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Volume #0005

by Zach Bigalke  

Sometimes I find myself clicking around online at the site of my old hometown paper back in Jackson Hole. This is the paper whose crosswords and sports sections got me through many a middle- and high-school class period; it is the newspaper which sent me twice to the National Spelling Bee -- the one you see every May on ESPN; and it is also the paper that snubbed me as I was first getting into journalism, eventually failing to publish a long piece about snowmobiles in Yellowstone I had written after jerking me around for weeks in the editing process. But for all the feelings I have for the periodical, it is nonetheless fun to go surfing around from time to time at their site, catching up on what’s happening in the northwest corner of Wyoming.

Accustomed readers can only imagine my exuberance when I came across this story. Apparently, the world’s longest snowboard is about to be launched down one of the bunny-hill runs at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. The kicker, though, is not the fact that the 36-foot board can accommodate ten riders, more than have ever traveled down a snowy mountain strapped into the same plank; the caveat which vaults this from a mere statistical anomaly into the realm of the truly absurd is the crew which has been chosen to man the snowboard on its record-setting voyage...

You see, no ten random people were good enough for Eric Sweet, the brainchild of this project as well as last year’s three-man effort on the same hill. No, Sweet was determined that no goyim partake in this maiden journey. Every passenger on the ten-man effort who will strap into the Minyan Board (the name trademarked by Sweet for the project), thus, will be a bona-fide Jew.

Why, one asks? Well, as Sweet told the Jackson Hole News & Guide, “I came back to Jackson this winter and wanted to do something more. I approached the rabbi [Zalman Mendelsohn], spoke to him about that idea, and he thought it was fun. He thought it would bring fun to Judaism. It was crazy enough to work.” He’s obviously got the experience from last year’s three-man run to at least give this a valiant go. Here’s to hoping ten Yids stay upright down Teewinot... now this run is something you are surely not going to find on even the most obscure of sports calendars!

And with that, we’re off and running into yet another edition of “A Non-Traditional Sports Fan in America”. While ten snowboarders look to ring in Passover the best way they know how, the rest of the sports world has been going on all cylinders. The UEFA Champions League has completed the first leg of its quarterfinal draws; hell week is erupting to a fever pitch -- the Tour of Flanders and Gent-Wevelgem are behind us, with the queen of the classics, Paris-Roubaix, on the horizon. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson will seek to reclaim the green jacket at Augusta and stave off the challenge of the Immelmans and Johnsons of the PGA Tour. Kevin Martin remains perfect in his quest for a second consecutive World Men’s Curling Championship title. And tennis has taken its act across three continents as preparations ramp up for the second Grand Slam of the season, the French Open at Roland Garros in Paris...

But before I get into the business of the past week and what’s in store in the near future, I can’t shake the mountains from my mind. I recently found a book at the local thrift store which piqued my unflappable interest in winter sports. The book, Right on the Edge of Crazy by Mike Wilson, follows two seasons with the U.S. Downhill Ski Team up to and through the 1992 Albertville Olympics. One passage struck a particularly resonant chord within me and perfectly summed up my mission:

America’s popular press ignored ski racing most of the time. That changed drastically when the Olympics rolled around. The coverage sprouted two or three months before the Olympic games, blossomed on the weekend of the opening ceremonies, and withered as soon as the slalom, the final alpine event, was over. After that, most publications abruptly resumed ignoring the sport.

I straight-up HATE seeing any sport ignored. As a fan, I am first and foremost drawn to the most sublime athletic feats that man can achieve -- regardless of the sport or continent where that feat occurs. I grew up indiscriminately absorbing the wider world of sports. And it is in that spirit -- the desire to NOT “abruptly resume ignoring” -- which has us diving yet again into another action-packed week that you might have missed in the residual glow of North Carolina’s most recent NCAA conquest or the stretch drive of the NBA and NHL seasons. It’s time for more informative and widespread coverage of sports, so let’s get this started proper...

