Opening ceremonies weren’t horsing around

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/02/2018 (3080 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There is something about sport that brings out the best and worst in humanity, especially that segment of humanity that consists of guys of my particular gender.

Out of a sense of journalistic fairness, let’s begin today’s educational and entertaining column by discussing the worst, by which I mean Philadelphia Eagles fans.

As most people who are passionate about sports already know, Philly fans are legendary for crossing the line of old-fashioned rowdiness and wallowing in the filthy pit of truly foul behaviour.

What we are talking about here are notorious fans who, at a game on Dec. 15, 1968, famously booed Santa Claus and pelted him with snowballs during a halftime show.

Sure, Santa was, in fact, a 5-6, 140-pound craps dealer who was filling in when the regular cherubic Santa didn’t show up, but still…

As most of you who have not been hiding in a drainpipe for the last couple of weeks already know, Eagles fans lived up to their rotten reputation after their 41-33 upset victory over the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.

Eager to celebrate, thousands of fans descended on downtown Philly and trashed the place, flipping and burning cars, and climbing and toppling light poles that had been greased in an effort to prevent foolish fans from slithering up them.

What really caught everyone’s eye, however, was a viral video of an Eagles fan who decided (Why not?) to demonstrate his love for his team by chowing down on — and hopefully you are not eating breakfast when you read this next bit — horse manure.

Seriously, in the video, an unidentified lunatic in an Eagles throwback jersey and green pants, egged on by a horde of screaming supporters, drops to his knees, plunges his face into a pile of horse poop, then, with a mouth full of manure, throws his head back and begins to chew and swallow.

Speaking of horse-related bad behaviour, in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, another proud Eagles fan was ejected from a playoff game because he was drunk and couldn’t produce a ticket.

Fortunately, he went straight home and went to bed. Ha ha ha! That’s what might have happened in an alternate universe. In this universe, the 22-year-old fan marched up to a police horse outside the stadium and punched it in the face. (“Hey, why the long face, pal?”)

The horse was unhurt, but some of this guy’s blows landed on the legs of a mounted police officer who, along with a fellow cop, arrested the horse-puncher on the spot.

Now that we have sampled some of the worst, it’s time to move on to the best of humanity, which brings us to the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, which officially opened on Friday.

Each and every Winter Olympics, I feel compelled to celebrate the beauty and majesty of sport by lying on the couch in my den for two weeks and watching elite athletes in spandex suits competing in events that I have never heard of, such as cross-country Greco-Roman cliff diving.

So there my wife and I were the other night, staring at our big-screen TV while a lovely Italian couple in sequined outfits spun around the ice, performing manoeuvres that we had a hard time identifying.

Me: “Wow! That was a very nice twizzle.”

My wife: “You mean the multirotational one-foot turn most commonly seen in ice dancing?”

Me: “Yes.”

My wife: “That wasn’t a twizzle. It was a double Salchow, possibly a Lutz.”

Me: “OK. Well, I love their sparkly outfits.”

So, yes, my spouse and I are big fans of the Winter Olympics, especially the opening ceremonies, which are always jam-packed with feel-good moments that make us proud to be members of the human race.

For instance, our hearts pounded a little faster as we watched ice-dancing stars Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir proudly carrying our flag and leading Canada’s red-clad contingent into Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium in the face of a Canadian-style wind chill.

Sadly, in a weaker moment, we also snorted derisively when we learned the U.S. team was sporting battery-powered heated jackets to keep them toasty during the Parade of Parkas.

We also became a touch misty-eyed when, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, North Korean ice hockey player Hwang Chung Gum and South Korean bobsledder Won Yun-jong led athletes from the divided nations behind a single flag bearing a map of a unified Korean peninsula.

But, and I am speaking here as a guy, there was one moment that stood out from the rest, one golden moment that infused sports fans like us with the kind of warm and fuzzy feeling that only happens when an athlete does something truly remarkable.

I am referring here to the one-man Tongan team, cross-country skier Pita Taufatofua, who became famous at the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, where he was a taekwondo athlete, by carrying in his nation’s flag while shirtless and greased up.

Well, on Friday, the tanned and topless Tongan stole the show again when, despite the bitter cold, he strode into the stadium bare-chested, skin ­glistening from who knows how much baby oil, wearing only a pair of flip-flops, a traditional Tonga mat and a huge smile that lit up the night.

“A startling, and perhaps foolhardy display given the weather, but the crowd absolutely roared as he made his way through the stadium. Nobody received a better reception here than Taufatofua,” is how the New York Times put it.

I know my wife will never forget that special oiled-up Olympic moment, and I personally am looking forward to some spectacular athletic sights over the next two weeks.

No doubt everything will go off without a hitch, unless, of course, some of the events involve horses.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca