Ed Ranks the 5 Best Winter Olympic Sports

The first ever Ed Ranks Everything was "Ed Ranks the Top 5 Best Summer Olympic Sports."

Well my friends, it's Winter Olympics time.

5. Speed Skating

Do not adjust your screen settings.
That is indeed a brother at the Winter Olympics.

Hell yeah! This is the Track and Field equivalent of the Winter Olympics and it's great. There are various different meter ranges for these events, ranging from 500 to 10,000 and team skating. Although the women's single events only go up to 5,000. Sexist. Since 1988 there has also been "short track" speed skating, which I'll also lump in here because I'm being general. The Dutch are the kings and queens of this sport and dominate it. Going into the 2018 Olympics, they have 105 medals in this sport. The next closest country is the United States - with only 67 medals. It must be those long Dutch legs since they're the tallest people in the world. But you just know if we teach Usain Bolt how to skate, the Dutch are doomed.

4. Curling

Honestly, this is a real sport. And it's great.

Why is this terrible, terrible sport so mesmerizing? I want to make fun of it. Everyone already does make fun of it. And yet I still watch it every four years, whenever it is on.  It's like watching some unholy mix of ice hockey, bowling, shuffleboard, and sweeping your damn living room floor. This is the sport that makes everyone go, "Oh yeah. I could TOTALLY be an Olympic athlete." And yet you aren't because actual skill is required. So as much as I want to put this on my next "worst sports" list, I honestly can't because I will be scheduling my life the next few days around being able to watch this awesomeness.

3. Ice Hockey

Putin's #2 US agent. You all know who #1 is.

In my "Ed Ranks the Top 5 Worst Summer Olympic Sports" (my second ever post, naturally), I lumped the sports of Soccer, Basketball, Tennis, Golf, Boxing, etc. all together as being "worst" Olympic sports. Why? Well, I argued it was because they were popular sports that people watched and followed all the time through their own professional leagues like the NBA, FIFA, etc.  People care who wins the NBA Championship, the FIFA World Cup, the Australian Open, etc. But nobody really cares too much about these sports in the Olympics because there is nothing "special" about them during the Olympics since they see these sports all the time.  I think the best Olympic sports are the ones that are special because you only watch them every four years and are closely associated with the Olympic games themselves.

By this logic and the mere existence of the NHL, I should also have Ice Hockey as a "worst" Winter Olympic sport too, right? Wrong. The NHL is garbage. The version of Ice Hockey played during the Winter Olympics is so much better than the NHL and I barely ever watch NHL games. But the Olympics? You can bet your ass that I'm watching Hockey. And when people watch Ice Hockey they actually CARE about the results because it's really competitive. With NBA players in the summer Olympics, you know it's going to be the mean-ass USA beating up on everyone else. But with Olympic Hockey - it really was a miracle when the US won in 1980. You're definitely going to watch awesome and fierce competition between the Canadians, Czechs, Russians, Swedes, etc. Canada will probably win though, let's be honest. Does the fact that the 2018 Olympics won't have any NHL players in it due to fighting over issues like insurance and injuries bother me? Not really.

2. "Awesome" Skiing (Alpine, Freestyle, Jumping)

Whhhheeeeeeeee!!!

Look, by this I'm taking a large number of different events (11 different Alpine Skiing, 10 different Freestyle Skiing , and 4 Ski Jumping) and merging them into one category that's simply called "Awesome" Skiing. No, that's not a technical term. I'm just a super-duper clever person who was able to make such a sophisticated term up. These are the enjoyable skiing events in the Olympics that include people going down hills really fast, flipping, rapidly maneuvering between polls and gates, and (as its jumping name implies) doing sweet, huge jumps.  The jumping event is almost different enough so that I'd break it out into its own one, but since it's awesome it will stay with these other awesome skiing things. These are all automatic-watches for me, as much as possible. I'll watch several hockey games but after a while I'll get tired. No way am I ever getting tired of super G, slalom, aerials, ski cross, superpipe, large hill jump, and so on. Why? Because these events are fast and you can watch a ton of different skiers in short order.

1. Bobsled / Luge / Skeleton

Here, let's just get the "Cool Runnings" reference over with already.

When I ranked the best Summer Olympic sport, I awarded #1 to Handball / Water Polo. Yes, I know they are two different sports. But they are basically the same thing. Honestly, Water Polo is just Handball in a pool. The same goes for Bobsled, Luge and Skeleton. You get in a sled and race down a track. For all three sports, its the exact same track they go down.  The difference is exactly what the sled looks like, how many people are on the sled, and what direction they are facing. For bobsled you have 4-man, 2-man and 2-women teams in larger, aerodynamic encasing that almost look like little cars.  This is the hoighty-toighty rich-man version of throwing yourself down a track on a sled at high speeds. It's sort of cool because you need a running start by the person behind to get going. Luge is more out in the open, with 1 or 2-person teams laying on their backs, feet first, using gravity to race down a hill on a sled that isn't honestly much more sophisticated than the ones you, I, or Charles Foster Kane went down hills on when we were children. You're released from the gate in luge without a running start though. So you can't get a good "push" to help you be the fastest - you need to rely entirely on optimal steering to cheat seconds away from your competitors.

What could possibly go wrong with this?

Skeleton, however... HOLY HELL. Skeleton has the openness of the minimal luge sled except that you need to jump onto this tiny thing from a running start (like bobsled) and then careen down the track, belly-down and face first. That's right. You're on your stomach going FACE FIRST down the exact same track that the bobsledders do, only those pussy bobsledders have a giant metal and polycarbonate cocoons to protect themselves in. I'm sure there is some actual reason why this sport is called "Skeleton," but the only justification I can think of is that it's because you're going to die and they will have to clean your broken-apart skeleton off of the bottom of the track.

So if you need me to break this down further and divide these three events apart to pick one "best of the best"... then your overall best Winter Olympic Sport, by far, is Skeleton. These Skeleton guys and gals are badass.