In this edition of Incipiat Turba Sports Wrap, we’ll cover five of the biggest stories in sports: the Winter Olympics in Torino, Super Bowl XL in Detroit, Kobe Bryant’s 81-point game, Ron Artest, and the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. As usual, we’ll have our expert analysts Freaky Metal Kid and The Agitator make sense of it all by answering all the tough questions.

The Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy are just weeks away, with opening ceremonies set to take place on February 10th. People around the world are starting to get excited. But we’ll ask Freaky Metal Kid and The Agitator what they should really be watching out for.

What, in your opinion, is the biggest story right now, with the opening ceremonies still a few weeks away?

	Ole Einar Bjoerndalen of Norway has to be the biggest story. A favorite to win the Biathlon, he already has 5 Olympic gold medals, which is the most of any biathlete. His tremendous talent must make Norwegians and biathletes everywhere proud. It is unfortunate that biathletes are still limited to their own competitions while heteroathletes and even homoathletes are allowed to compete in any area they choose. Perhaps another superb performance from Bjoerndalen will demonstrate to the world that biathletes are capable of competing with anyone.
	By far, the biggest story is from this past Monday, when the Pope gave his blessing to the Winter Olympics. This is huge. The Winter Olympics are in Italy this year, and nothing goes down in Italy without Papal approval. Now thousands of elite athletes have been blessed by God to get together and make good use of the hundred-thousand condoms that the International Olympic Committee distributes at every Olympiad. As you may know, the Catholic Church is vehemently opposed to the use of condoms or contraception of any kind, so this is a pretty big deal.

	I briefly considered coming up with a different answer because I hate just restating the obvious, but we all know that curling is the be all end all of Winter Olympic competition. Curling is where it’s at. It’s not like its just pushing polished rocks across some ice, its an extreme fucking thrill ride. It doesn’t get any better than when the skip pulls off a steal and gets some crucial points without the hammer. If you’ve ever swept the ice to guide that granite rock, then you understand the skill and precision required. I know I’m just preaching to the choir here which is why we must wonder why only 15 of the 26 televised curling contests will be aired live. They wouldn’t tape delay the Super Bowl or March Madness, so what makes them think that it’s acceptable to miss so much of the curling? My fellow fans, I implore you to write letters in protest of this travesty of poor scheduling.
	Two words: Bob sledding. The Jamaican Bobsledding Team is back again this time around, and everyone is saying that this could be the games when they finally break through and win the medal that they deserve, if not for their actual bobsledding performance, then at least for inspiring the greatest bobsledding movie of all time. You know what movie I’m talking about, because there are no other bobsledding movies. Cool Runnings is it. The Jamaican Bobsledding team made bobsledding relevant. They made it mainstream. You could say they mainstreamized it and they relevantized it. If it had been the Jamaican ski team, or the Jamaican ice dancing team, they probably would have had the same effect on those sports. Because the important thing is that there’s no ice or snow in Jamaica. But it just so happened that they were bobsledders, and the sport of bobsledding owes them everything for it. Without the Jamaican Bobsledding Team and Cool Runnings, bobsledding would be just another winter sport no one cares about. It would be no better than curling. And the only reason anyone knows about curling is that it’s so fucking ridiculous. All they do is push polished rocks across some ice! And they sweep the ice with brooms. Sweeping is not what you do in a competition. Sweeping is what you do to prepare playing surfaces for competition. What’s next, the Olympic sport of zamboni racing?

	Markku Uusipaavalniemi, or U-15 as they call the Finish skip is literally the biggest name in curling, which we have already established as the biggest sport. His rink only finished 5th in 2002, but he has finished in the top five at every world championship and Olympics since 2000, so I feel he’s poised to make a medal run this year. Fortunately he gave up his brief distraction of diving and has focused his skills on the big show. Having once received the highest score in the country on a math test and having completed a Rubik’s Cube in 25 seconds, he has the incredible mental strength necessary for any curling skip. “Uusi” means “new,” “niemi” means “peninsula” and the rest is filler to make his name larger and more intimidating. Not that Markku needs any help with the way he can play a hammer.
	The whole world will be saying it: “Feel the rhythm. Feel the rhyme. Get on up. It’s bobsled time.”

More often than not, someone does something stupid in the days running up to a game as important as the Super Bowl. Who will it be this year, and what will they be accused of doing the night before the game?

	I gotta go with Hasselbeck. I don’t think it will be as depraved or disturbing as some of the drug benders or violent incidents of the past. I picture it being something tragically simple. He’ll shut the fingers of his throwing hand in his hotel door and be unable to hold a football. Either that or he’ll get Rogaine in his eyes and be temporarily blinded.
	It won’t be a crime, but the shocking surprise will come the morning of the Super Bowl when Troy Polamalu shows up completely bald. Although there will be rumors that a transvestite stripper named Delilah seduced him and shaved all his hair off, Polamalu will later reveal that he just felt his hair had gotten “too long,” and it was taking “forever” to wash and dry. Needless to say, Polamalu will have the worst game of his career. So I guess it will be a crime after all, depriving the world of those beautiful flowing locks.