Let’s start with one of the most celebrated tournaments worldwide, the annual battle of big-money clubs that is UEFA’s Champions League. We’ve seen the field winnowed since last summer via three qualifying rounds, six round-robin matches, and a previous knockout stage down to this -- the elite eight, the quarterfinalists. The dreams of minnows like Anorthosis Famagusta, Dinamo Tirana and Zenit St. Petersburg have fallen by the wayside, making way for the chosen few.

After the firepower brought against Sporting CP in the previous round, one would’ve expected more from German powerhouse Bayern Munich. Yet in the first leg of their quarterfinal draw against Spanish giants FC Barcelona, one nearly thought that the anemic Sporting offense had donned Bayern kits and taken the field haplessly. Lionel Messi, the dazzling Argentine on the Barcelona squad, created chance after chance right from the opening whistle. And he converted -- twice, in the ninth and thirty-eighth minutes -- to pace their first-leg rout in the friendly confines of Camp Nou stadium. Samuel Eto’o and Thierry Henry also added tallies for the home side, and Victor Valdes barely sweated en route to his clean sheet in goal.

Anfield was alight for an all-England clash between Liverpool and Chelsea in another quarterfinal draw. Fernando Torres got the home side fired up with a sixth-minute strike past Petr Cech. But that, alas, was all that the Merseysiders could bring to the table. Chelsea soon gained the upper hand. Branislav Ivanovic, the fleet right back for the visitors, headed his team to the advantage off identical corner-kick plays on either side of halftime. With the momentum fully in Chelsea’s favor, the final goal was merely academic, another buffer and away goal to bolster the club’s excellent chances of claiming a spot in the semis. It was a brilliant pass from Florent Malouda to Didier Drogba five minutes after Ivanovic’s second header which beat Jose Manuel Reina a third time. All that was left after that was the final whistle.

For the other four teams remaining in the quarterfinals, they will travel to their second leg matches with knotted uncertainty. FC Porto stunned defending champion Manchester United with a last-gasp goal from Mariano Gonzalez to gain a crucial second away goal and pull the contest to two-all just moments after his countryman Carlos Tevez had seemingly saved the day for the home side at Old Trafford. Villareal, also, was forced to swallow the bitter pill of a lost lead when Emmanuel Adebayor pulled off a highlight-reel bicycle kick in the sixty-fifth minute to beat Diego Lopez to pull Arsenal level at one apiece. With the away goal, Arsenal can head back to London confident of its own chances to pull into the final four. Next week will settle the score for these eight clubs, so be sure to check back in for all the action...

Kevin Martin, meanwhile, is assured of his first-place standing at the end of the round-robin phase of the World Men’s Curling Championships in Moncton, New Brunswick. In front of Canadian Prime Minister and nearly 42,000 other fans, Martin and his Canadian squad sealed up their ninth consecutive victory of the tournament with a 12-4 victory over Kalle Kiiskinen and the Finnish squad and a 9-6 defeat of John Shuster and the Americans.

With two games left in the round-robin phase, against 5-4 Denmark and 6-3 Scotland, the Canadians have already locked in their first-place standing. Every other team is at least three games behind in the standings. The dominance of Martin is not what is unbelievable; what shocks the average fan is how this superior curler has won only one previous title, last season in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Last season, the squad lost only twice en route to the title -- a 6-5 defeat to the Chinese in the twelfth of seventeen draws and a 7-6 loss to the Scottish team in the first round of the traditional Page playoff system. They would exact revenge in the final against Scotland, winning the gold medal in a 6-3 thriller.

Again, the Canadians as led by Martin will enjoy the top seed in the playoffs. One loss will still allow them passage through to the semifinals. The stars have aligned to give the 42-year-old Martin his shot at a second gold, and it appears that this team is hell-bent on accomplishing that goal. We should know by next week whether or not a challenger can emerge to wrest the gold from the host side’s clutches...

Across the Atlantic, les forçats de la route prepare for the pinnacle of the one-day classics, Paris-Roubaix. 52.9 kilometers (32.8 miles) of cobblestones await the 192 riders set to start the course in the northern Parisien suburb of Compiegne on Sunday as they begin their 259-kilometer (161-mile) journey to the velodrome in Roubaix. The spoils of victory -- and a giant cobblestone trophy -- await one lucky winner.

