Official Sochi Olympics - Backes brings home 2 stray dogs

Discuss the NHL, NFL, CIS, NCAA, Lacrosse, Soccer, Baseball, Basketball, Motorsports, Golf, Rugby, Amateur Sport, Curling, Wrestling ... Whatever Sport or Leisure activity you like!

Moderator: Team Captains

Post Reply
User avatar
WestCoastJoe
Hall of Famer
Posts: 17721
Joined: Mon May 22, 2006 8:55 pm

Putin's Folly IMO ...

Company hired to kill dogs.

Toilet paper to be put in waste baskets, not flushed.

Water the colour of urine.

No heat in rooms, no TV, no shower curtains, no wifi, no ... lots of stuff we are used to in the Western world.
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
User avatar
WestCoastJoe
Hall of Famer
Posts: 17721
Joined: Mon May 22, 2006 8:55 pm

Did I mention instant toxic nightmare? On and on ... All for one man's "glory."

Did I mention the threat of terrorist acts?

Welcome to the Olympic Games in Sochi. Leave your family at home. Bump up your insurance coverage.

http://traderinsight.com/Service/Scalpe ... 20TRIP.pdf
Thousands of stray dogs are being killed in Sochi so visitors to the Winter Olympics are not bothered by them.

Until now, the dogs have been living amid the mud and rubble of Olympic construction sites, roaming the streets and snowy mountainsides.

But as the Games draw near, Sochi authorities have commissioned a company to catch and kill the animals so they do not create a nuisance.
Wealth of Issues Face 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Athletes, Fans and Journalists

By
Gabe Zaldivar , Pop Culture Lead Writer
Feb 4, 2014

Welcome to the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, where the beds are small, the toilets don't accept toilet paper, the water is yellow and the stray dogs, well, their numbers are dwindling.

As journalists, athletes and fans descend upon Sochi and Krasnaya Polyana, Russia, they are finding various issues that will make life for the next couple of weeks hilarious, treacherous or some small chasm in between.

Deadspin's Tom Ley spotted some rather intriguing tidbits floating around the Internet that highlight how many of the athletes will live and sleep for the duration of the games.

In the end, your hypothetical value motel along the highway comes loaded with far more amenities than the athletes' dormitories. The Canadian Press' Stephen Whyno shared the following image of three beds dedicated to members of the Canadian hockey team:

To be fair, if your idea of a bedroom is simply a room with beds, Olympic officials are knocking this out of the park. And let's be honest, small beds are sort of a theme for bigger athletes at the Olympics anyway.

Fortunately, we live in an age when videos afford us a closer look. Pavel Lysenkov, NHL editor for Russia's Sovietsky Sport provides this look:

As Lysenkov's video shows, the rooms are, for the most part, bare; there doesn't seem to be any television sets and the one bathroom is quite small. The athlete dorms are very much like what many of you might imagine of your own college dormitory.

This is hardly the only issue facing the greater Sochi area at the moment, however.

We might as well get the disgusting out of the way now. Yahoo! Sports' Greg Wyshynski is dealing with this on trips to the lavatory:

Some of you want a free breakfast or Wi-Fi amid your hotel amenities. Instead, you should just be grateful that the toilets in your room or around town actually accept toilet paper.

Thankfully, there are no reports of journalists being told the bathroom was an outhouse or merely given a roll of toilet paper and told just to dig a hole in the woods.

Once you enjoy a good night's sleep in a tiny bed, stare at a blank wall for entertainment and relieve yourself in the restroom, all the while hoping it wouldn't reject some of its contents like a stubborn porcelain bouncer outside a club, you need to take a shower.

The National Post's Bruce Arthur, writing for Canada.com, brings a wealth of issues facing Olympic denizens to light:


Sochi? Well, three of the nine mountain hotels have not been completed, and the IOC estimate that 97 per cent of the rooms are ready appears to ignore the little things.

Almost every room is missing something: lightbulbs, TVs, lamps, chairs, curtains, wifi, heat, hot water. Shower curtains are a valuable piece of the future black market here. (One American photographer was simply told, “You will not get a shower curtain.”)

