For a climber, watching climbing is a lot like a fishermen watching a fisherman compete to catch fish. Maybe even less, as the fisherman is outside in the real world whereas the climber competing is in an artificial environment.

Perhaps it can be compared to having sex with a real hot woman, vs having a person describe 2 robots fucking their brains out.

I hope that helps you GG.

I was referring to the cost of rink time or a lift ticket.

I agree with the first half, and disagree with the second half of the above.

I have zero (is it possible to have less than zero? In that case, less than zero) interest in actually ice climbing, myself, personally. But if it were featured in the Olympics? Hell yeah, I'd watch that. I think it'd be cool to see. Wouldn't change my opinion of whether I want to do it, but I'd way rather watch that than, say, ice dancing or curling.

But I have very little interest in watching speed climbing (yawn) or bouldering in the Olympics. Those may be fun to watch in person, but on TV, forget it. I'd way rather watch gymnastics, or even wrestling - a sport that had such poor interest levels they tried to cut it from the Olympics.

GO

I think ice comp climbing is pretty cool to watch. Obviously I have a vested interest, but just in general it's pretty cool.

I agree just watching joe-blow at the crag is pretty boring, but when the time limit is 7min to the top and there are three people on the structure at a time I think it's pretty cool.

Well that´s you! I´ve been to 3 ice world cups on business and watched for maybe a total of 10 mins before the bar called. It´s boring like all climbing comps.
And now it´s time to slump on the couch and watch the Champions League soccer (Bayern Munich vs Arsenal London) which will be 90 mins of incredibly skilled athletes performing an intricate mental and physical choreography to earn a few more millions!

....having sex with a real hot woman, vs having a person describe 2 robots fucking their brains out.....

soccer's got nothing on hockey. not even close.

It is expensive to get into ice climbing, no question. I think that's what you see slighty more mature climbers who leading the field than the people who just turned 20.

But I was more talking comps and really mixed climbing in general. Was climbing in Quebec with a group I don't normally get out with. Brought them to a drytooling crag. Had one person comment how much fun they had....they had thought that mixed climbing and drytooling was just for elite climbers, they didn't realize that there was plenty of stuff out there for them too.

http://www.ktuu.com/...ce-Climbing/24575506

American reporter tries out some speed climbing.

Cute story but if that's the structure they're competing on, then no way in hell would a real competition of speed ice climbers be something I'd want to watch. That vid confirmed it. Real ice (or mixed) climbing - probably, yeah.

GO

Most important is that Canada took home 2 gold medals for ice hockey.

I mean, seriously.

[image]http://theuiaa.org/upload_area/News/medium/2014-02-08_UIAA_2014_Sochi-_P1A8800-copy(1).jpg[/image]

More here:
http://theuiaa.org/...-tower-in-Sochi.html

soccer's got nothing on hockey. not even close.

I agree that soccer's got nothing on hockey, but they are incredibly close: in soccer the ball goes back and forth and hardly anybody scores; in hockey the puck goes back and forth and hardly anybody scores. The games are essentially identical, except for the playing surface and the object that goes back and forth.

I live in Brasil right now and I'm constantly trying to tell people here that hockey is essentially soccer on ice. The key difference is that hockey is faster, played over a smaller playing surface, is more intense, and has the ever present potential for a fight.

A few are thinking about converting after having watched the winter olympics, although the men's tournament was kind of lackluster to be honest. There weren't any real thrillers except for the US-Russia game.

Surely you are talking about ice hockey? Hockey´s a rather girlie game played by men bet over with curved sticks hitting a little ball around a grass field.

I live in Brasil right now and I'm constantly trying to tell people here that hockey is essentially soccer on ice.

In North America, which has more native English speakers than Europe, the adjective (field) goes before the game played on the field, and is primarily played by women. Hockey refers to that game played on ice and doesn't require the adjective, though it can be used. Still, if I say that, "I play hockey," it means the game on ice.

I am pretty sure Jim was aware of that. I am guessing he was just stirring a bit.
Here in Germany, many people (including some of my coworkers) get really bent out of shape if you imply that field hockey isn't "real" hockey. Which is why it is so fun to do just that.

Well, we apparently agree on hockey's similarity to basketball, but we differ as to whether that is an asset for hockey or a liability.

Well, football is pretty fun to watch.

Wait....which football are we talking about?

hehe. touche