Sell Me On: The Olympics

  • As it stands, the only thing I know right now about The Olympics is that the mascots are pretty goddamn adorable.

    I mean, c’mon. The lumbering sasquatch, Quatchi? The “sea bear” (which I assume translates to “seal”), Miga? The ambiguous animal mash-up that is the “animal spirit,” Sumi? Then you have the poor little bastard, Mukmuk the marmot, who apparently isn’t good enough to be a full-on mascot, and yet they still wanted to include him anyway, so he hangs off on the side with his lame-ass foam finger, dreaming one day that he can hang with the big kids? Why you gotta be mean to Mukmuk? Just because he’s some kind of… I dunno, briny gopher or whatever the hell a marmot is? Go ahead. You put Mukmuk in the mascot ghetto. See where that gets you. One day, Mukmuk ain’t gonna take it no more. He’ll come for the other mascots. He’ll come for them with incisors whetted to a Guillotine sharpness and with blood rage in his tiny eyes. Mukmuk ain’t no bitch.

    Point is, that ends my knowledge of not only the 2010 Winter Olympics, but the Olympics in general.

    I have been on this earth for… mmm, coming up on 34 years, and I have not once sat down to watch the Olympics. Never. Nada. Nichts. Nuh-uh.

    I’ve little idea what sports are even included in the proceedings. It’s winter, so I assume you get peeps on skis, peeps on skates, peeps shoving themselves into greased-up death bullets (“luge”). Surely the sport goes deeper than that? Do we get Ice Soccer? Tundra Wrestling? Snowmobile Jousting done across the Mighty Hoarfroast Planes of Distant Canadia? They’ve gone and admitted up front that mythical creatures exist. Do men hunt the Sasquatch? Do they beseech the aid of the animal spirits before they strap on their snowboards? Is there a secret supernatural component that I’m missing?

    Hell, I don’t even know what teams are playing. Is it like, the Toronto Maple Leafs versus Rutgers University? The Jets versus Yao Ming? Danica Patrick battling Mrs. Floorsheim’s 2nd Grade Class? Am I in the Olympics? Is that what this jury summons is all about? Who am I fighting? Someone give me a stick. Tell me I don’t have to take down a Sasquatch? I haven’t hunted the ‘Quatch in, what, 15 years? I made peace with their people. We are friends now. I’m going to protect them. I’m going to go native. I’ll dress up in a Sasquatch suit and find me a Sasquatch bride and then we’ll protect our icy cave system by destroying the American Military-Industrial complex and –

    Well. We know how that ends.

    (At least it’ll be in 3D.)

    I’ve never had much interest in the Olympics, really — but maybe I’m missing out? Maybe I secretly hunger for the competition of nations for global athletic supremacy. Who knows? Plainly I am isolated in my dismissal of the Olympics if you use Twitter as a guide. Just as the hills were alive with the sound of music, the Twitters were alive with the sound of people squeeing about the Olympics opening ceremonies. I saw more of my tweeps jabbering about the Olympics than I did the Super Bowl. And trust me, I’m not knocking anybody who’s into it. Everybody’s got their thang. You like the Olympics, I like the Oscars. You like vanilla, I like chocolate. You like fisting videos, I like robot porn. Tomaytoh, tomahhhtoh. Let’s call the whole thing off.

    Except, let’s not. Sell me on the Olympics. You know me well enough by now. You know the kind of dude I happen to be. (If you don’t, feel free to peruse this site for two hours. Then you can get back to me.) Am I missing out? Any sports I should be into? Anything with a “high death ratio?” Anything where people battle each other? Anything with a lot of ludicrous pomp and circumstance? Anything with a Yeti?

    C’mon. Gimme some meat to chew.

    The Olympics.

    What am I missing, Internuts?

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    February 13th, 2010 | terribleminds | 16 Comments

About The Author

ChuckWendig

Chuck Wendig is equal parts novelist, screenwriter, and game designer. He is the author of the novels DOUBLE DEAD, BLACKBIRDS, and MOCKINGBIRD. In addition, he's got a metric boatload of writing-related e-books available, including the popular 500 WAYS TO BE A BETTER WRITER. He currently lives in the wilds of Pennsyltucky with wife, dog, and newborn progeny.

16 Responses and Counting...

  • Scionical 02.13.2010

    I got not clue. Sell me also.

  • Chuck

    Aren’t you *in* Great Canadia? Doesn’t the Winter Olympics run in your blood?

    – c.

  • Jennifer

    Anyone can participate in the Olympics! You just have to pick the right event.

    I’m doing the Knitting Olympics, sponsored by the Yarn Harlot. The rules are pretty simple – cast on an epic project after the flame is lit and finish before the flame goes out. Ravelympics, which takes place on Ravelry (er, like Facebook for yarn and knitters and such) is a little more involved…you can sign up for a team and/or a specific knitting event (i.e., socks, sweater, baby blanket)…but the same concept applies. 17 days of concentrated knitting.

    Maybe there is an Olympic event out there for you, too. Or you could make one up!

