There are the Games we watch and there are the Games we remember.
Four years on, most folks would be hard-pressed to recall the scores of the blowout hockey games, or exactly who placed where on the podium.
It's the stories behind the competition or off the podium that make the Olympics memorable.
Who won gold in the women's figure skating in Vancouver in 2010? Without doing a web search, we couldn't tell you but everyone remembers the story of Joannie Rochette, the Canadian bronze medalist who skated to the podium just days after the death of her mother.
In the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Canadian sailor Lawrence Lemieux took himself out of a medal position in a race to rescue the capsized Singapore team.
A little more than a week into the Sochi Olympics, several golden moments have us collectively gushing. There's Gilmore Junio, who selflessly dropped out of a race to let his teammate Denny Morrison compete. Morrison went on to win silver. There was cross-country ski coach Justin Wadsworth who ran onto the course to offer a ski to Russian Anton Gafarov who, after a crash, was limping toward the finish line on one good ski. There was skier Alex Bilodeau running to share his triumph with his disabled brother after his gold-medal run.
These moments exemplify what sportsmanship is all about.
Even the cynics who spit on the Games for their wastefulness and scandal can feel when spectacle is outshone by the moments that capture everything that is right about the Olympic spirit.
