A slow day in class for an Ontario journalism student led to the creation of one of the most popular Sochi Olympics-related Twitter accounts.

Alex Broad, a 20-year-old from Pickering, Ont., says he’s the creator of the @SochiProblems account, which currently has about 287,000 followers.

The account compiles funny and sarcastic tweets – most of them from journalists -- about the various problems at the Sochi Games, such as unfinished hotels, curious washroom signs and broken door handles.

Broad said the idea for @SochiProblems came to him in class, while he was looking for breaking news on a slow day. 

“From there on out, it just blew up,” he told CTV News Channel Friday night.

“It all started as a joke and it just kind of escalated.”

The Twitter account has garnered attention from around the world. It has been mentioned in numerous stories about the Winter Olympics in newspapers, online and on television.

But Broad said although some people are interpreting the #SochiProblems hashtag and tweets as somewhat of a political statement against alleged corruption and misspending in Russia, he’s just trying to have fun.

 “I’ve been very careful what to tweet because I don’t want repercussions that could turn it ugly,” he said.