	To be perfectly honest, I was hoping for Paul Anka.
	I have to wonder where the rest of the Neville brothers will be. What are they, chopped liver? Aaron Neville without Art, Charles, and Cyril is like Tito Jackson without Marlon, Jackie, Jermaine, and Michael. It’s just not right. I’ll still watch it, of course, because I can’t get enough Aretha.

	It will probably be true again this year. Beer and Soda companies were traditionally the most consistent, but recently some internet companies have been working their way in. I want to see Bud Light come back with a strong showing.
	I heard they’re going to run the whole thing without commercial interruption this year.

	This is a no brainer. During any slow moments in the game, I’ll be tuning in to Puppy Bowl II on Animal Planet. This year they’ll have a kitten half time show. If you don’t watch that, you’re evil and you hate America.
	No brainer is right. FMK clearly has no brain. Anyone with a brain will be watching the Rolling Stones. You’d be crazy to miss the Super Bowl halftime show, especially after what happened last year with Paul McCartney and Alicia Keys.

	The Indianapolis Colts. I’ve seen enough ESPN to know that nobody can stop the 2nd greatest football offense of all time. Not being in the Super Bowl certainly won’t slow them down. In fact it will just make it easier for Manning to watch film during the game. Imagine what he can do with that sort of preparation! The only team that would have a chance to keep up with the Colts offense would be the USC Trojans with Jesus Leinart and Reggie Christ. Anyone picking the Steelers or the Seahawks is just trying to stir up a debate. Those guys don’t really believe the Steelers or the Seahawks can win, they’re just putting those outrageous predictions out there so if some freak miracle happens, they’ll look smart. If not, nobody will remember anyway because everyone will appropriately be talking about the unstoppable Colts.
	For once FMK is right – sort of. The Colts present a tough match-up for anyone. Mike Vanderjagt alone is the deadliest kicker in the game. USC might have had a slim chance, but Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart haven’t attended class since the Rose Bowl and are now academically ineligible. Still, I have to say that the Seahawks and the Steelers have the best chances of winning. I’d pick one or the other, but apparently that would mean I was “just trying to stir up a debate.”

Why doesn’t anyone like Sacramento?

	I don’t know, but I’ll tell you this. It’s one thing when someone from New York or Los Angeles bad-mouths Sacramento for being a hick town. But when someone who lives and plays in Indianapolis, Indiana decides that he hates Sacramento, you have to wonder. Just how crazy is Ron Artest?

	Hey, he did ask to be traded first. Then he said he wanted to stay. Maybe they just decided “That crazy fool can’t make up his damn mind.” I’m sure his change of mind happened because he found a good NASCAR bowling league to join and not because his trade value has hit an all time low and his next contract isn’t going to be as big as everyone once thought.
	The Kings have to get rid of Peja. They’ve gotten rid of every other likeable player from those fun Kings teams from the late 90s until ’03 – Scot Pollard, Jon Barry, Bobby Jackson, White Chocolate, Webber, Turkoglu, and Divac, not to mention the occasionally-likeable Doug Christie. Why keep up the pretense that this is a fun team to watch? With Artest probably a no-go, maybe the Kings can trade Peja to Philadelphia for Terrell Owens. Peja could be reunited with his best buddy Chris Webber, and the Kings could get the combination of incredible talent and constant volatility they were looking for with Artest.

	Travelling the country to teach math to young children is still an option. Besides that, look for him to produce and rap on B-Ball’s Best Kept Secret II: Where Basketball and Hip Hop Collide AGAIN! He’s played me some of the rough demos from Manu Ginobilli, Earl Boykins, Yao Ming, and Rip Hamilton. They are straight bananas.

Rank this among the great individual performances in the history of sports.

	It’s right up there with Ron Artest’s crowd riot game, Charles Barkley’s spitting incident and Randy Moss’s disgusting fake mooning motion. What the fuck was he thinking shooting the ball that many times? It’s a miracle they pulled out the win with him hogging the ball so much. I’d understand him trying to carry the load if they were desperate, but with Smush Parker and Kwame Brown on the floor, I can’t even believe he wasn’t feeding them the ball. Where are his assist records? Vince Carter, the consummate team player was wise enough to call him out and let him know what a poor example he was setting for the youth of America. Thank you Vince, at least someone in the NBA knows how to behave.
	Scoring a lot of points in an NBA game is pretty much the greatest individual achievement there is in sports. So I’d say it’s 20% less impressive than Chamberlain’s 100-point game, 4% more impressive than Chamberlain’s 78-point game, and 10% more impressive than both of Chamberlain’s 73-point games. With a margin of error of I-don’t-really-know-how-to-calculate-percentages.

