Come On Winter Olympics, Give Me Something to Love

by Julian Spivey
The 2018 Winter Olympics are underway from Pyeongchang, South Korea and I’m left with a feeling of indifference. And, as someone who tries to be an all-around sports fan I don’t like it.
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I’m hoping that this year is the year I finally find at least one Winter Olympic sport or event that interests or entertains me. Over the years I’ve become quite the fan of the Summer Olympics. In 2016 when the games were in Brazil I tried to watch as much of the games as possible, including at least one event from every sport at the games and I was successful. I had a blast doing it. I believe I’m more of a fan now as a 30-year old adult of the Summer games than I was as a bright-eyed child seeing my first Olympic games (the ’96 Atlanta games) as an eight-year old.

But, there’s something about the actual sports and events at the Summer games that seem more interesting or fun to me. The games have sports that I watch on the regular throughout the year anyway like basketball and golf, which I was thrilled was added to the Olympics in 2016. And, unlike the Winter Olympics the Summer games are filled with team sports like soccer, field hockey, volleyball and rugby (also added in 2016) that have more intensity and back-and-forth entertainment value because you have groups of people from different countries going at it. There are also unique Summer team sports at the Olympics like water polo and handball, that I’d likely watch more than once every four years if an American sports network would carry the events (I’d truly like to see this). And, yes, the summer games have individual sports like tennis, table tennis and fencing, but those sports have athletes going against each other mano-a-mano, which adds to the excitement.

In many Winter Olympic events it’s simply an individual going out in the elements and trying to set a winning time. Many of the events don’t feature multiple athletes on the field of play at a time and to me that’s just not quite as interesting. Sure, you have some team sports like hockey, but Olympic hockey is less exciting this year than it has been in many years because the NHL (National Hockey League) didn’t take an Olympic break this year to allow the best hockey players in the world the chance to compete for gold. I don’t have as much interest in watching second-tier hockey players compete for the honor. That makes it feel like it’s less worthy.

There are sports I’m hopeful I’ll find more entertaining and exciting like speed skating, luge and the always seemingly popular curling (though I don’t know anyone who could tell you exactly what’s going on and I always forget as soon as the Olympics are over).

My take on the Winter Olympics has always been the admittedly ignorant “sports don’t belong on snow and ice.” But, I’m hoping this is the year I find something that I can love, even if it’s just for two weeks every four years – like certain Summer games events. When I have free time during the next two weeks I’m going to try to catch as many different events as I can. Hopefully something will pique my interest. Come on Winter games, I’m begging of you.

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