheless, early last April, Chelone was found dead in a van he was confirmed to have been living in. An autopsy of his body later revealed that he had suffered a seizure while sleeping in the van and died shortly thereafter.  

Ever since the inevitable call that told the still living Bode Miller of his 29 year old brother's passing, Bode has been a different man. According to many who ski with him he has been more composed, quieter and obviously struggling with the immense grief that this tragedy has forced his family to deal with. And yet he still had one drive, one feeling that he wanted to win one final race, one final medal for Chelone and as the games begin to wind down, he knew that Sunday was his last chance.  

As NBC's cameras panned in on the starting gates atop Rosa Kutor, the venue for Olympic skiing in Sochi, Miller could be seen looking to the sky and whispering some unknown phrase that was soon whisked away by the clouds and the frigid wind of that day. And then the beep came, Bode flew out of the gates and dropped into his tuck before pushing 70 miles per hour and exploding down this 1.3 mile downhill course.  

Upon the announcement of his time and the bronze medal, Bode won with it, he was immediately swarmed by reporters, one of whom had a man with a camera behind them. NBC's Christen Cooper conducted the interview that was not even broadcast live for the event was put on tape delay so as to allow it to be locked into the primetime. At first, the questions were normal, asking about the race, what this medal meant to him, so on and so forth. But when Miller said that this bronze was different because of the turbulent year he had dealt with, Cooper began to assault him with questions about his brother. 

"I know you wanted to be here with Chelly, really experiencing these Games. How much does this mean to you to come up with this great performance for him? And was it for him?" She asked. 

"I don't know if it's really for him but I wanted to come here and, I dunno, make myself proud, but" he replied before tears began to stream down his face and he trailed off. 

The interview should have stopped there...but it did not. 

"When you're looking up in the sky at the start, we see you there and it looks like you're talking to somebody. What's going on there?" Cooper pressed and at that point, Miller completely broke down, slumping against a fence and letting lose all the sadness he had carried and allowed to drive him through these games.  

Faintly, one could hear Cooper whisper sorry to a non-responsive Bode Miller.  

You see Sochi 2014 has been a strange Olympics. For all the worry or fear of attack we felt leading up to these games, the Russian security force has done a pretty good job keeping things under control. And so that allows for us to peel back that far superior subject of attention and look at how much emotion an Olympics like this can solicit from a competitor. In a race that received far less attention than this, Ronald Mulder though he had won speed skating gold but watched at the victory was stolen from him by a timing error. A few days later, TJ Oshie pulled off his heroic shootout performance to send the US to the quarterfinals. But this was different. With Bode Miller this kind of emotion had nothing to do with the race that preceded it.  

In the wake of most likely the final race of Bode Miller's career, his sadness was our sadness because nobody could watch someone like that, cry like that, for a reason like that and not feel sympathy. 

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The empire is growing: A look at the history of sliding sports and how the United States is finally winning their sledding races

Fact is nobody expected that the United States Olympic team would be able to top their historic 37 medal performance in Vancouver 4 years ago. Nobody could or would even dream of predicting that this depleted US team would win with the dominance and ease that they did in those Olympics. 

Those people were smart for as we now sit over 1 week into the games the United States has won just 4 gold’s, 4 silver medals and a consolation prize of 8 bronze medals. As we delve deeper, the Olympic medal table reveals that of the 166 medals handed out to winners in 13 sub categories of events only snowboarding has been on dominated by the Americans as 3 of their 4 gold medals in these games have been one by American Snowboards. But what has taken many by surprise in these games is a subtle proficiency by American athletes in a branch of sports that normally confined to the NBC late night broadcast slot and is rarely cast a second look by viewers. 

That subcategory is sliding and includes the sports of Luge, Skeleton and Bobsleigh. 