Based on what Arthur found on Twitter, shower curtains appear to be the least of Olympic-goers' concerns.

The Detroit Free Press' Jo-Ann Barnas luckily spotted a manhole missing its cover before she fell through like a cartoon character suffering a very human injury:

All of these issues seem to be taken with a chuckle that keeps the real worry at bay. At least, that's what we gleaned from a couple of tweets from The Chicago Tribune's Stacy St. Clair, who found the usual warning of not drinking the water taken up a notch: Don't use the water at all.

And, as Arthur reported, tainted water is hardly the only fluid you have to be wary of in at least one hotel.

For those travelers exhausted from a lack of sleep and struggling with restroom issues, just be glad you aren't a dog.

Sky News reports the population of stray dogs is being, well, dealt with:


Thousands of stray dogs are being killed in Sochi so visitors to the Winter Olympics are not bothered by them.

Until now, the dogs have been living amid the mud and rubble of Olympic construction sites, roaming the streets and snowy mountainsides.

But as the Games draw near, Sochi authorities have commissioned a company to catch and kill the animals so they do not create a nuisance.

The news obviously caused a flurry on Twitter. Deadspin's Barry Petchesky shared his thoughts on how other locales dealt with similar issues:

And so, just days before the Winter Olympics begin, hotels are still being completed, some water isn't safe to use and we have a situation that is at best a funny collection of unfortunate mishaps, delivering inconvenience and little else.

At worst, there are very real hazards.

Really, there is no better sign of the sentiment among visitors than this Twitter exchange between Yahoo! Sports' Alan Springer and Charles Robinson:

Those heading off to Sochi undoubtedly feel the trepidation that comes with any form of travel. When it comes to these specific games, the worries are exacerbated thanks to terrorist threats and a wealth of negative reports about the accommodations.

For the fortunate few who make the trip, enjoying the Olympics might have to come at the expense of a shower curtain—if you can use the water, that is.
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
User avatar
WestCoastJoe
Hall of Famer
Posts: 17721
Joined: Mon May 22, 2006 8:55 pm

No manhole covers on some manholes. LOL

Drinking water, not the other ...

Sign in bathroom.

I would consider victory a safe return home, without illness or nightmares.
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
User avatar
WestCoastJoe
Hall of Famer
Posts: 17721
Joined: Mon May 22, 2006 8:55 pm

Nightmare ... poisoned dogs dying. Discretion advised.

John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
User avatar
WestCoastJoe
Hall of Famer
Posts: 17721
Joined: Mon May 22, 2006 8:55 pm



Disgusting.

The worst image for me is of the dying dogs. Poisoned and removed from the sight of visitors.

Olympic Glory.
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
South Pender
Legend
Posts: 2779
Joined: Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:24 am
Location: Vancouver weekdays; Gulf Islands on weekends

Good Lord, I had no idea! I haven't been paying that much attention to the Olympics, what with all things football still in the air. But that looks just awful. The one thing that we had all known about was the possibility of a terrorist attack, and let's hope that this doesn't happen. The last thing we need is another 1972 Munich-like event. Thanks for getting us up-to-speed on this. Starts today or tomorrow, right?
User avatar
WestCoastJoe
Hall of Famer
Posts: 17721
Joined: Mon May 22, 2006 8:55 pm

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/the-costly ... -1.2521816

The costly distraction that is Vladimir Putin's Sochi Olympics

Within Russia, the stench of corruption is almost certainly the biggest worry for the Kremlin

By Don Murray, CBC NewsPosted: Feb 04, 2014 5:00 AM ET|Last Updated: Feb 04, 2014 1:10 PM ET

Russia's President Vladimir Putin attends an Orthodox Christmas service at the Holy Face of Christ the Saviour Church in Sochi on Jan. 7. Many Russians believe he has formed a new alliance between Church and state. (Maxim Shemetov / Reuters)

The short man wearing number 11 skates carefully and slowly to a spot directly in front of the opposing goalie. No defenceman approaches him. He is the czar on skates.

