McKee's McThoughts: SR Forums cover the world

If you are tired of hearing about Anna Nicole Smith, raise your hand.
IF YOU ARE TIRED of hearing about Anna Nicole Smith, raise your hand.
    This is media gone awry; this is media trying to figure out what it is. It is amazing the speed with which communication is changing, improving, growing. We have moved — in one generation — from typewriters to cell-phone video of Saddam Hussein’s hanging. The human element of media, the writers, the editors, are trying to stay abreast of all this speed and competition. The consumers of media — that would be you — are beginning to take it into your own hands and cell phones.
    The SR Forums, which can be found on these pages, are evolving into a place where media and multitudes mingle. Allow us a quick tour though the current musings:
    The J3-J2 dropout rate is discussed, and the question is asked can changes in our evaluation processes alter the dropout rate among our younger skiers? Anyone with a heart for the sport of ski racing needs to consider this issue. Forum contributors agree there is a dropout problem (most sports are affected at this age level, not just ski racing) and offer suggestions for correcting it.
    The masters section covers a wide variety of issues, but our favorite is ski lengths versus GS gate sets as they compare to World Cup. If the courses are measurably different — between Masters courses and World Cup — then ski lengths should be as well. A variety of masters competitors explore the permutation of this nugget. The differences between European masters racing and the U.S. are brought up and proper training techniques for a Beer League are covered.
    The question is asked and answers abound on how to select a youth program.
    There are comments on the question of skiercross and women’s jumping: do the women jumpers belong in the Olympics? Rival ski tours are compared to the CART-IRL issue in auto racing, and Bode Miller is compared to Terrell Owens.
    Helmets, Skier’s Edge exercise machines, ski poles, waxing and construction plans for a waxing hotbox are topics on the SR Forums. Offered for sale are skis, boots, race suits and a toy PistenBully.
    Any possible means of finding ski racing on television is discussed, right down to a back-door entrance to a live feed from a European Web site.
    There are fabulous rundowns of Phil Mahre’s quest to qualify for the U.S. national championships, including a pirated copy of a Mountain Times article by Susan Morning. And perhaps most interesting to McThoughts, Ski Racing’s coverage is taken to task, both in print and on the Web site, with concise criticism and the occasional bit of praise.
    How long will it be before gatekeepers use their cell phones to broadcast runs live to a Web site? How much better will that be than endless reports of the death of ANS?
    We’re still some time away from getting those instant reports of our sport we yearn for. Right now, the nordic World Championships are on, the freestyle worlds are right around the corner, and over the next three weeks we will crown a dozen alpine World Cup champions. Some of those titles are likely to go down to the wire. The first could be decided this weekend if Marlies Schild wins another slalom.
    Our media, the ski media, will tell us all about these races, and they’ll do a damn good job. It will be exciting and we look forward to it, as always. Then we’ll scan the forum and see how we did.
    Buckle-up gang, the home stretch has arrived.
    Nike Bent, you make the McThought All-Name Team.
    You can put your hands down.