Sorta Sport?

One of my favorite things about going to a modern art museum is how much more liberally the folks I’m attending with are willing to say something is or isn’t “art”, as far as they’re concerned. When you put someone in front of a 14th century painting that was important to some movement, etc., etc. they’re far more likely to say something akin to, “it just isn’t for ME.”

Put that friend in front of something that was created two weeks ago with a welding torch and a couple thousand lug nuts, and you’ll get a very direct opinion on whether or not “that” is art.

I used to have a similar debate with my dad about NASCAR, and whether or not it was a “sport”. Dad was very much of the opinion it was, where I was more circumspect about the skills and endurance required to keep turning left. Over time, I came around to his opinion after getting to participate in a couple of driving skills schools, and gaining even a margin of an understanding of what a feat those pro drivers actually undertake. Dad and I couldn’t agree about golf, either, and I never did get him to come around on that one.

About a dozen miles north of the Colorado border, there will be a first-in-the-United States sort of an event happening next weekend, on Saturday the 15th. Ice Wars 3 will move from Western Canada to Cheyenne, Wyoming for its U.S. debut. Billed as “All of the fighting, none of the hockey”, the event’s organizers have gathered a formidable stable of ex-hockey enforcers who have learned the peculiar ability of beating the hell out of someone else while perched on a couple of eighth-inch wide slices of metal. Former Avs enforcer Scott Parker won’t be there to fight, but he’ll be in attendance to help guide and coach at least one of the guys there to get into it.

There’s some motion and momentum behind this effort, and while the 900-square foot mobile faux-ice surface and names like “Executive Producer Kato Kaelin” raise a few eyebrows, there’s more momentum behind this early effort than you may have seen surrounding some of the more recent entries to the “sport” genre, such as slap fighting, marble racing, and the can-you-believe-it’s-over-25-years-old International Federation of Competitive Eating.

You’ve probably been witness by now to at least one of the IFOCE’s many competitive events, most likely the Nathan’s Hot Dog eating contest held every fourth of July on New York’s Coney Island. While the IFOCE didn’t originate the eating contest, it popularized it to a point that ESPN carries it and several other of it’s 50-plus annual events. Names like Joey Chestnut are now commonly recognized, as he is now the reigning and sixteen-time champ of the hot dog event. Announcers discuss strategies of competitors, and theorize as to why some might be better at certain food types. They use fancy phrases like, “he just suffered a reversal”, instead of, “wow, he just puked everywhere”.

You know. Classy. But… is it a sport?

Is slap fighting a sport? I’d argue no. Is marble racing? Still feels like a no to me. Eating hot dogs until you wish you’d suffer a reversal? Still a pretty hard no. Have more people placed wagers on one or all of those events in a sporting-like manner than any sports event I was ever engaged in as a youth-through-college athlete? Undoubtedly. Have I heard someone drunkenly cheer on an inanimate marble? I have. So loudly, I kind of wanted to slap fight them.

The Oxford dictionary defines a sport as “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.” And by that broad definition, I suppose just about any of the above could be a sport, just as cup stacking or mutton busting or even camel jumping might be. Might be for somebody, anyway.

So, is it a sport? Are any of the above? I don’t suppose I know any better than any of us. I don’t see myself wearing any marble racing gear any time soon. Probably not. But will I drop a couple bucks to watch a few hockey goons slug it out next weekend? Probably. Probably so.

Ask me if it’s a sport after. I may be trying to collect my own marbles.