	So it’s an “accomplishment” now to neglect your teammates? He can score as many points as he wants, but its not going to make us forget what he did to that girl or how mean he was to Shaq. Isn’t Shaq funny? I like Shaq. He’s big.
	People act like Kobe was the first professional athlete ever accused of raping someone. I don’t know if he was or not, but I’m guessing “not.” And besides, people give NBA players a hard time about all their illegitimate children. Kobe didn’t even get the girl pregnant. But you just can’t win with some people. Maybe they’d prefer that NBA players remain celibate. Or maybe the NBA needs to start handing out condoms to players, the way they do at the Olympics.

	Shaq of course. He may have less years left, but he can play with teammates and he’s still a dominant force. His team was in the Eastern Conferece Finals last year. Where was Kobe’s? Oh yeah, the Lakers didn’t even make the playoffs. Case closed.
	As crazy as it sounds, I’d take Kobe. Shaq is only now coming back from injury, whereas Kobe hasn’t scored fewer than 27 points in a game since he was suspended for two games for cheap-shotting Mike Miller with an elbow to the trachea. He’s unstoppable.

	As much as I’d like to say no, I think yeah, it’ll happen again. Some showboating, selfish ego-maniac like that no good Latrell Sprewell will totally ignore his team and try to score 100 points. I’d prefer to see the NBA crack down on that sort of anti-social behavior and fine players for acting so irresponsibly.
	Do you know who else is on the Lakers? Me neither. The only way the Lakers make the playoffs is if Bryant averages 80 a game for the rest of the season.

Fact or Fiction: Democrats will mount a serious attempt at filibustering Samuel Alito.

	FICTION. You have to stand up to someone to do that right? The Democrats still don’t have the confidence to really battle it out in the trenches. They may take a cheap shot or grab his facemask or something, but after the penalty is enforced, there’s no way he’ll be denied.
	FACT. The Democrats need to do something to stop the ship from sinking, and they’ll do whatever it takes to show the American people that they not only have a spine, but a positive and progressive agenda for the country. There’s a lot of negative attention focused on the Republicans right now, but this will be the first and best opportunity for Senate Democrats to grab the spotlight by standing up for what they believe in. They’re going to show the country that they will stand up and fight for what is right – and against what is wrong. Nah, I’m just kidding. It’s fiction.

	FICTION. I say fiction only because of your use of the future tense. Alito has already been confirmed. Many people have fallen for the play-fake, but the Republicans have already secretly had him confirmed. They are blocking as if it is a confirmation play, but that’s so the Democratic defensive backfield will bite and be out of position when Bush throws another long ball.
	FACT. And if O’Connor suddenly decides she doesn’t want to pack it in and hang it up just yet, look for Ruth Bader Ginsburg or David Souter to suddenly suffer a mysterious, unfortunate, and tragic accident. Probably a mysterious, unfortunate, and tragic exploding-robe accident. Alito will be on that bench.

	FICTION. I’m not convinced of his ability to be an impact player in the big leagues. His 40 times are slow, his wingspan is less than what you’d want and his previous statistics would suggest he’s just going to end up riding the bench.
	I gotta disagree with FMK again here. That’s a FACT. Alito is a true right-wing ideologue, the kind members of the conservative movement would masturbate to if they didn’t believe doing so would be a sin. So instead they just picture Alito when they’re having sex with the unattractive woman they married in large part to convince everyone – themselves included – that they’re not gay. Unless it’s Bob Packwood, Bob Barr, Rudy Giuliani, or Newt Gingrich, in which case they’re thinking about Alito while having sex with their unattractive mistress. But they hardly ever have sex with their wives, so it’s still a lot like monogamy. Which is all a long way of saying Alito is a game-changer. He may not have the physical abilities of a Scalia or a Thomas, or the intellectual prowess of a John Paul Stevens, but he’s young and he’s committed to the cause. He once ruled that the federal government had no constitutional power to regulate the sale of machine guns. This guy is a true believer, who will do whatever it takes to overturn every advancement in consumer protection, environmental regulation, and civil rights from the last century. Or not. But maybe.

	FICTION. On top of the short wingspan, Alito still doesn’t provide enough strength in the paint to really take this group all the way. I think they’re still one big man away from being where they want to be.
	FACT. The Supreme Court has gone through a lot of rebuilding in the last 33 years since Roe affirmed people’s right to kill babies. With Alito, they’ve finally got the last piece in place. It’s long overdue, but at last the Supreme Court can overturn Roe and take this country back to the glory days when there was no abortion whatsoever.

	FICTION We can talk about numbers and physical ability, but being a Supreme Court Justice is really all about heart. You have to want it more than the other person. She clearly didn’t have it. You can’t teach height, you can’t teach speed, and you can’t teach heart. She’s done in this league.
	FICTION. Myers was a horrible decision by the president, but she did one thing right. She was so bad that she ensured Alito’s confirmation. After Myers, people were just glad to have a nominee who wasn’t functionally illiterate or borderline retarded. Bush probably could have nominated Hitler, so long as he had a law degree and a modicum of judicial experience. I’m not suggesting that Alito is worse than Hitler. Or better. I’m just saying that if Bush had wanted to nominate Hitler, this was his chance.