A winger zips down the right, fires a shot and scores. Number 11 skates away, barely acknowledging his team's goal. In the end his side wins 12-3. It was foreordained.

The short man wearing number 11 is Vladimir Putin at play in Sochi. The Olympic Games approach and they are clearly his Games.

"I chose this place personally," he says in a new documentary by Russian state television, released on the weekend. In lacing on his skates, he is merely testing his sites.

In his almost 15 years in power, Russia's president has donned many guises — judo master, hockey player, hunter, fisherman, underwater archeologist, a flying chaperone for storks.

Sport — along with his frequently photographed muscled body — is meant to symbolize his strong leadership. Sport, he said in a book of interviews at the beginning of his domination of Russia, saved him as a teenager.

"I was scum," he said. "Sport got me off the street. Without it, I don't know what I would have become."

Now, the man saved by sport offers a great sporting spectacle to his nation, albeit a spectacularly costly one that may also be serving as a great distraction from the growing troubles in his sprawling empire.

Russian President Vladimir Putin smiles as he plays a friendly hockey match at The Bolshoy Ice Dome in the southern resort town of Sochi last month. (Associated Press)

The good czar's $50 billion gift to the world — by far the most expensive Winter Olympics in history (Vancouver's cost about $7 billion all in) — has raised a number of eyebrows.

An International Olympic Committee official, Gian Franco Kasper, has said that as much as one-third of the $50 billion has been siphoned off by corruption.

Tut, tut, said Putin. "I do not see serious corruption examples for the moment, but there is a problem with overestimation of construction volumes."

In other words, some bids might have been lowballed to win contracts, but that isn't corruption, just hard-edged competition.

■CBC The Passionate Eye: "Putin's games"

Within Russia, however, the stench of Olympic corruption, is almost certainly a bigger worry for Putin than, say, the Western backlash over the country's anti-homosexual legislation.

Russians know about corruption at every level, and make their loathing plain. If the great party is revealed as another great rip-off, the reaction might be toxic.

Games in the snow

And so the Games must go on and be a success. And success, in Russia, means medals.

Four years ago in Vancouver there weren't many Russian medals. The tumbrils filled with the heads of Russia's Olympic bosses.

Anti-government protesters rally in Moscow on the weekend, and seem determined to make their complaints about official corruption known throughout the Olympic period. (Maxim Shemetov / Reuters)

Putin needs success this time because things aren't going so well on other home fronts.

Since the great crash of 2008, the Russian economy has stuttered. Its roads and health services are pot-holed in equal measure. Suicide bombers attack not all that far from Sochi, killing dozens and terrifying thousands.

Yet Putin stands above it all, perhaps less loved than a dozen years ago by a populace fed on a television diet of his heroic actions, but certainly obeyed, and feared.

Perhaps a clue lies in the name. An earlier Vladimir, Lenin, buried the Romanov dynasty and gave rise to the academy of oppression, the Cheka, later the KGB where Putin once worked.

But an even earlier Vladimir may be the more fitting model for the modern czar.

Vladimir the Great, the grand prince of Kiev, came to power just over 1,000 years ago when his realm was also in turmoil.

He reconquered it and expanded it to the Baltic Sea. Then he introduced Orthodox Christianity to Kievan Rus, as it was known, after sending emissaries from his pagan land to investigate the great monotheistic religions. (Legend has it that he rejected Islam because of the Russian fondness for alcohol. "We cannot exist without that pleasure," he supposedly said.)

Having made his choice, Vladimir dumped his 800 concubines and built churches where there had been pagan shrines.

Now, the latter-day Vladimir has cemented his own pact with the Orthodox Church in Russia, directing state money to rebuild churches, and trumpeting a nationalist, conservative way for Russia.

The church has responded by applauding his regime and, among others, the laws on homosexuality that have so shocked the West.

■Will Sochi ease the plight of Russia's gays?

