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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Korked Bats

That Funny Sports Blog

The Winter Olympics: Only Slightly More Exciting Than Women’s Basketball.

I’m willing to risk sounding unpatriotic in order to say what I feel like everyone’s been thinking. I’ll issue a preemptive apology for what stands to be a slightly incendiary post.

Be honest with yourself. Did you even know the Olympics was this year before Stephen Colbert made his pledge to save U.S. speed skating? My guess is no. Actually, it stands to reason that a person that doesn’t appreciate Comedy Central programming is the kind of person who gets really amped up for the winter games, so maybe  I’m way off. I’m digressing a tad, but suffice it to say, if you like the Winter Olympics you’re probably pretty lame. Or Canadian. Some might say the 2 are synonymous. Semantics…

In a nutshell, the history of the Winter Olympics goes a little something like this…

To paraphrase Wikipedia, the Winter Olympics was conceived by some Swede on the IOC that was pushing hard to get figure skating added to the olympic program.  It’s slightly disheartening, and even more emasculating, to think that the winter games were essentially originated to showcase some Swedish general’s love for figure skating. (FYI: Pairs figure skating = 180 seconds of gratuitous moose knuckle) It kind of makes you question the validity of 1) the entire Winter Olympic spectacle and 2)the ferocity of  Sweden’s armed forces. (Aside: I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is essentially moot in Sweden. But at least this elucidates why a Swedish CO would be so enamored with figure skating. Thankfully, I think they’ve appeased the rest of the world with their delicious fish, so I doubt they’ll see any real combat. Unless Norway decides eliminate competition and monopolize the tacky sweater market.)

So you’re probably saying to yourself, “Chris, you’re clearly overlooking the more popular events to mock the foppish pseudo-sports like figure skating and curling.” Untrue and, thus, bringing me to the crux of my argument.

Have you ever sat and considered why women’s basketball is so universally irrelevant in comparison to it’s male counterpart? I have. And in an effort to be as minimally sexist as possible, I’ll attempt to elucidate. The fact that no one (read: me) gives a crap about women’s basketball is because you’ve taken something perfectly good and made it exponentially less interesting. I’m genuinely more interested in the seedings of this years NIT bracket than I was when UConn and Stanford faced off earlier this season. I mean,  what average sports fan has enough appreciation for flawless technical execution and the subtle nuances of the game to enjoy women’s basketball? Perhaps when these gals start dunking from the free throw line and running up in the stands to punch fans, I’ll show some interest. But for now…tomahawk dunk > jump stop + pivot + bounce pass + head fake + perfect form on 14 foot jump shot.

And this is my point. You’ve taken something with legitimate pageantry and tradition–something that only a select number of people on the planet have the combination of physical prowess and unparalleled work ethic to excel at– like the Summer Olympics and made a crappier, bastardized version of it to appease the cold-weather sports contingent.

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at the line-up for this year’s games.

Figure Skating: I’ll concede that it’s a physically and technically demanding sport, but the faggy get-ups are totally unnecessary. Not to mention, who chooses figure skating to devote their life to? Why not try to be good at building card houses or growing Banzai trees or a million other arbitrary things that would probably be more engaging to others than flashing your bedazzled cod piece on the ice.

Skeleton/Luge: For those of you who were unaware (like me), Skeleton is literally the exact same thing as luge, except you face head first going down the ice. Grasping at straws for events, huh, IOC? Well, I see through your charade. My personal barometer for an event’s legitimacy is that if I can do it, it’s not a sport. I’m pretty sure I’ve done this on garbage can lids (both head-first and feet-first) multiple times throughout my childhood. Where’s my gold medal?

Skiing/Snowboarding: Didn’t I just see this on the X games? Only a few weeks ago, Sal Masekela was filling me in on all the sick air these shredders were catching and now these exact same people are going to compete for medals in the Olympics? So, the s0-called “Flying Tomato” and a guy that likes to get drunk and ski will be representing my country in arguably the only relevant events? I’m legitimately offended by this. You should be, too. Oh, and cool MegaDeth t-shirt, Bode. It’s totally ironic…

Curling: It actually pisses me off that this is a real Olympic event. It’s shuffleboard…on ice. What? Really? This constitutes something that enough people in the world are competing in that nations around the world can actually field teams to vie for olympic gold? I call bull poopie on that. No one contacted my grandfather, and I can personally testify that the old man is one hell of a shuffleboard player.

Bobsled: I actually have no beef with this. I find the whole event to be rather engaging. But I just need everyone to admit that they had no idea what the hell a bobsled was until they saw this…

It means, "Peace be the journey..."

In summation, this is essentially why the Winter Olympics sucks. Disagree? You won’t when SportsCenter is inundated with 24/7 coverage and inane story lines from the olympics for the next 6 weeks.  Unless, of course, it’s Hannah Storm commenting on the perfect curvature of Lindsey Vonn’s backside in her skin-tight ski pants. That’s just the sort of journalism we can all get behind. (Air High 5 if you caught that pun.)

Until next time…

Slack. Out.


6 thoughts on “The Winter Olympics: Only Slightly More Exciting Than Women’s Basketball.

  • Avatar
    February 24, 2010 at 10:38 am
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    Bravo! This token of exquisite blogwork and humorous satire matched with the asperity of America’s remarkable triumph thoroughly distinguishes our Great Nation from our peripheral (dare I say, lesser) chapeau of a nation. Simply outstanding!

    Reply
  • Avatar
    February 24, 2010 at 7:03 pm
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    Its sad when Canada cant even beat us at their “Winter” national sport (lacross is the summer one). Canada has hit rock bottom. USA! USA!!!

    Reply
  • Avatar
    February 24, 2010 at 7:44 pm
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    So happy to see a post about hockey that I almost shed a tear. Make Americans interested in the sport again. Please write more about hockey.

    Reply
  • Kyle
    February 25, 2010 at 11:08 am
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    America 2, Canada 0. What’s the other victory? We invented LOST.

    Reply
  • Avatar
    February 25, 2010 at 12:03 pm
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    “I swear Waldo was sitting right there the entire game!”

    Reply
  • Avatar
    February 25, 2010 at 7:28 pm
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    “I pooped in that seat earlier. Sucker.”

    Reply

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