Already, the United States has won 3 medals at the home of sliding in Sochi, the Sanki Sliding center all before any winners in the bobsleigh competition have been named. With one silver and one bronze medal won in Skeleton and 1 bronze medal won last night in the Luge competition, the United States is moving into uncharted waters as coming into Sochi 2014 they had not won a medal in luge or Skeleton since Salt Lake City 2002 .  

Even for those who do not know anything about these sports, the sheer fact that in one games, the United States had doubled their combined Luge/Skeleton medal count from Nagano, 1998 to Vancouver 2010 must be impressive.

But nevertheless, knowing a little about the Luge/Skeleton aspect of sliding only further explains the sense of accomplishment this American team must be feeling right now.  

Fact is the entire sliding story begins from the same place around the same point in time. Though the idea of sledding as both a means of entertainment and also travel across the snow laden hills of northern Europe is said to have originated back in the 1400's, it was in a small Swiss town called St Moritz that people first started sliding competitively. At that time the idea of a highly competitive winter games like the modern day Olympics had begun to sweep the modernized world while many adrenaline junkies began to realize how fun it was to jump on top of something that would propel you to speeds then rarely even achieved in a car. A man named Caspar Badrutt quickly recognized this and originally used old delivery sleds he found in trash cans in St Moritz to provide those reckless tourists with one huge reason to book stays at his hotel. 

Though that initially caused problems when his guests would collide with pedestrians in the streets, the occasional broken limb or aggravated group of passers by gathering in Badrutt's lobby meant nothing to him when he soon realized how much money this new, commercialized sledding, was bringing in. By the mid 1920's arrived, Switzerland had gone into full sliding mode. When the games finally came to St Moritz in 1928 though neither luge nor skeleton was included in the schedule, bobsleigh and a now defunct form of sliding called toboggan were and so that sledding crazed host nation of Switzerland put great emphasis on how they performed in the sports first real test.  

Though sliding was torn from the games 4 years later and then the games altogether were cancelled as World War II ripped through the planet, the success of bobsled in 1928 was remembered 20 years later when once again St Moritz was penciled in as host.  

In those Olympics, bobsled was retained while the much slower, toboggan was dropped to make room for Skeleton which involved a racer diving headfirst onto the sled and steering it with his or her feet. While bobsled remained heavily dominated by the Swiss, the Skeleton competition that year signaled a grand expansion of competitive sledding across Europe as for the first time in the sports history, the competition involved riders from countries other than Switzerland. Those Skeleton races were cumulatively won by Nino Bibbia and finished with riders from 4 different nations penciled in as top 10 sliders. 

For the United States and Canada however, it would not be until the 1980 games in Lake Placid that they would begin to take a real interest in anything to do with sliding. And even then they never managed to succeed on the track. But regardless, from those games on the entire world was all in on sliding.  

From 1980 on, luge was all the rage as in every games since, long, twisting, steeply banked ice tracks have been a snaking constant throughout every host city and no matter what, their icy white bodies have been the speed charged venues for this annoyingly simple but small detail oriented sport of sliding.   

In 2014, almost 100 years after sliding became a real sport, competitions like luge, skeleton or bobsled are sports of subtle strategy. While in the 70's winners would win by 2 or 3 seconds, now the winners win by 10th's and 100th's of a second and that is truly unfathomable. In these games, one mistake means the race is over, one little nick of the wall, one break of the aerodynamic form dashes your hopes and forces you to wait 4 more years before your next chance. 

But at the same time, luge, skeleton or bobsled are simple sports that are easy to master. You see stories like that of Olympic hurdler, Lolo Jones who managed to become a bobsled pusher in just the 2 year break between London and Sochi or those of Alex Demchenko who at 42 years old has competed in more Olympics than anyone else in history and even now is still going strong as he was won 2 silver medals already in Sochi.  

Sliding is unique. It relies on humans who shoot down a lethal ice track at 70 miles per hour and win races by hundredths or even thousandths of a second and know that 1 mistake ends their race immediately. In something as simple as sledding, with as simple a goal as "get on the sled and follow the track", these sports are a kind that is very rare in the modern competitive scene and even more rare in that of the United States. We can master, soccer, dominate basketball and yet it has taken 100 years to master the art of laying down and getting from point A to point B really, really fast. 