The modern Vladimir has also worked mightily to restore the shattered former Soviet empire, establishing what he hoped would be a quasi-protectorate in Ukraine at the end of 2013 to keep it from linking with the European Union.

That deal caused an explosion of anger and demonstrations that have rocked the regime of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych these last months.

Riot police stand in a cordon facing a barricade of anti-government protesters in Kiev on Monday, a confrontation that has only spread as the Olympics in nearby Sochi get closer. (David Mdzinarishvili / Reuters)

Yanukovych responded with laws modeled on Putin's — banning demonstrations and the channelling of foreign money to Ukrainian organizations with the threat of heavy penalties for those who don't obey.

But he doesn't inspire the same respect, let alone the same fear as Putin. Nor does he have the weight of Russia's long-practiced "competent organs" — Moscow's Interior Ministry troops and secret police — that the Russian president calls on to enforce his will.

The demonstrations and violence have spread from Kiev to Ukrainian provincial cities — almost literally into Sochi's backyard.

At the moment, Putin's quasi-protectorate looks distinctly shaky. But there is always the consolation and distraction of games in the snow.
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
User avatar
WestCoastJoe
Hall of Famer
Posts: 17721
Joined: Mon May 22, 2006 8:55 pm

I could not watch the entire clip. Here is one screenshot ...

John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
User avatar
WestCoastJoe
Hall of Famer
Posts: 17721
Joined: Mon May 22, 2006 8:55 pm

South Pender wrote:Good Lord, I had no idea! I haven't been paying that much attention to the Olympics, what with all things football still in the air. But that looks just awful. The one thing that we had all known about was the possibility of a terrorist attack, and let's hope that this doesn't happen. The last thing we need is another 1972 Munich-like event. Thanks for getting us up-to-speed on this. Starts today or tomorrow, right?
February 7 Opening ceremonies, I believe.

Yes, I am disgusted.

The residents of Sochi will not be able to travel from their homes during the Olympics. And of course they will not benefit financially, or in any other way that I can see.

Corruption off the scale.

I have grown less enchanted with the Olympics over the years. Corrupt officiating. On and on ... And yet I admit I was proud of our Olympic teams and individuals in 2010, and in how we put on the Olympics here. I was even a volunteer. I would not mind if the entire concept was abandoned, after this toxic nightmare.
................

How many times will viewers see Putin's face?

Let the Games begin ... :dizzy:
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
South Pender
Legend
Posts: 2779
Joined: Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:24 am
Location: Vancouver weekdays; Gulf Islands on weekends

I have felt the same way about the Olympics for many years now. Just too corrupt, starting with the graft and bribery that goes into selection of the site. Drugged vs. non-drugged athletes and no certainty about who's who. The large imbalances among countries regarding financing of their athletes, and on and on. I too got really caught up in the 2010 games here, but probably won't follow much in this edition.
User avatar
WestCoastJoe
Hall of Famer
Posts: 17721
Joined: Mon May 22, 2006 8:55 pm

http://www.nwitimes.com/sports/olympics ... 4dc54.html

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/f ... s-scandals
How ethical are the games?

Hmmm ... turning Sochi into a winter resort has been a vast project, during which rivers have been polluted by construction waste and previously protected forests chopped down. The operation has cost the Russian state around $51bn, making it the most expensive games, summer or winter, of all time. Indeed, $51bn is more than was spent on all the previous Winter Olympics put together. Of that, $7.4bn worth of contracts went to companies linked to Vladimir Putin's judo partner. Another friend of the president's built the $9bn road linking Sochi with the mountains. Workers have been poorly paid and overworked, according to the Economist, with no safety training or insurance, and dozens have died in accidents. The state body responsible, Olympstroy, has been involved in lots of rather murky overspending, but the details of that are "classified". There has also been a mass extermination of Sochi's stray dogs.
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2014/ ... corruption

http://www.interpretermag.com/winter-ol ... -in-sochi/
"Russia is a winter country," they begin. "It’s hard to find a place on the map of Russia where there hasn’t been snow and where winter sports are not developed. But Putin found such a spot and decided to hold the winter Olympics there. It’s the city of Sochi."

