By Hank McKee

The New Year signals the start of a season within the season. The Olympics that follow make this mini-season uber-critical. Careers won’t be defined during the coming stretch, but they could be lost. These opportunities don’t come around all that often.

For World Cup racers, particularly the men it seems, the month of January represents make it or break it time. It’s a hard concept for American sports fanatics to grasp. Most U.S. fans get their sporting jollies from the comfort of a Lazy-Boy with a remote control in one hand. For this breed sports don’t get really good until the play-offs come at the end of a season. America seems to find this appealing. The actual seasons don’t count for much in hockey, basketball,  football or baseball.  In ski racing, though, many of the more prestigious races are held in January: downhills at Wengen and Kitzbuehel for instance. With three downhills already in the books and one more just before the New Year at Bormio it will be up to these three races to carry any spectator momentum into the Olympics. The race, of course, is only as exciting as the participants make it.

Building some armchair interest is the job of North America’s national teams.

The Canadians have been doing a pretty good job. Manny Osborne-Paradis with the Val Gardena win got some folks interested and Robbie Dixon – who Manny says is skiing the best downhill on the squad – has a pair of top tens and a ton of potential. They haven’t taken it to the “can’t miss” level, or ensured viewership, but they have done just enough to titillate some interest.

So far the U.S. guys have not generated enough to get anybody to flip the channel away from college football or hoops. Bode Miller and Andrew Weibrecht have scored in all three downhills held, Bode with a pair of top ten placings.

Bode, of course, is Bode so nothing he does on course – or off for that matter – will surprise anyone. It seems clear from this armchair he isn’t particularly interested in risking it all until he skis his way back into shape. That’s coming along, despite the ankle injured playing volleyball and we trust he’ll be ready for the big game in February and challenging for wins before Miss January gets exchanged for Miss February on the garage wall. His presence alone will bring some viewers, but he will not race at Bormio and unless he gets a win at Wengen or Kitz that can’t be counted as generating new viewers.

Weibrecht has worked his way into the top seed which, theoretically, helps his chances of scoring better than the 11th, 12th and 24th he has registered, but the current focus on safety likely robs that premise of a bit of truth. The course conditions for his back of the pack starts have not been significantly worse than the first seed got and the courses – so far – have been set with caution foremost in mind, in other words, with bumps shaved down to limit flight time and gates spread to slow racers coming into the more troublesome sections. Weibrecht is called War Horse for a reason, and it ain’t his natural tendency to caution. His natural propensity is to charge whatever the outcome. Courses “softened” to decrease danger makes all the racers a bit more courageous in their approach, tempering his chances.

It is worth noting that if there is a track where the organizers will dare flaunt FIS directives it would be Kitzbuehel, so that will be interesting to watch for. Not that Kitzbuehel is ever less than interesting.

Erik Fisher and Marco Sullivan have each scored in two downhills. Neither did well on the glide track at Lake Louise so we’re hoping they’ll both be frightening the opposition in the January races. There are also a couple of U.S. guys limping their way back from injury, Steven Nyman and Scott Macartney. Neither has shown enough yet to challenge for a slot on the Olympic team, let alone excite team sport viewers. Bormio, Kitzbuehel and Wengen will be their last shots. Regardless of who gets the four available Olympic starts, a top placing of fourth is not going to be enough to turn channels in the sports bars. Guys, unless you’re content getting your airtime because your race is paired with figure skating, it’s time to get it going. Frankly men, the Canadians are overshadowing you.

Downhill will, presumably, draw some viewers just because of the danger factor. The Nascar crowd will watch if NBC guarantees a crash in its promos. Personally, I think slalom may be about as macho as it gets.

Ice chutes, body armor and ski equipment so responsive an RCH of miscalculation by the pilot and the day is  done. It is really amazing to witness. Now if we can get the masses educated. The good news is there is plenty of opportunity left: Six of the nine slaloms on the men’s season schedule are set in January. One and a half slaloms a week between now and Vancouver.

At this juncture Reinfried Herbst will be the Goliath. Two wins in two races, including the first for an Austrian at Alta Badia, Italy in a dozen years.  Jimmy Cochran has recorded two slalom scores and Ted Ligety one. No one else has dented the scoring column.

Ligety, and hopefully Bode, is likely to come around over January and we’d like to think Cochran is just coming into his own; like he might be a candidate for a Debbie Armstrong like result Americans have been known to produce in the biggest of events. It sure would please a lot of journalists who don’t know that much about racing as they could fall back on the comparisons with he and his Dad and aunts.

That leaves a slot for Tim Jitloff, Tommy Ford and whoever else can moxie up to fight for it. The team appears to be open to spreading the opportunity around so this could be among the more interesting unfolding stories of January 2010. If the general public ever gets a sniff of that depends on someone stepping up and getting a win or at least podium. Ted and Bode are the only ones with a pedigree that suggests that is possible. Armstrong didn’t have one either.

In GS there are just two races remaining between now and the naming of the Olympic team, at Adelboden Jan. 9 and Kranjska-Gora Jan. 31. And there’s just one super G left before the Games. It is at Kitzbuehel and the location alone should add to the audience.

All in all the guys have their work cut out for them. They know what rides on January results. From this chair it’s going to be a blast to track.

Bring it on guys. We’ll be watching regardless. We’re counting on you to make those armchair boys want to watch some ski racing as well.

Weibrecht photo by Marcus Caston