Column: Americans ski past Winter Olympic sport

His name is Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, he is a biathlete, and he is absolutely the illest dude. Biathlon, or “that one where they shoot at stuff,” is the only Winter Olympic event that the United States has never medaled in. That means the sport is dominated by people with cool names, like Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, Bjorn Ferry, Halvard Hanevold, Emil Hegle Svendsen, Dominik Landertinger, Pavol Hurajt, Andrejs Rastorgujevs and, of course, Jakov Fak, which has a nice ring to it.

People tend to think biathlon is a joke. “Har har,” they say, chuckling to themselves as they spread cream cheese on their bagels. “This sport is for goobers.” But have they seen the suspense of the pursuit race as the athletes pull into the shooting range, take their rifles off their backs and set up for their final shots, the leaders knowing they can’t miss or they’ll likely be out of the running?

This year, I watched tensely as Bjoerndalen lined up his last five shots in the pursuit, with a gold medal likely if he shot clean. And lo, he missed twice, failing to hit the grapefruit-sized target from the standing position (the prone target is the size of a silver dollar), resulting in two penalty loops and dashing his hopes for a medal. A brutal disappointment for residents of Norway — and also for me.

Seriously, there’s no sport quite like it. These athletes have to complete grueling cross-country ski races (both the men’s and women’s events include races of 10 kilometers, 12.5 kilometers and 15 kilometers, with the women racing an additional 7.5-kilometer race and the men a 20-kilometer race), getting their hearts pumping fast and their adrenaline rushing, and then, four times a race, have to shoot extremely accurately. If you’ve shot a gun, or lowered your heartbeat in Modern Warfare 2 to improve sniping accuracy, you have an idea of how hard it is to shoot when your heart is racing like that. There’s a reason a large number of world-class biathletes are in their nations’ militaries.

Man, I just have the most beef with what sports are deemed relevant by American TV stations. Awesome sports like biathlon or curling or short track speed skating don’t only happen every four years! People don’t realize that we can watch these sports all the time! Really, we can. Four years ago, I got to watch biathlon every weekend on Eurosport for two months. It was always fascinating, always exciting, certainly more exciting than baseball or hockey, and almost as much as football or basketball.

And I know few people would believe that, but if you haven’t watched any biathlon, or if all you’ve seen is the brutally chopped NBC coverage where they cut to commercial every two-and-a-half minutes, they have full HD replays of all the Olympic races on the Internet. I’m watching one right now. They’re really good. Honestly.

Also, that dude who has the most Winter Olympic medals and then got injured roller skiing? Bjorn Daehlie. Twelve medals for Bjorn Daehlie, and 11 for Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, whose last name is almost the same as Bjorn Daehlie’s first name. Isn’t that cool? It would basically be the same as if Kobe Bryant’s name were Kobe Einar Michaeljordan. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather have heard about that than Bode Miller and Lindsey Vonn for the 32nd time. But that’s another story.

So biathlon will return to the background until 2014, given nary a thought by American viewers until Sochi. But it doesn't have to be that way. I'll be looking for biathlon wherever I should find it, and so should a lot more of our nation. Somebody has to break the last American Winter Olympic medal drought, right?

Now let's talk about a sport you've definitely heard a lot about lately.

You know what was wacky? The huge USA–Canada rivalry in hockey! People all yelling and screaming during the gold medal game and such. I have never, ever seen that level of commitment to hockey from this many Americans. Even I got into it, and I don’t like hockey. Which begs the question: How can the NHL capitalize on Olympic interest in hockey, and especially on the grand potential of a good old-fashioned animosity between American teams and Canadian teams?

My friend and fellow sports columnist Ryan Dahn made some suggestions in his article last week, all of which I agree with. But yeah, I would verily suggest that the NHL should go even further, in ways similar to what Bill Simmons of ESPN has suggested, but with a few extra twists:

Contract the league down to 20 or 22 teams. Phoenix Coyotes? Who cares. Tampa Bay Lightning? Nobody knows who they are. Baton Rouge Beet Farmers? That might as well be a hockey team with all the random teams that play in warm weather where hockey isn’t relevant. Get rid of several of them, and move enough of the rest back to Canada so that we have two conferences, American and Canadian. It could even be old-time baseball style with no interleague play, setting up a hotly contested North American Series between the best American team and best Canadian team every year.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

People love hockey games that mean something. Instead of an All-Star Game, how about a national-style NHL all-star tournament, with the following eight teams: Ontario, Manitoba/Alberta, Other Canadian Provinces, Western United States (including Minnesota), Eastern United States, Sweden/Finland, Czech Republic/Slovakia and Russia/Everyone Else. Every player born in those areas playing in the NHL is eligible for his team, and the season will take a break in the middle (like this year with the Olympics) to have the tournament.

That would be the most fun. I wish sports leagues would think outside the box more often. Or if they didn’t want to take a break during the season, they could try a split season like MLB did in 1981 because of the strike. Have one half-season, then the all-star tournament, then another half-season, with the playoff teams determined by the half seasons.

Who doesn’t love fantasy drafts? Nobody. Everybody loves fantasy drafts. I want to have one right now. I don’t even care what it’s about. Football players, movies, ice cream flavors, no matter what. So recall the first thing on this list, contraction of teams. What do you do with all the players on the disbanded teams? Fantasy draft!

Even beyond that, fewer teams means better teams. So much of why the Olympics were great was that the national teams are stacked. As long as there are teams that could be eliminated without it being a big deal (and there are), why not make the general quality of each team better?

Of course, Gary “Are we sure he’s not a plant from David Stern to destroy the NHL?” Bettman has apparently said that NHL players might not participate in the 2014 Olympics. So he clearly knows what’s going on in public opinion. Ugh. Let’s hope that the NHL allows its players to be in the Olympics and takes steps to make its product more engaging, like the way the Olympics proved hockey should be. But even if they don’t, I won’t fret too much and neither should you. There’s always biathlon.