I grew up in Tampa, Florida, where if the temperature dipped below 76 degrees, the entire city moved to an evacuation shelter in Miami. Anything performed on ice or snow — or more clothes than a loin cloth — was pretty foreign to me. We didn’t ski or ice skate or launch ourselves off ice ramps. If we could get an ice cube in our tea before it melted, that was a winter sport.
It’s much the same today, which is maybe why the Winter Olympics is so fascinating to me. I find myself hooked, staring at the screen, marveling at these sports I’ve never tried, or didn’t even knew existed. There are so many mysteries. For instance:
• In any sport I’ve ever watched — or for that matter, anything that has ever moved — I’ve rooted for a massive crash. Cars. Poker games. Anything involving pom-poms. But in winter sports, I sit in fetal position peeking through my arms screaming, “Please Lord, don’t let that guy wipeout!” Winter crashes are terrifying, horrid and cataclysmic. On slick ice with no friction to stop them, they could go on forever, jumping barricades and shooting through town like a cartoon catastrophe. I get spasms in parts of my body I didn’t even know existed and can’t look at ice cubes for weeks.
• Why is it as much as I want to hate curling and call it a “fake sport,” I actually find it mesmerizing? It’s like watching a lava lamp: You know there are better things to do with your day — shoot, the back part of your house could be on fire! — but you can’t drag your eyes away. I sit there with my head on my hands entranced. People walk by and I say, “Wait ‘a minute … come here. You have got to see this! She takes this shiny rock and slides it so slow. Why doesn’t she fling it like a bowling ball? I don’t know! It takes longer than it does to get a mortgage. But, watch this … finally … it … will … just … barely … nudge that other rock. Isn’t it wonderful!?!” My family stares at me like I should be committed. Maybe it’s the calming effect it has on me. I cheer in slow motion and glide around the house in socks like I’m a curler. Could be it’s that I can’t do anything so controlled on ice without resembling a wild turkey being electrocuted. I love it, but can’t explain it.
• What about this one: Ski jumpers start higher than the Statue of Liberty, travel at speeds up to 60 mph, fly the length of a football field, and then when they land … THEY DON’T DIE! How is it nobody dies?!? One after another. I step off the bottom step of my stairs awkward and I’m screaming for 911.
• Why would anyone live anywhere long enough to actually get good at these sports? I mean, come on, people! You should really visit Tampa’s cold-weather evacuation shelter in Miami.