So Long Sochi Sports Chowdah Update- Finn-ishing Strong, Sweden Shut Out By Team Canada as Suomi Bests USA for Bronze; Derek Jeter to Call it a Career

WINTER OLYMPICS- The 2014 Winter Olympiad at Sochi has come to an end, and despite the torrid start, Team USA's men's hockey team had no medal to show for it.

The much anticipated USA-Canada hockey game ended with Canada advancing to face Sweden in the gold medal game thanks to a goal from winger Jamie Benn. Despite Jonathan Quick turning aside 36 shots, Team Canada would go on to shut out the USA 1-0. This set up a USA vs Finland matchup in the bronze medal consolation game....which actually went much worse for the USA than the semifinal against Canada.

Tukka Rask turned aside all 27 shots he faced while veteran NHLer and Olympian Teemu Selanne had two goals in what was his final Olympic game as Finland cruised to the bronze medal with a 5-0 shutout of the USA. After beating the Czech Republic and Russia, the USA men's hockey team limped into a disappointing 4th place finish, losing their final two games by a combined 6-0.

Canada, on the other hand, hardly missed a beat and picked up where they left off against Sweden in the gold medal game. Canada got on the board thanks to a Johnathan Toews tally before Sweden netminder Hendrik Lunqvist gave up a one-on-one breakaway shot from Canada's Sidney Crosby to make it a 2-0 game. Team Canada's Chris Kunitz would score in the 3rd to make it a 3-0 game and put things out of reach for the Swedes.

Not only does the win over Sweden give Canada their second consecutive hockey gold medal for the second consecutive Olympiad, Team Canada swept the hockey gold with the women's come-from-behind OT win against Team USA in the gold medal game.

As the game concluded, both the NHL and IOC will deliberate over whether or not the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea will use players for the NHL. Once again, with the Winter Olympiad taking place a hemisphere away, the NHL would need to once again suspend its schedule for several weeks to accommodate players from the league to represent their respective nations in the Olympics. Prior to the Sochi Olympics, there had been talk circulating that this could be the final Olympics to feature professional hockey players.

OTHER OLYMPICS NEWS- South Korean figure skater Kim Yu Na announced that the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics would be the end of her competitive career.

Yu Na, who gained notoriety with a James Bond-inspired routine during the 2010 Vancouver garnered a gold medal for her performance. South Korean Olympic officials were hoping that Yu Na would continue skating and compete in the 2018 Winter Olympiad in Pyeongchang, essentially becoming the face of the host nation- plus she could automatically qualify as a representative of the host country in 2018.

In Sochi, Yu Na finished second to Russian skater Adelina Sotnikova, garnering the silver medal while Italy's Carolina Kostner won the bronze.

OLYMPIC MEDAL COUNT- Host nation Russia won the overall medal count- altho Gateway Pundit helpfully points out that US and South Korean 'ringers' in snowboarding and short track speed skating accounted for five of Russia's thirteen gold medals. The Russians also had 11 silver and nine bronze medals for Sochi. Like the men's hockey team, the USA came in a disappointing 4th place with nine gold medals, seven silver and a dozen bronze medals- finishing behind Norway and Canada.

MLB- After nineteen seasons with the Bronx Bombers, New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter announced that the 2014 season would be his final MLB season. The Yankees captain made the announcement via Facebook on February 12th. In November, Jeter and the Yankees had agreed to a 1-year, $12 million contract. During the 2013 season, Jeter played in less than 20 games and had a batting average of less than .200.

Heading into Spring training of his final season, Jeter has a career .312 batting average with 256 homers and 1,261 runs batted in. In addition to five World Series titles, the Yankees shortstop and thirteen time All Star was also named MVP of the 2000 World Series and awarded five golden gloves. In 2009, Jeter surpassed Lou Gerhig's club record for all-time hits. Two years later, Jeter recorded career hit #3000- a home run off of Tampa Bay starter David Price in July 2011.

Heading into the 2014 season, Jeter is the last remaining Yankee player from the team's glory days of the late 1990s. Catcher Jorge Posada retired after the 2011 season while closer Mariano Rivera called it a career after the 2013 season.

RED SOX- The Red Sox and free agent Chris Capuano have agreed to terms on a one year, $2.25 million contract.

The former Dodger and W. Srpingfield, MA native went 4-7 and had an ERA of 4.26 with the Los Angeles Dodgers last season. The signing was made shortly starter Ryan Dempster announced to Red Sox management that he would not be playing during the 2014 season.

Another Costa-ly Mishap; Sister Ship of Costa Concordia Adrift in Indian Ocean After Losing Power

2012 is turning out to be a pretty rough year for Italy-based Costa Crociere. Six weeks after the Costa Concordia sunk after running aground in Italy, another ship in the Costa Crociere fleet lost power and was adrift in the middle of the Indian Ocean after a fire broke out in the engine room.

A French fishing vessel on Tuesday began towing an Italian cruise ship drifting powerless in the Indian Ocean to a nearby Seychelles island, but was not expected to reach the tiny resort island until Wednesday, officials said.

