Sister and brother ice-dancing team Alex and Maia Shibutani pose for photographs wearing Team USA's Opening Ceremony uniforms for the upcoming Winter Olympics, Monday, Jan. 22, 2018, in New York. The jackets feature built-in, battery-operated heaters that can be adjusted using a cell phone. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

With no particular rooting interest in this year’s Super Bowl, I guess my time the next two weeks will be filled with college basketball, high school hoops and watching a particular entertaining Tyler Junior College squad, plus trying to get over a cough that I have battled since Dec. 30.

I really should admire the Patriots for the standard they have set, but there’s always that reminder of transgressions of filming practices and not doing everything above-board.

And, of course, there are the Eagles and their fans — the Philly cops had to grease the light poles to keep their crazy fans from climbing.

Maybe we should think about Boston Clam Chowder (love a bowl from Legal Sea Foods  in Boston)  and those Philly Cheesesteaks instead of the Patriots and Eagles.

So let’s look forward to the Olympics, which is always a fun couple of weeks.

The XXIII Olympic Winter Games are set to begin Feb. 9 in Pyeongchang, South Korea. It makes you wonder what the Olympic committee is thinking about when awarding the Games to one of the world’s most volatile areas. It’s true anything can happen anywhere, but wouldn’t you think Munich, Germany, (yes, I remember 1972) or Annecy, France, (other finalists) have been a better choice?

Clustered in the Taebaek Mountains, Pyeongchang is just 50 miles from the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that has divided the Korean peninsula for more than six decades.

Hopefully, everything will go smoothly.

You know it’s getting close to the Olympics with all the NBC commercials and the Lindsey Vonn sightings.

And on Monday, the Team USA uniforms were unveiled.

Polo Ralph Lauren may have taken a hit back in 2014 for the chaotic “ugly” sweaters for the Sochi Olympics, but this Olympiad the Polo Company went for the classic red, white and blue look.

That’s a welcomed relief from the American team, which will don the unis for the opening and closing ceremonies next month.

What is really cool is the Olympians have their own thermostat to control their mini environment. Polo Ralph Lauren built technology into parkas that offers extra heat and allows athletes to use cellphones to adjust the temperature.

I really need to get me one of those!

David Lauren, the youngest son of the brand’s namesake and the company’s chief innovation officer, was beaming about the tri-colored parkas in mostly navy blue.

The company said, in a process developed exclusively for the brand, the heating system is made of electronic printed conductive inks in silver and black in the shape of an America flag and bonded to the interior backs of the jackets. Athletes can control basic settings using their cellphones for up to five hours of heat on high and up to 11 hours on low, fully charged.

In another bit of coolness is the gloves that beckons the old west. They are Western style in suede with fringe in rawhide brown and decorated in hand-beaded Olympic rings and an American flag. 

The company said it is trying to tell a celebration of the past, “so we have gloves inspired by the frontier movement, we have jeans that celebrate another era of American entrepreneurship and jackets that heat up, which show that America is continuing to evolve.”

The jacket technology displays the temperature inside the garment to help the athletes decide on settings.

With the fashion statement taken care of, here’s hoping Team USA brings back the gold. The team earned nine gold medals in Sochi, Russia, just missing its record of 10 at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

 

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