My morning sports section in the newspaper (yes, I still read the paper) did a recap of the winter Olympics in Sochi. One writer spoke of and listed “successes and failures.” There are no failures in the Olympics. The successes are being there and competing. There are gold, silver and bronze winners and everyone else.

Don’t you think being a handful of athletes to represent your country is a win for each one of them? Competing against the best in the world in your event is a HUGE win. Then to be judged as failures by a group of people, most of who have never gotten off their fat asses, is a joke.

Two groups that were included in the “failure” category were the men’s and women’s hockey teams. Both were in the finals and both played their butts off.

Not only were they in the finals, but were competing against the Canadians in their national sport. Half of the collegiate hockey players in the U.S. are Canadians. I don’t know the NHL stats, but I suspect the ratio is even higher.

The women’s loss was as big a heartbreaker as I have ever seen in sports and I have been paying attention for 70 years. The media is in love with the woulda, coulda, shoulda’s of the last few minutes of the competition. What happened in minute one has as much to do with the outcome as the last minute.

All you had was two champions, slugging it out to the end. The rules say someone wins and someone loses. In my sport, the free throw missed in the first minute cost you exactly the same as the one in the last minute; one point! There were 20 plays during the game that could have changed the outcome.

The media says who the favorite is. I don’t know, but my sense is that neither American team was favored. So what is all this failure crap? Tell me about your experience of competing in the Olympics and I might have some interest in what you have to say.