Mike sent me this email yesterday. He’d probably prefer that I exclude the initial note, but that’s just too bad.

“So I’m sitting in an airport and I had a few thoughts I’d like you to post on Brobomb. Feel free to post them under my name. No aliases on the Bomb. That shit is for pussies. Anyway, here goes:

European X Games is never going to work and here are three reasons why:

1. Sure, it’s great for the twelve up-and-coming Euro skiers to compete in the “X Games” but a majority of European skiers will always be racers. ESPN wants ratings and when it comes to Europeans, we all know they could give less than half a shit about a bunch of no name North Americans that make less than $100,000 and throw down in a U-shaped stunt ditch. Unless, that is, their homeland heroes win Gold and Silver to beat those no name North Americans. Viva le Bertoni! Viva le Rolland!

2. Americans are the primary consumers of the Winter X Games and anything remotely European, let alone French, is just bullshit to us. It’s not right, but it’s the truth. Baguettes are bullshit when you have the option of snappin’ into a Slim Jim in Colorado.

3. European X Games can be viewed metaphorically through another European edition of a popular American franchise. That franchise is, of course, the National Lampoon’s movies. In the hilarious original, Family Vacation (metaphor cheat sheet: This is Winter X Games – America) we have Chevy Chase (the athletes) at his comedic peak and making an enormous splash with fans by way of groundbreaking family humor (new and exciting tricks in pipe and big air) on the silver screen (ESPN is a big deal). Everybody loves it. A smash hit! Chevy could have walked away, but he decides to cash in and star in another funny Lampoon’s flick- Christmas Vacation (let’s call this the Winter Dew Tour). Christmas Vacation proves to be equally successful and the fans love Chevy more for making another great flick and he gets a boatload of money to boot. Again, Chevy could have walked away, this time with two incredible films under his belt. Unfortunately, the creators (ESPN) of the first film (still Winter X Games – America) aren’t satisfied with just one awesome Chevy Chase vacation film. They need a third– enter European Vacation (X Games Europe), quite possibly the worst ever Chevy Chase performance. You can tell that he (remember Chevy = the athletes) is only in it for the paycheck (I can never blame the athletes for wanting to grab some extra dough) and his heart is nowhere to be found. It’s his worst film of all time, and it left a blemish on a career that’s now reduced to commercials and second-rate TV shows. If anything positive can be said about European Vacation, it’d have to be the European extras (12 up-and-coming Euros) who gave an incredible performance on their home turf.

In closing, Viva le Winter X Games: Aspen.”

Mike Rogge writes positive articles for SkiTheEast, hosts The Ski Show (Tuesdays 9-11pm) on wbkm.org, and loves trashing BroBomb to Jon Hartley.

I broke the field into two groups: trainers and regular skiers who just happen to be athletically gifted. It seems to me that Bobby Brown’s victories exemplify the emergence of the “trained” skier. Tom Wallisch, on the other hand, was the last remnant of the amazingly gifted kid who loves to ski and can also win comps from time to time. I don’t know either person, so I have absolutely no idea if this is accurate, but the way I imagine it Bobby goes to the gym everyday and does 1000 reps of every spin he’s capable of on a trampoline. He then goes to Breck and lays down flawless slope run after flawless slope run. These images get blended with Ivan Drago’s training sequence from Rocky IV, and you get the picture.

Once again, with no evidence to support it, I imagine Tom’s day looks a lot more like any of us. He wakes up, teaches Henrik a new English word to pronounce funny, and then heads to the hill. There are probably days when he drills a new trick, but there are others that he doesn’t do a single spin you’d ever see in a competition.

My point to Chris was that this season we saw the flawless repetition of Bobby’s tricks win over Tom’s more fluid and less-drilled run. In other words- Tom may even be a better skier, but the guy who trains his run mechanically will be able to reproduce it at will without mistakes. Chris likened it to a short-routine in gymnastics or ice dancing. It becomes a rehearsed program that takes advantage of muscle memory and all that sports science stuff to be perfectly consistent.

Chris disagreed, and went with another sports metaphor: Tom is like a batter who is in a slump. All the greats go through slumps, and Tom will snap out of his.

I really have no idea, and I’m not overly concerned because competition doesn’t matter much. It’s a nice visible product, but it ain’t the soul of the thing.