A wintry mix

 It's snowing again outside as I write this, winter doing what winter does some years in these northern climes. This year in particular what it seems to be doing is annoying the hell out of us, like that party guest who stays too long and eats all the Chex mix.

Or maybe it just feels that way because it's February, and February is always when winter goes from "Aw, look at the pretty snow" to "Bad word bad word SNOW bad word bad word."

At any rate, with the world gone all gray and white, it seems the perfect time to talk about this weekend's official Sportsball World forecast: Wintry mix with a chance of contusions.

I say this because the Winter Olympics are officially underway in Milan/Cortina, Italy, and this weekend they'll go head-to-head with that most hallowed of American sacraments, the Feast of St. Lombardi. Or the Super Bowl, if you prefer.

This year is the 25th edition of the former and the 60th of the latter, which calls for a little blended reminiscing. Remember when Jean-Claude Killy caught two touchdown passes in Super Bowl I after partying all night? Or how about Joe Montana winning the downhill in ... Montana?

Was it Mike Eruzione who quarterbacked the Jets against the Colts in the Miracle on Turf in Super Bowl III? Or Joe Namath who scored the winning goal against the Soviets in the Miracle on Ice in Lake Placid?

Lord knows a body could get confused.

This weekend we'll get figure skaters and lugers and skiers and hockey players in Milan/Cortina, and large men with bad intent trying to turn Drake Maye and Sam Darnold into macrame. And the tie that binds is both pursuits tend to booger people up.

Football, of course, is the home office for the aforementioned contusions, not to mention abrasions, concussions and shredded-wheat ligaments. But one of the reasons the Blob loves the Winter Olympics is they, too, have a more than nodding acquaintance with extreme physical calamity.

You've got the downhill, first off, the marquee event in Alpine skiing. It's basically falling with style, as Buzz Lightyear likes to say. Last man and woman to cross the finish line upright, and not in a cartoon jumble of arms and legs, wins. 

Then of course, there's ski jumping, which is more falling with style. Short-track speedskating, which is what NASCAR would be if the drivers were allowed to pack switchblades. Luge, in which competitors rocket down a funnel of ice feet-first on jumped-up Flexible Flyers; and skeleton, in which competitors do it headfirst.

(The latter, by the way, are clinically insane in the Blob's opinion.  There ought to be a study of this.)

What else?

Well, ski-jumping, of course, and not just because of that old Wide World of Sports clip of the guy crashing on takeoff. Those people are nuts, too. Even figure skaters, sequined-up though they are, occasionally succumb to the deadly triple Salchow. And then there's the biathlon, in which cross-country skiers par-boil their lungs while occasionally stopping to shoot at stuff.

Imagine your heart banging away like Thor's hammer (because cross-country skiing at the Olympic level is extremely cardiovascular), and  suddenly you're commanding it to stop so you can squeeze off a shot. Why more biathletes' tickers don't just say "Aw. HELL, no" and pack it in is one of life's great mysteries.

Anyway ...

Anyway, the Blob is looking forward to it all -- even curling, which is weirdly compelling, especially when the Danish women's team is competing. And then comes Super Bowl Sunday, when America eats too much and drinks too much and critiques commercials like ad execs, and mainly doesn't care or even know who's pla- wait, you mean there's a football game, TOO?

Yes, indeed. And I don't know about you, but I'm like way super-excited for it.

I mean, have you seen Drake Maye in sequins?

Pulls a 9.8 in the long program, that kid. Every time.