Last week, another cobblestone hell awaited the riders just north of the border in Belgium. The Tour of Flanders, another of the five monument one-day classics in cycling’s calendar, was contested last Sunday. In the end, it was Stijn Devolder repeating his victory of last season and returning the Flemish crown jewel to the Belgian Quick.Step team for the fourth time in five years. This week the Quick.Step team looks to make it two in a row in Roubaix.

Tom Boonen, at only 28 years of age, has already had a celebrated career which is the envy of many a rider. Two Flanders titles, a World Championship, the green jersey at the Tour de France... but it is his success through the Arenberg Forest and Mons-en-Pevele and Le Carrefour de le Arbre and the other two dozen sections of cobbles which define his disposition as a cyclist. Boonen returns this season to Roubaix, just like his teammate Devolder in Flanders, looking to defend his title. A two-time winner in the velodrome (he also took the 2005 title and finished twice more on the podium in 2002 and 2006), Boonen returns this season after facing questions both about his waning effectiveness in the sprint and his propensity for cocaine use with a burning desire to prove his doubters wrong.

So just like I tabbed him last week (with teammate Devolder as the wild-card which ultimately paid off), once again one would be hard-pressed to count out Boonen in this race. Other challengers to his dominance include former winners Fabian Cancellara and Stuart O’Grady of Team Saxo Bank (formerly Team CSC); two-time podium finishers Juan Antonio Flecha of Rabobank and Alessandro Ballan of Lampre (who is a former winner of the Tour of Flanders); and long-suffering American George Hincapie of Columbia-High Road. But the best challenger in my mind, the one who has proven his form time and again this season and is due for a breakout performance, is the young German-Australian classics specialist Heinrich Haussler of Cervelo TestTeam. Already this season, Haussler has narrowly missed victory at both Milano-Sanremo and the Tour of Flanders. With an explosive finishing kick and a shrewd sense of tactical management, it is only a matter of time before he bursts through to victory in one of the classics...

Doubt circulates all around. The big favorites are not always the guys clutching the spoils at the end of the day. Just ask Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson as they prepare for the deceptive layout of Augusta National. The preeminent stars of the PGA Tour, Eldrick and Lefty have failed to take the green jacket in either of the past two seasons. Two years ago it was Zach Johnson besting Woods by two strokes; last year it was Trevor Immelman one-upping the margin, relegating Woods to second place by three strokes.

Woods and Mickelson are at the top of their game once again. Woods already has a title to his name this season from the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Mickelson has two -- the Northern Trust Open and the WGC-CA Championship. But neither of these two, talent notwithstanding, can rest on their laurels. Johnson is bearing down hard with good form of his own, having taken the Sony Open in Hawaii back in January. Paul Casey won the pre-Masters tournament, the Shell Houston Open. Geoff Ogilvy, winner of this year’s WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship as well as the season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship, could also give the top two golfers in the world a run for their money. Remember... it was Ogilvy who benefited from that Mickelson meltdown at Winged Foot on the final hole of the 2006 U.S. Open. Never discount a former winner of any major.

Because, as Woods has proven year after consistent year, he will almost certainly be in the hunt. Lefty, on the other hand, is one of those hit-or-miss golfers who can look like the most sublime talent in the world one minute, and a scratch duffer the next. Augusta is sure to be in full splendor as always. We can be reasonably certain about Woods affecting the same appearance; the same cannot be guaranteed about Mickelson’s game.

Regardless of who walks away with the jacket and the first major of 2009, it is always guaranteed to be an exciting time on the Georgian links. Enjoy the coverage as golf gets itself into high gear and revs up for the heart of its season...

Hell, enjoy as much of that grand globe full of sports as you possibly can! There’s incredible action all around. Don’t let the end of March Madness get you down. And why waste your time glued to the television set, watching a bunch of guys sitting in a Manhattan ballroom plunking down fortunes for the services of collegians? With all the on-field action, there is something among the sports obscure to American fans which is sure to pique even the most traditional of fanaticism. So get out there... there is a world full of athletes just waiting to dazzle...

Submitted 4/9/2009

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