That’s Amaury’s News and Commentary

SAN JOSE–The Sharks ran into a skid previous to Saturday night’s win at SAP Arena, after losing three straight which included two shutouts they tipped the Chicago Blackhawks with a 2-1 shootout win. The Sharks had been playing with a lot of guys who were hurt and now they get a nice break for a couple weeks this month for the Winter Olympic break. The NHL is the only sport where there is a break from the regular season and the selected players can get away and play in the Olympics in Russia.

Some of the players will be away from February 9th until the 26th the NHL will shut it down for those two weeks. Some go on vacation to their native countries and some guys stay here and workout but for example the Sharks Patrick Marleau one of the stars of the Sharks he has a gold medal in the Olympics in 2010 he represented Canada.

The subject of the safety and security of the players have been a concern and I have to be skeptical too, Russia doesn’t have the infrastructure that we have in this country right now we have just concluded Super Bowl week and New York had 911 over a decade ago and I’m very confident that people in New York had a safe time with the security in place.

For the athletes going to Sochi I wouldn’t be too confident, there’s already a lot of threats and a lot of athletes are nervous and I hope nothing happens because it’s sad these guys have trained for four years to do their exercising for

whatever it is in three minutes ice skating, skiing, or in this case hockey. It would be sad to know that something happens because this is for the athletes and for the countries.

I’m a little skpetical about the security there, the Sharks star goalie Antti Niemi is going there and it’s interesting but I hope nothing happens and I would not be surprised and I’m not making any predictions but nobody really knows but I hope nothing happens but if something happens I would not be surprised.

As far as the Olympics are concerned it’s beautiful to be at the Olympics it’s one of those events that ivolves the whole world and the Olympics and the World Cup for soccer but basically there’s really not a World Cup for baseball where you get 140 countries because not that many countries play baseball at the Olympics it’s one of the main events and also soccer.

Your talking about one of the biggest events in the world, the problem with the Olympics unlike soccer, soccer is a very nationalisic sport, at the Olympics since 1972 and before it’s been used for political reasons. Terrorism in the 1972 Munich Olympics and you remember in the 30s that was a great Olympiad it was held in Germany and Hitler and the Aryan race didn’t like American athlete Jessie Owens the black athlete, Owens won a few medals in Germany in 1936.

If you go through the annals of history the Olympics has always been used for political reasons and the problem is it’s more than politicial and you got a couple of nuts in Sochi who blew themselves up to kill a bunch of people, it’s really sad.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is a talk show host on Spanish radio KIQI 1010 San Francisco and does News and Commentary each week for Sportstalk Radio