Seychelles authorities said they are making arrangements to evacuate people to the island of Desroches and then to transfer the more than 1,000 passengers and crew members to the main Seychelles island of Mahe by plane and fast boats.

No one was injured in the fire Monday, but the blaze set the cruiseliner adrift at sea in a region where Somali pirates prey on ships.

Two tug boats continued to steam toward the stranded cruise ship on Tuesday but were not expected to reach it until the afternoon. The tugs will tow the Costa Allegra back to the Seychelles' main port -- Port Victoria -- under escort by the coast guard and military.

The cruise ship company said that a helicopter took off from Seychelles' main island on Tuesday and will take food, satellite phones and VHF radios to the ship. Guests have been asked to prepare their luggage for disembarkation.

Photos released by the Seychelles on Tuesday showed hundreds of people milling outside on the decks of the Costa Allegra. Taken by an Indian navy plane, the photos showed calm seas and an upright ship.

The Costa Allegra has 636 passengers and 413 crew members on board. The fire knocked out power to the ship's engines as well as to its lights and air conditioning.

Unlike the Costa Concordia, which was built less than 7 years ago, the Costa Allegra is considerably older and was actually converted from a container ship. In 1969, the vessel was completed at the shipyards in Turku, Finland for a Swedish company and christened the MS Annie Johnson before changing hands a number of times and ultimately being converted to a cruise liner at the shipyards in Genoa, Italy in 1992.

A team of investigators from the Italian Coast Guard is being flown to the Seychelles to examine the stricken vessel once it reaches port. A special anti-piracy unit of the Italian navy is also reportedly accompanying the stricken vessel, a precaution regularly taken in the pirate-infested waters off the Horn of Africa.

The company that operates both the Costa Concordia and Costa Allegra- Costa Crociere- is an Italian subsidiary of Carnival Cruises [NYSE- CCL].

Electric Car Company Building Vehicles in Finland After Obtaining US Gov't Loan From Obama Administration

The Obama Administration and Department of Energy are defending a $529 Million loan to Anaheim, CA-based electric car manufacturer Fisker after a report from ABC News on Thursday highlighted the fact that two years ago, the Administration approved the company shifting production overseas to Finland.

Vice President Joseph Biden heralded the Energy Department's $529 million loan to the start-up electric car company called Fisker as a bright new path to thousands of American manufacturing jobs. But two years after the loan was announced, the company's manufacturing jobs are still limited to the assembly of the flashy electric Fisker Karma sports car in Finland.

"There was no contract manufacturer in the U.S. that could actually produce our vehicle," the car company's founder and namesake told ABC News. "They don't exist here."

Henrik Fisker said the U.S. money has been spent on engineering and design work that stayed in the U.S., not on the 500 manufacturing jobs that went to a rural Finnish firm, Valmet Automotive.

The loan to Fisker is part of a $1 billion bet the Energy Department has made in two politically connected California-based electric carmakers producing sporty -- and pricey -- cutting-edge autos. Fisker Automotive, backed by a powerhouse venture capital firm whose partners include former Vice President Al Gore, predicts it will eventually be churning out tens of thousands of electric sports sedans at the shuttered GM factory it bought in Delaware. And Tesla Motors, whose prime backers include PayPal mogul Elon Musk and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, says it will do the same in a massive facility tooling up in Silicon Valley.

Fisker is more than a year behind rolling out its $97,000 luxury vehicle bankrolled in part with DOE money. While more are promised soon, just 40 of its Karma cars (below) have been manufactured and only two delivered to customers' driveways, including one to movie star Leonardo DiCaprio.

A department of Energy spokesman defended the loan to Fisker, saying that the company also plans on producing a $50,000 hybrid called the Nina at a shuttered General Motors plant in Delaware.

"The Department's funding was only used for the U.S. operations," Energy Department spokesman Dan Leistikow wrote. "The money could not be, and was not, spent on overseas operations. The Karma also relies on an extensive network of hundreds of suppliers in more than a dozen U.S. states."

He said the first part of the loan, $169 million, supported engineering work at Fisker's U.S. facilities as the company "developed the tools, equipment and manufacturing processes for Fisker's first vehicle" -- though that work so far has not contributed to a production line in the U.S.

But Leistikow said the rest of the loan is still supporting U.S. production of another vehicle line called the Nina.

"Fisker is using this funding to bring a shuttered General Motors plant in Delaware back to life and employing more than 2,500 workers. Fisker was attracted to this site in part by the opportunity to rehire some of the trained, dedicated workers who lost their jobs when that plant closed," Leistikow said.

However, industry sources are claiming that Fisker's production of the Nina at the Delaware site has been pushed back to mid-2013. Fisker claims that the car has been designed and built, but remains under wraps to maintain a competitive edge.

Moreover, according to a recent Forbes article, once off its electric motor (reportedly good for 32 miles) the Fisker's Karma hybrid actually gets worse gas mileage than a late model Ford Explorer SUV

Does anybody else remember the various factory and workshop tours that President Obama embarked upon during 'Recovery Summer' last year? All of them seemed to pivot around so called 'Green Jobs'- factories that made electric vehicle components, solar panels or batteries for hybrids. And it seems that this wasn't really by accident, either.