Holiday on ice: TV gold

One of the criticisms that I've heard recently is that the Winter Olympics are a little silly.
These complaints stem from the fact that, as I write this, the leading medal-winner in this year's Games is Norway, a country about the size of New Mexico with a population ... about the size of New Mexico.
That's ridiculous. The real problem is that, as Americans, we're not as familiar with the traditional winter sports, such the Nordic combined alpine snowshoe or the luge.
Heck, for many of you, it's been weeks since you luged. Many of you wouldn't even consider luging unless you've had a significant amount of alcohol. Many of you are going out to buy significant amounts of alcohol right now just to see if that's true.
Most Youngstown residents, for instance, are more skilled at winter sports such as the two-man car battery jump, or the men's eight-meter driveway plow. Some of those residents also feel that there's a little too much Olympics coverage on TV. ("Coming up next: Sychronized underwater ice fishing!")
Taped-delayed curlingmakes TV execs drool
That's just silly. Take Monday, for example. CNBC was showing the men's curling match between the U.S.A. and Finland on tape delay. That's ratings gold. In fact, the reason the NFL schedules the Super Bowl in early February is to avoid direct competition with Olympic curling.
My friends and I are even in a fantasy curling league. Pete Fenson, who has a 65 percent accuracy rate, was my first-round pick in the draft. (See updated statistics at www.you'llneverhaveadateonfridaynight.com.)
Of course, if you're a really hard-core fan, you don't even pick sweepers or throwers, you start drafting rocks:
"With the third pick of the seventh round of the 2006 Fantasy Curling Draft, Jim Thompson selects Big Red, a round graphite from the cliffs of New Zealand."
What critics don't seem to understand is, there's nothing else on. The NFL season is over, the college basketball tournament season hasn't started yet and we've got a two-week sports void in our lives that, for the past three years, we've try to fill with family, education or community service. But those are just dead ends! Heck, we're so desperate to watch sports that we find ourselves wondering when Bob Costas is going to interview Bode Miller.
Bob and Bodemeans ratings jolt
COSTAS: "Bode, you've been criticized for your outspoken comments leading up to this Winter Olympics. Despite running the very real risk that it will boost our ratings, could you recount some of those comments, particularly if they include adult situations?
MILLER: "Sure, Bob. Did I ever tell you about the time I skied in the nude with the Swedish Bikini Team?"
NBC, of course, pays big bucks to televise the Olympics, which means they try to build up even the most trivial Olympic events, such as the opening ceremonies or figure skating. (Side note: NBC has decided to use the Italian -- or "correct" -- pronunciation of Turin, which is Torino. And, as all right-minded people know, Italian names that end in "o" are superior to all others.)
From time to time, NBC even tries to televise sports that people might actually watch, such as snowboarding, hockey or the 56 different types of skiing, such as downhill skiing, cross country skiing, ice water skiing and, of course, bumper skiing.
When I was a teen-ager, I couldn't afford to ski, so my friends and I would find a parking lot where we could bumper ski, which consists of grabbing on to the back of a 1988 Hyundai Excel and gliding on your feet, legs or behind. We had to deal with nasty side effects, such as frozen fingers or the dreaded "wet butt," but those are the sacrifices you have to make if you want to be an Olympic champion.
So, rather than celebrate Valentine's Day this year by going out to dinner with your spouse or cellmate, stay in instead and watch the Olympics. And make sure to learn this chant, "Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, he's our Man! If he can't do it, Armin Zoeggeler can!"
Joe Scalzo is a sportswriter for The Vindicator. Write him at scalzo@vindy.com.