Old Habits Die Hard

From today's New York Times:

For Russians used to seeing their athletes dominate international competitions, the last two weeks have been agonizing. Russian figure skaters fell, Russian bobsledders flipped, and in a final embarrassment, Russia's much-vaunted hockey team was smacked by Canada 7-3, and left Vancouver without a medal.

"Let's put up a bunch of guillotines and gallows," Vyacheslav Bykov, the team's coach was quoted as saying last week. "We have 35 people on the hockey team. Let's go to Red Square and dispatch with them all."

Actually, Red Square is going to be crowded if Gennady Shvets, the spokesman for the Russian Olympic Committee, has his way:

"If we make a list of all those who should be held responsible, then it would be half the population of the country because, unfortunately, many took part in the destruction of athletics or passively looked on. In the 1990s everything was destroyed. When stadiums were turned into markets and pools into VIP saunas, athletics collapsed."

More Reason on Russkies here.