But now there is a future. Operating off of their long awaited sliding success in Sochi, this American team has opened the door to their successor, digging the groves in these sliding surfaces and paving the way for the United States to take over yet another global sport. 

The empire is growing. 

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Finishing strong: A preview of the Bruins final game before the Sochi break

Boston Bruins (36-16-4) vs Ottawa Senators (26-21-11)
February 8th, 2014, 3:00PM
TD Garden, Boston, Massachusetts

Hockey is a grueling sport that takes a brutal toll on one’s body and yet, nobody likes stepping aside for a weird 2 week break from action. But nevertheless, with the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Sochi already behind us, the nearing beginning of the men's hockey tournament can be shown most fairly via the geography of the NHL schedule at this point in the year. After Saturday afternoon's game with the Senators, the Bruins will not play again until the 26th of February. To state things plainly, that truth means that the Bruins want to finish strong by playing a great game this afternoon. 

56 games into their season, the Bruins have quietly assembled a 7 point lead on the Lightning for the Atlantic Division lead and have allowed fewer goals than any other team in hockey. Amidst a season that has sported injuries across the board for Boston, the Bruins remain the favorite to get out of the East come playoff time and frankly, these past few games as we lead into the Olympic Break have been a big reason for that. Since the middle of January, the Bruins have gone 7-1-2 and with the exception of their game against the Canadians have beaten all their opponents via an extraterrestrial scoreing attack and a revamped goaltending core. 

"Our guys have done a really good job," Julien said after the team's brief practice Friday at Ristuccia Arena. "Even yesterday, we should have been at eight wins. We really played well, and I thought we had as good an opportunity to win that game as any. There was a tremendous amount of effort and focus. From the back end, we're missing a lot of key elements there and it didn't seem to matter. I'm looking to see the same thing [Saturday], the same kind of effort from everybody.

"If we can finish with that type of a game, there's a pretty good chance we're going to win, and [it's] a pretty good opportunity for us to leave on a positive note. I always find those things are important to leave on a positive note and feel good about yourselves. No matter what, if we can give that kind of effort [Saturday], it will have been a successful segment." 

The Bruins could have had 1 more win in this stretch if it were not for what happened Thursday night in St Louis. After the Blues nabbed 2 timely goals in the first two periods, the Bruins came out ready for blood in the 3rd and scored twice to tie the game. It was the first time all season that they came back from a 2 goal deficit at any point in a game and managed to push the contest to overtime. 

But once there, things turned sour once again for Boston as before they could get to the shootout where the Bruins have been okay in this season, TJ Oshie stole the puck at the top of the crease and basically jammed it past Tuukka Rask to win the game. 

"It was a lucky bounce that it went there," Oshie said of the play. "I saw it laying there and kind of started jamming. It might have went under his arm or something. A lucky bounce and we'll take the point for sure."

Neither Oshie nor Rask really knew where the puck was. Such an ending made this stellar clash between two teams of such skill just a little bit worse for hockey fans. Rask echoed this frustration and as he skated off the ice he seemed obviously disappointed with that final play. 

"It hit Oshie's skate and it hit the back of the net and it was on his stick," Rask said. "Then he backed it off my pad, I guess." 

While that game was the first in which the Bruins came back from a 2-0 deficit, it was also the first time this season that they lost in the OT period.  But as they play the Senators today, they look to forget that. 

There remains just 1 more game before the NHL season  goes on hiatus and so the Bruins look to finish strong. As they make the trip to Sochi or wherever they will be spending their break, they know that for their fans, for themselves, a loss today would be tough to swallow and would stew so brutally for the entire duration of this week. A win however, well that would be like a sweet blast of a caramel candy that takes 2 weeks to fully melt away. 

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