Well, it’s official. The sports writers and sports announcers are all of a sudden yammering about people no one ever heard of, and that can only mean one thing. That’s right, sports fans, it’s almost Winter Olympic time! Skiers, Bobsledders and the like. Then these sports people, who you read and listen to all year long and who never once mention Winter Olympic sports, all of a sudden become word class experts on the Luge, Curling, Snowboarding and whatever the hell they call that stupid event where a guy on skis shoots up the place with a high-powered rifle. Why more Americans don’t take to that sport is a mystery. Throw in a deer hunting license and a case of beer and we’d dominate.
At any rate, the same guys who prattle about prevent defenses, the pick-and-roll and the infield fly rule now would have you believe that they give a crap about figure skating, which hasn’t been any fun at all since Tonya Harding kneecapped the competition back in ’94. Literally. Like they know or give a rat’s ass what’s the difference between Speed Skating and Short Track Speed Skating. They do a nice job of trying to get us interested, though, usually by focusing their attention on some obnoxious extreme skier with a few screws loose. Sorry, but Tonya is still the most exciting thing to hit the Winter Olympics. Ever.
Outside of that skate and punch fest called Hockey, there’s not a sport in the whole bunch that either doesn’t require a lot of money to learn or are best performed by people like Canadians and Scandinavians who grew up in chest-high snow. Basically what you see for two weeks on the winnners platform are the blonde-haired, blue-eyed sons and daughters of affluence, not a single one of them other than a handful of the Hockey players and figure skaters who have a shot at earning a living at their sport. No one packs an arena to watch Skeleton, which is a guy on a tiny replica of a toboggan, more like a welcome mat with handles, hurtling downhill on his belly, face-first, at 80 MPH. Only those who attend Nascar races hoping for a fatal crash could appreciate this semi-sport.
Fittingly enough, this year’s games are in Canada, as perfect a symbol for the earnest and energetic ennui that is the Winter Olympics as could be, a marriage made in Dullness Heaven. If Canada did not exist, we’d have to invent it to serve as the living embodiment of boring, but God in His wisdom was, as always, a few steps ahead of us. How could He have known there would be Winter Olympics Games and where best to hold them? Thank Him that at least we’ll have the Super Bowl to quench our thirst for real sports until after the Winter Olympic Games go away and take their so-called athletes with them for another four merciful years. This will be a good time to hibernate for two weeks.