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For you many hardcore ice hockey fans already suffering withdrawal pains from the NHL mid-season sabbatical, things probably got worse during the past fortnight of the Winter Olympics.

For one thing, a USA-Latvia tie did not elicit the same excitement and fan passion as a Rangers-Devils match. For another, it was now your turn to sit through your wife's favorite sport. If your household is like mine, this would be ladies' figure skating.

Hopefully, you were able to do as I did and project yourself to a happier place. Maybe it helped to think of this as a kinder, gentler version of the game you love. After all, the participants - no, you cannot call them 'players' without taking an elbow to the ribs - do skate in groups of six and the objective is still to outscore the opponent.

Both events have judges to legislate scoring, the key difference being that figure skating judges don't get to work the red light and siren whenever one of theirs lands a triple toe loop. Nor does either group have the final say. Hockey judges can be undermined by the referee, ladies' figure skating judges by the French Skating Federation.

In ice hockey, checking is done during the game to retard the opponent's progress. In the more dignified world of figure skating, checking is better done before the program begins. The Ukrainians could have done me a favor and checked their absurd costumes at the gates of Turin. Unfortunately, you cannot change on the fly yet in skating. Likewise, Italian Silvia Fontana could check her Danskin for proper centering before the NBC camera zooms in on her spinning camels.

In ladies' figure skating, icing is a penalty and is payable with four years in the box. Rare is the short program leader that can keep some space between her buttocks and the ice. Take these past Games. Sasha Cohen took the lead into the free skating program but her first two jumps landed her on the ice . . . twice. Cohen will be 25 by the 2010 Games, and for her the penalty box gate may no longer open.

Japan's Shizuka Arakawa followed Cohen and skated a good program - which is to say she stayed upright - and assumed the lead as Irina Slutskaya assumed center ice. The Russian skater had been second after the short program, so she need only hold serve to capture gold. Alas, she too went down.

When the pressure is on, lady figure skaters go down faster than a six-pack of Bud in Bode Miller's trailer before a big downhill race.

Consider Debi Thomas in 1988. She entered the free skate just behind Katarina Witt. After a conservative performance by Witt, the door was ajar. Thomas promptly closed it - on herself. She two-footed a landing and fell to bronze.

How about America's favorite runner-up, Michelle Kwan? The short program leader in Nagano, Kwan had to settle for silver. Given that disappointment, the country pulled for her to parlay yet another short program lead at Salt Lake City into gold. A double-foot and fall later, she took bronze.

What makes this whole matter of falling even worse, figure skaters are not even up against a defense. The entire event can be likened to an ongoing penalty shot in ice hockey. Instead of a goalie, the obstacle each lady faces is her alter ego, that aspect of her that is afraid to fail and who now stands between her and the medal podium, tapping its oversized stick on the ice as she approaches.

Imagine ice hockey star Maria Rooth as she skates down the ice to take Sweden's fourth shot in its semifinal shootout against the U.S.A. If she beats goalie Chanda Gunn, her team goes on to the gold medal game. But suddenly, she wipes out. Can't you just hear Mike Emrick's call? "Ohhhh, that's too bad . . . caught an edge and couldn't come out of it . . . the judges will be taking off a mandatory half-goal on that one."

Just as with all things in life, it is dangerous to generalize. Not all the ladies go down. Katarina Witt didn't in 1984 or 1988. She just stared down her competition with a gaze as cold and hard as the medium upon which she performed. Back-to-back gold medals make a dynasty in this, the marquee event of the Winter Olympics.

Kristi Yamaguchi was all she was billed to be in 1992, as was Oksana Baiul in 1994. However, Tara Lipinski and Sarah Hughes won gold for the U.S. in 1998 and 2002, respectively, under far less pressure. It would have made compelling drama to see their reactions under the weight of expectations shouldered by either Kwan or Irina Slutskaya, both of whom fell short in those years.

All in all, placating my wife for a mere two nights last week was a small price to pay for the deluxe package offered shortly by March Madness. I will even confess to giving in to the spirit.

Recalling the tense competitions of previous Olympics, which found me holding my breath as Debi Thomas and Nancy Kerrigan and Michelle Kwan contorted their bodies into three mid-flight revolutions and attempted to land in vulnerable positions on a slippery and hard surface, I caved this year. Last Thursday night as I drove home, I did not turn down the volume during the sports flash as I had for nearly two weeks. I had to know who was to win.

There has been a lot of negativity surrounding these Games. They're too dull, too white, too esoteric. Coverage is canned and misdirected and displaces "My Name Is Earl." Perhaps we have become too set in our ways.

In all my years of watching, I've never failed to gain something from the Olympics. Sometimes it is an insight into the human spirit; other times, merely a renewed enthusiasm for our mainstream sports. Whether it's the frozen buttocks of Sasha Cohen or the warm embrace of my wife, the experience has always been rewarding.

-SFM-

Bob Ekstrom is a columnist for SportsFan Magazine.


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