    I’m not sure this helps sell you on the Olympics. But you’re right — those mascots are super-cute! That’s all I need to know. =)

  • Chuck

    …

    @Jennifer, all that sounds like you made it up (Yarn Harlot?!), but I have a sneaking suspicion you did not.

    Inform!

    Link!

    Something.

    – c.

  • Paul DeLaurentis

    I just end up picking up simple story-lines and running with them. They’re like human interest stories that unfold before your eyes. The figure skating competitions can be gracefully brutal to watch. The downhill skiing is pretty cool, too.

    The one thing I pay very close attention to is Olympic Ice Hockey. The NHL shuts down for 2 weeks and all of the players go back to play for their respective teams. To me it’s awesome. The US, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, and Russia are all in it up to the end. Canada vs. US will be AWESOME to watch.

    Of course, if you don’t like hockey, then why would you care? You don’t like hockey??? What the hell is wrong with you? LIKE HOCKEY!!! The hell with it.

    The mascots remind me of Pokemon. Now if the mascots did battle Pokemon style…then I’d watch!

    Anyway…I just woke up and coffee is ready. What do you think, sirs?

  • Bill

    You want secret supernatural components? Why, then you must go to Chris Knowles’ site: http://secretsun.blogspot.com/2010/02/17-days-in-vancouver.html

  • Chuck

    @Bill — Man, I should’ve known that if anybody would point me in the right direction, it’d be you.

    @Paul — the wife is more the hockey fanatic, but I will watch any game of hockey that plays out in front of my eyes, because it’s a goddamn exciting game. It is, in fact, one of the most exciting sports to watch. Shit happens. Constantly. It’s rad.

    – c.

  • Julie

    Olympic Hockey, Downhill skiing, and Snowboarding. Screw everything else with an olive tweezer. Bleh all over the opening ceremonies.

    Goddamn those mascots are cute. I had no idea. I covet a t-shirt now. NOW. *clicks on Amazon*

  • John the Great

    Watching the Olympics gives praise onto the Greek Gods, for whom we owe our continued existence in our fight against the Titans.

    Do you want our world to fall apart? What could you have to gain from this madness? DO YOU WORSHIP TYPHON???

    By now you have surely figured out that I’m joking and honestly don’t watch the Olympics. Sorreh.

  • Scionical

    I am in Canada, I am not -from- Canada. These people are fucking insane, and I try to avoid their hockey-crazed eye and Tim Bit-scented breath at all costs.

  • Josh

    We recorded the opening ceremonies. Then spent most of the evening on the X-Box.

  • Lugh

    Well, there is the biathlon event. You know how the triathlon combines swimming, biking, and running? The biathlon is the same thing, except it combines cross-country skiing and SHOOTING STUFF!! Yup, you zip along with icy sticks strapped to your feet while also target shooting with a rifle.

    (In Eric Flint’s excellent novel 1632, one of the Americans sent back to medieval Germany is a teenage biathlete Olympic hopeful. She introduces the world to the concept of “sniper.”)

  • evilla

    The olympics is a collection of completely insane people, er, athletes, doing ridiculous things. Everything they do is ridiculous. One day someone thought, I wonder how fast I can hurl myself down this mountain cliff and then jump off of it on skis. And that person found a bunch of other crazy folks who said, I can do that faster. And that is the olympics. People doing ridiculous, potentially paralyzing, death defying feats and calling them sport. We sadly got an early taste of that this week with the luger death.
    And what is refreshing is the olympics aren’t just Americans being crazy, it’s a collection of the world’s most extreme people. I just watched some dude called the Polish Pilot take first place in ski jumping. Plus, for globe-o-phobes like me, it’s a geography lesson—Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Canada?
    Olympic athletes have balls.* The olympics put regular everyday sports like baseball and basketball to shame with their time outs, chewing tobacco, personal fouls and such. I mean, seriously, where else can you see a “sport” called skeleton:
    http://www.nbcolympics.com/skeleton/insidethissport/rules/newsid=260520.html
    So that’s why I tune in to the olympics—to witness people look death in the face and say, eff you death, eat my snow dust grim reaper.

    *This description of the olympics excludes curling and ice dancing, which while entertaining to some degree, ice skaters do not fall into the above category of crazy death chasers and curling is just dumb.

  • Paul DeLaurentis

    Have you ever twirled around your partner at about 25mph with his razor sharp skate blade millimeters from your face? Have you ever been tossed 5 feet into the air and then caught by a crazy man skating around like a demon?

    Ice skating is very dangerous.

    Curling is not dangerous. Screw them.

  • evilla

    You are right, Paul. How could I forget the light Blades of Glory shed on this sport?
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-FMYL6MgLk

  • Cafrine

    I don’t know. The two weeks during the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney are quite honestly two of the top weeks of my life (well, they are in the top ten, anyway). I didn’t attend them, but we did watch it all on TV everyday and everynight, and I remember a real sense of being a member of the team (the team, of course, being Australia and not the Olympic team, since I can’t even stand up without falling over) and how much fun it was. It was a huge time in our history, even though it’s basically a bunch of ball games.

    That said, I have no clue why people watch the Winter games. I know everyone goes for the Curling joke, but seriously. WTF with that?

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