McKee's McThoughts: Who's up for Stratego?

When we were in college, a housemate and I (Hugh know who you are), engaged in marathon sessions of the Milton Bradley board game Stratego. We would sit at the kitchen table and play for hours. Several (OK, many) years later, I find a copy of the game, and remembering the fun of those long college sessions, I entice family and friends to play.

WHEN WE WERE IN COLLEGE, a housemate and I (Hugh know who you are), engaged in marathon sessions of the Milton Bradley board game Stratego. We would sit at the kitchen table and play for hours. Several (OK, many) years later, I find a copy of the game, and remembering the fun of those long college sessions, I entice family and friends to play. Apparently Hugh and I had escalated the playing to an unprecedented level, because I thoroughly pounded anyone who would play me. Soon enough, no one would play me. It’s just not that much fun to be on the wrong side of a drubbing. It is also no fun to be good at a game if no one will play.
    Alpine ski racing is the Stratego of the Austrians. So far the other nations are willing to continue playing, but one has to wonder. In the United States, we make up new games so we can be the best, (Starting with baseball, proceeding through football and basketball to — in our realm — freestyle and snowboarding), but other nations soon enough learn our games and offer the challenge.
    The Austrian domination of the sport of alpine racing is pretty complete, as my colleague Gary Black notes in his Black Diamonds column on these pages. No doubt the Nations Cup rankings — as he notes — don’t exactly incite a huge interest. We’re not more than 7 percent into this season and Austria leads the Nations Cup 1,196 to 491 for Sweden. The United States is ninth (152) for those wondering. Seems to me the Austrians already have a deadlock on the title. As to when it becomes mathematically cinched — as Black challenged us to determine — how about Jan. 1, 2007?
    How soon will it be before some wag prints the headline “What’s wrong with the U.S. Ski Team?” and wonders how Bill Marolt could be so ignorant? It won’t be here. The team’s peak (for podiums) came in 1982. Second and third place came in 2006 and 2005, respectively. Last season’s squad was the strongest — statistically — the United States has ever sent into an Olympics. Yes the results at Torino fell short of expectations. It should be noted also that two medals — Ligety and Mancuso — came from unexpected sources. Marolt ain’t ignorant. The team does not suck.
    The Olympic reference brings us to a point of contention. I, personally, have a big problem with media creating a bigger story than it is covering. This happened, in a way, at Torino (Sestriere, actually) with the sometimes outrageous Bode Miller. Miller had enjoyed playing the media. It was all fun and games until he coated himself in chum with the 60 Minutes revelation that ski racers, in the time-honored tradition of the largely European sport, sometimes drank alcoholic beverages in celebration of big victories — like winning the World Cup.
    A marketing genius built a handful of Miller’s words into must-see TV. The bigger problem was the timing of the thing. The chum and Miller were then tossed into the waters of the biggest media gathering of the year — media outnumbering athletes at least two to one at any Olympic venue — and the feeding frenzy was on. Listen up guys, there can be no doubt — none, zero, notta — that frenzy changed the outcome. How much it changed it can be debated, but not that it did. And that is wrong. That is creating a story, not reporting on one.
    Athletes, and certainly politicians, make mistakes when dealing with the media. Usually this happens when the athlete gets a little too comfortable with the day-to-day presence of the microphones. Listening to Canadian John Kucera answer questions after his super G win in Lake Louise was a breath of fresh air, partly because he’s new at it, and partly because it was mostly a more laid-back Canadian media doing the questioning. “Nuff said,” as my dad use to say.
    A couple of interesting tidbits which came to mind while cruising the Web. Hermann Maier (and there’s a guy who has had his share of media encounters) says new equipment has made a drastic change in the sport, particularly in GS, where he contends “the momentum is no longer aesthetic.” In other words, it’s not pretty to watch anymore. I’ll bet Ingemar Stenmark would agree.
    Isn’t Ausgeschieden a nasty word to see next to an athlete you have on your fantasy team? It translates, roughly, to “separated,” and what it means is: DNF.
    A young Norwegian cross-country skier, Ingvild Engesland, is taking media heat for posing nude for a magazine. I find that less offending than the fact the Norwegian women’s ski jumping team is receiving abusively harassing cell-phone calls. Norway, it might seem, may not be ready for women’s ski jumping. It is a shame there are people with nothing better to do than play with their cell phone. Whatever happened to board games?