Column: Chew On This; The origin of the winter games: Beer
Last Thursday night was touted as the biggest ratings battle on primetime television since sliced bread.
Blockbuster reality shows like “American Idol,” “Survivor” and “Dancing with the Stars” battled against NBC’s Olympic coverage of women’s figure skating, proving once and for all that women have taken over the world.
I spent my time, like most guys, doing something much more productive, like burping. And not cut sy, little burps either. You know, the deep bass, guttural, crack the foundations, epic kind of burps. Long enough that you could belch entire sonnet burps. Man burps. Olympic burps.
So, unless a ratings “battle” actually involved some exhaust, blown-off limbs, touchdowns or some GSR, most guys wouldn’t deem it as worthwhile TV.
So now I confess. I love watching the Olympics. Even the women’s figure skating. It’s exciting when they crash on the ice.
It’s all part of my biennial couch-potato sports experience.
If you look at the facts, it’s not hard to realize that the Olympics were invented primarily by guys for guys. Sure, women participate, but you know, we decided to add rifle shooting to skiing. No woman in her right mind would suggest such a thing.
The Winter Olympics began in 1924 in Chamonix, France, as a dare.
A bunch of tough guys (not unlike those dumb, painted dudes at football games) got together to formalize the fraternity-like dares they’d been working on for months.
This is why winter sports are insane.
The Swedish tough guys pushed poor, drunk Sven down an icy hill on a sled because … well … they didn’t have a good reason, they were also drunk. When he didn’t die, they decided to try too. Sven’s cousin, Bjorn made it down the hill just a little quicker. He was elated. Luge was invented.
Not to be outdone by the Swedes, the German tough guys dared Erwin to go down the hill head-first. When Erwin crashed into the lugers at the bottom of the hill, his fellow countrymen shouted something like, “He Schlaged his Knochengerüst!”
Because it was a mouthful to say, the IOC just decided to keep the name simple and the new sport of Knochengerüst was born.
Erwin died, but the German beer was more potent than the Swedish brew.
Four Germans jumped on a much larger sled that they stole from a French kid named Bob. They rode Bob’s sled down the icy hill to go give the lugers a pasting for hurting their friend.
To help defend their Scandinavian buddies, the Norwegians hurried down the hill the best way they could figure out while intoxicated – ski jumping.
They landed a few meters short of the brawl, about 125 meters away, or in other words, right on top of the Russian group who were trying to skate out of the way as quickly as possible.
Eventually everyone involved in the proceedings ended up in a slippery brawl which developed into what we now call short track speed skating.
All the while, Helga and Olga, wives of Sven and Bjorn stood, with hands on hips, at the top of the hill, shaking their heads and mumbling Swedish words of disapproval.
Embarrassed, they hoped this wouldn’t have to happen every year.
No, women couldn’t have invented the Olympics. They are too sensible. This is why the Winter Games occurs only every four years.
This is also why women don’t get overly excited when they pass a car on the way to work because it just dropped .30 seconds off their commute.
I do. I have the couch-potato Olympics spirit. It’s a guy thing.
I just have one Olympic-related problem. This summer I need to do some home repair and remodeling. Formerly, I used Home Depot to accommodate my building needs. But now, all you can find there are wannabe Olympians who can’t tell an eavestrough nail from a finishing nail. Gosh!
And it’s not like those fruity men’s figure skaters will be much help when I have sheetrocking questions. They’d offer better advice in the sequins section at Michaels.
I just try to avoid the doubles luge guys altogether.
Anyway, the 2006 Winter Olympics has finally come to a close – meaning it’s once again mildly acceptable to watch those “precious” Thursday night reality programs.
More importantly, the couch will once again have a chance to recover from the crater my butt left over the last 17 days.
Garrett Wheeler is a second bachelor’s student in technical theatre design. Send any comments or column ideas to wheel@cc.usu.edu.