Welcome back everyone. The very fact you’re reading this column means that Cornell somehow dragged you back to Ithaca. I’m sure most of us will admit that wherever we were for the past few days was a great alternative to the windswept tundra that the Arts Quad has become. Well, unless you’re from the northeast I guess this is just what you have to live with.

Sometimes I wonder if I would have traded in my tennis shoes and racquet for hockey skates and a stick if I had lived this far north my entire life. I’ll admit, I don’t know the first thing about hockey. Yes, that’s right sports fans; you’ve got an assistant sports editor who doesn’t know a thing about the one sport Cornell is actually good at! Could this be a coming sign of the apocalypse? Maybe. Am I going to go stand in Ho Plaza with a cardboard sign calling out sinners? No, that’s a lifetime endeavor and I’m far too lazy.

So how does a person whose winter sports knowledge includes little more than competitive sledding, snowboard hooliganism and snowball skirmishes, understand winter athletics? Well the sad fact is I can’t.

Last year I went to Montreal to have a merry time, enjoying a country less prude about alcohol and generally more liberal than my American home.

Canada, the great white north, with a surprising amount of Chinese flavor, is pretty much as close as it gets to Mr. Freeze’s lair. Though Canadians may get the finger pointed at them for their Socialist ways by fat Americans without health insurance as “America’s Hat”, Canada is a pretty awesome nation all to itself. Canadians can pride themselves on delicacies, like poutine (French Fries with American Gravy) and maple syrup. But most of all the Canadians have a plentiful supply of ice, snow and whiskey.

Now I thought that the drinking age being so low was more a product of a nation that realizes that 21-year-old kids are just as capable of destroying the world as 18-year-olds, and there’s no point in making a distinction. Soon after arriving I realized that alcohol in Canada is less of a luxury but more a necessity when the wind whips tiny ice crystals into your face. It was in that moment that I wondered why the CIA doesn’t just fly suspected terrorists up to Canada and let them sit on a wind swept snow bank for a while, it is definitely more effective than water boarding. Carrying around a flask in Canada is necessary survival gear. But what liquor do Canadians really make well? Whiskey, hard, no ice.

So rule number one to being good at winter sports, have a lot of good hard whiskey. Now, I’m not condoning that aspiring maple leaves go out to their local liquor store and buy themselves a fifth of good old Canadian Club. Though who knows, maybe its just a matter of survival.

One thing you have to hand to the inventors of most winter sports is that they were a lot more ballsy than the Greeks or the Romans. It’s pretty obvious that strapping two pieces of wood to your feet and going straight down a snow covered slope is a lot more extreme and life threatening than running a marathon or throwing a disc really far. While summer sports are more a test of brute strength and a celebration of the human form, as those Greeks and Romans always loved to admire (something that few of us have gotten over} winter sports are more a test of mental strength and stamina.

I bet if I convinced Usain Bolt to ride head first on a sled down a twisty ice tunnel, he’d probably piss himself. I’m sure I could get it done too. Though every man has his price, Bolt has a great mail order catalogue that gives you exact prices for anything. If Usain Bolt had a cheap-o TV commercial it might go something like this: “You’re Usain Bolt event comes with not one, but two free tickets to the gun show all for the low low price of 19.95!”

So why is it that winter sports don’t get nearly the same credibility or respect as the sports of spring, summer and fall? Well that’s easy, sex sells.

Now if you’re a guy, don’t lie, you like watching women’s beach volleyball on the sly. The summer Olympics are the only time when you can get away with it legitimately and claim you’re just “a fan”. And for all the women, you too know that staring at perfect male specimens is easy to do in pretty much all of the summer events. If anything, the bobsledders, downhill skiers and lugers of the world need to get better stylists. It doesn’t matter if you want to call your racing outfit a “super suit” or “race tights” in the end it’s just a onesie. As for the curlers, you carry around brooms and you consider them sports equipment. Though the janitorial staff may disagree, a broom is always a broom.

So maybe the most apt comparison between summer sports and winter sports is that the summer sports are the prom queens and the jocks, while most winter sports tend to be the geeks and nerds. It’s always claimed that the geeks are the ones who end up running the world. It’s how I rationalized letting Cornell dragging me by the ankles back here to get decimated by another round of prelims. Wow. I’m an idiot!