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik ... z2sTiY1Up2
Another scandal is the exploitation of 70,000 migrant workers -- "slave labor," according to Nemtsov and Martynyuk -- who have been subjected to such abuse their cause has been taken up by Human Rights Watch. They've been cheated of wages, forced to work 12-hour shifts with virtually no time off, had their passports confiscated, and housed in filthy, overcrowded quarters. Those who protest have been arrested and deported. As for the construction quality of the structures they erected under such working conditions and in haste, we'll see.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik ... z2sTillMd7
Their main focus, however, is financial. The Sochi Olympics, which were originally budgeted at $12 billion, are currently estimated to cost $50 billion. That astonishing figure exceeds the cost of all the previous Winter Olympics combined. Compare it with the Salt Lake City Olympics of 2002, which came in at about $2.5 billion, much of it contributed by the federal government. Even at that price, the Salt Lake Games were considered to be afflicted with massive cost overruns, some of which enriched wealthy local developers (despite the assertions of their chair, Mitt Romney, that the Games were run with businesslike efficiency).
John Madden's Team Policies: Be on time. Pay attention. Play like hell on game day.

Jimmy Johnson's Game Keys: Protect the ball. Make plays.

Walter Payton's Advice to Kids: Play hard. Play fair. Have fun.
User avatar
sj-roc
Hall of Famer
Posts: 7539
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 2:39 pm
Location: Kerrisdale

South Pender wrote:I have felt the same way about the Olympics for many years now. Just too corrupt, starting with the graft and bribery that goes into selection of the site. Drugged vs. non-drugged athletes and no certainty about who's who. The large imbalances among countries regarding financing of their athletes, and on and on. I too got really caught up in the 2010 games here, but probably won't follow much in this edition.
With a 12 hour time difference for these Games, most events will be live as the west coast of NA is mostly in bed asleep, so luckily you won't need to go very far out of your way to avoid them.

It would be interesting to see IOC prez Thomas Bach at the CC trying to declare with a straight face à la Samaranch that Sochi was the "best olympics ever".

I see former CFLer Jesse Lumsden will be competing once again, as he did here in 2010, in 2- and 4-man bobsled:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_at_ ... #Bobsleigh
Sports can be a peculiar thing. When partaking in fiction, like a book or movie, we adopt a "Willing Suspension of Disbelief" for enjoyment's sake. There's a similar force at work in sports: "Willing Suspension of Rationality". If you doubt this, listen to any conversation between rival team fans. You even see it among fans of the same team. Fans argue over who's the better QB or goalie, and selectively cite stats that support their views while ignoring those that don't.
TheLionKing
Hall of Famer
Posts: 25103
Joined: Sat Feb 19, 2005 10:13 pm
Location: Vancouver

Samarach was just as corrupt as any official
TheLionKing
Hall of Famer
Posts: 25103
Joined: Sat Feb 19, 2005 10:13 pm
Location: Vancouver

Steven Stamkos not medically cleared to play in the Olympics.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=443088
User avatar
notahomer
Hall of Famer
Posts: 6258
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2002 12:09 pm
Location: Vancouver

WestCoastJoe wrote:....Yes, I am disgusted.

The residents of Sochi will not be able to travel from their homes during the Olympics. And of course they will not benefit financially, or in any other way that I can see.

Corruption off the scale.

I have grown less enchanted with the Olympics over the years. Corrupt officiating. On and on ...
UGHH! Had no idea! THanks for posting WCJ.

I concur with being less enchanted with the Olympics over the years. Sarejevo (Sp?) was the last one I really enjoyed. I was younger then obviously. It just seemed like it was one of those games where everything was relatively nearby. Not like our games where snow needed to be trucked in etc...

I'll watch the hockey but thats pretty much it. I sure hope this is the last of the bad news. I haven't forgotten our games had some bad things happen too. Windows being smashed, Luger dying during a practice run and strange weather. All in all, I was proud though.
Post Reply