Seven crazy suggestions

Ah, the Winter Olympics. What other time do we get to enjoy wacky sports like bobsled, luge, skeleton and biathlon? Now that we’re a week and a half past the spectacular hockey final of this year’s Winter Olympics, all our favorite winter sports are disappearing into their four-year hibernation. Before it’s too late, I’d like to make a few final comments on the oddities of the Winter Olympics. It’s no secret that NBC struggles in its attempts to market Olympic sports to American audiences. So in the spirit of spring, here are my seven suggestions to the International Olympic Committee and NBC on how to spice up unpopular (and some popular) Winter Olympic sports.

1. Get rid of ice dancing.

Let’s be honest — No one likes ice dancing. It’s the rhythmic gymnastics of the Winter Games -— a “sport” that is both boring and time-consuming.

Everyone flips the channel when NBC tries to force-feed it to us — unless your girlfriend forces you to keep it on and you have pretend to like it. Getting rid of ice dancing would be addition by subtraction.

2. Have biathletes shoot at each other instead of at targets.

It’s true that biathlon is already pretty cool. But could you imagine what it would be like if instead of shooting at boring targets, the racers were shooting at each other? OK, I guess they would need to have paintball guns instead of semiautomatic rifles. I’m not exactly sure how it would work, but the IOC should definitely make it happen.

Maybe at the current stops for target shooting the racers could duel, or maybe they would be allowed to shoot at each other at any point during the race. Naturally, any hit would result in automatic disqualification.

3. Bobsled Cross.

Bobsledding is definitely fun to watch every four years but isn’t something that would be appealing if it were on TV all the time. Ski cross and snowboard cross, though, are incredibly fun to watch, mainly due to the chance of a catastrophic, demolition-derby style wipeout at any time. If bobsled took a page out of the Cross book, it would be infinitely more fun to watch. Four sleds going down the track at the same time — obviously on a wider track — would be a blast.

4. Pig Bobsledding.

No, seriously. Replace one human rider on a two-man or four-man bobsled team with a pig. You race normally, but the catch is that your sled cannot cross the finish line carrying the pig, so you have to forcibly eject it from the sled at some point during your run. And this is no piglet we’re talking about here — it’s a real Iowa-State-Fair-Style hog, so it takes a concerted effort to get the pig out of the sled. For maximum speed, you obviously want to keep the pig in the sled as long as possible, but then you might not be able to wrangle it out of the sled fast enough.

The commentary would be priceless: “And the Germans are having trouble with their pig ... They can’t get a hold of it because it’s squirming too much ... Did they get it out in time or did they cross the finish line? Looks like we’re going to have to go to the replay on this one, Bob!” Needless to say, PETA might have something to say about this event.

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5. Pig Bobsled Cross.

All of the chaotic fun of bobsled cross combined with the manic insanity of pig bobsledding.

Plus, it adds an extra element of strategy to the pig tossing by giving each team the option of attempting to throw its pig into another team’s sled.

A team could snatch victory from the jaws of defeat with an accurate toss of its pig into the leading team’s sled. Pigs would be flying every which way.

Unfortunately, pig bobsled cross might be too much fun for IOC President Jacques “Stodgy Old Belgian Dude Who is Actually a Count” Rogge, so I think the odds of our seeing this any time soon are probably pretty slim.

6. Make long track speed skating like short track.

If you haven’t noticed yet, the theme of this column is pretty much the simple fact that mass starts are infinitely more entertaining than racing against times set by previous racers.

Short track speed skating is arguably the most exciting sport in the Winter Games; long track speed skating, not so much. Keep the longer track, but organize the event like short track, with six to eight skaters per race. Sure, it decreases the fairness involved (see any short track race), but it is much more spectacular for fans.

While we’re at it, why not just eliminate disqualification from speed skating in general?

7. Aerials dunk contest.

Watching skiers go off a near-90-degree jump, do some crazy trick in the air and somehow manage to land safely is awesome.My problem is that all of their tricks look the same: The skiers spin around a bunch of times and do a bunch of flips.

No matter how many spins or flips they do, please don’t tell me that you can tell the difference on TV. The freestyle aerial ski event should instead be like the NBA dunk contest. No, really.

Suspend a hoop 50–55 feet above the ground and have the skiers dunk while performing their tricks. Dwight Howard-type style points would be allowed and encouraged. Needless to say, skiers would still have to land properly after dunking. Now who wouldn’t love that?