Sounds Like BCS: Bad Call for Skating

SALT LAKE CITY —  In a breaking news story that no one can make heads or tails of, the International Skating Union has proposed radical changes in its scoring system that could, depending on degree of difficulty, invalidate the past 94 years of Olympic figure skating results, make Olympic figure skating judging even more secretive and confusing than it already is, and turn the sport of Olympic figure skating into college football.

Let’s see if I have this straight:

International figure skating officials have finally admitted that their sport has too many judges susceptible to collusion and corruption.

Therefore, international figure skating officials want to increase the number of figure skating judges at the Olympics from nine to 14.

If the ISU ran boxing, Mike Tyson would have fights booked today in all 50 states, plus Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa.

Then the ISU wants these 14 judges to assign “degree of difficulty” scores for jumps, spins and footwork--no more 6.0 scoring system. Instead, ISU President Ottavio Cinquanta suggests that the judges push buttons to assign grades for “excellent, good, normal and mediocre.”

Of course, Cinquanta stresses that this is a tentative proposal. Of course. As everyone knows, absolutely nothing in figure skating can be considered normal.

Then the ISU wants a computer to take these 14 scores and randomly spit out seven that will count toward a skater’s final total. Great. Isn’t this how Nebraska got into the Rose Bowl? Don’t these big-sport bureaucrats ever talk to one another? Mr. Cinquanta, I have a phone number for you. It belongs to Roy Kramer. I also have three letters for you: BCS. Ask Mr. Kramer to tell you about them.

Cinquanta believes this new computerized system “will reduce to a minimum the prospect of bloc voting.” Clearly, Cinquanta hasn’t thought this through. What happens, for example, if the person running the computer is French?

These questions are just a few the ISU membership should ponder before voting to approve or reject the proposal in June. The vote will be held in Kyoto, Japan--and isn’t that just like figure skating? We really screwed up the Olympics in Salt Lake City, so let’s all take summer trips to Japan!

While Cinquanta was unveiling his plan to save figure skating judges from themselves, Canada and the Czech Republic were playing to a 3-3 tie in men’s hockey. NBC should have simulcast them both via split screen--”What’s Right and Wrong With the Salt Lake City Olympics.”

Hockey. Beautiful, uncomplicated hockey. Put the puck in the net more often than the other guys and you win. That’s it. No need for internal assessments, review boards, commissioned studies and computer programmers. Put the biscuit in the basket. So easy, so simple.

Unless you happen to play for the Mighty Ducks.

Which reminds me ...

Here’s an Olympic insider’s tip to tracking and handicapping the men’s hockey tournament: Whenever in doubt, go with the team with the ex-Mighty Ducks. Especially when that team is matched against a team with a current Mighty Duck on its roster.

Consider these results from Monday’s last round of group play:

* Teemu Selanne, ex-Mighty Duck, scores Finland’s first goal in a 3-1 upset over Russia. Oleg Tverdovsky, current Mighty Duck, plays for Russia.

* Scott Young, ex-Mighty Duck, scores two goals in the United States’ 8-1 rout of Belarus. Ruslan Salei, current Mighty Duck, plays for Belarus.

* Team Canada, which previously lost to Sweden and barely got past Germany, continued its disappointing Olympic run by scrambling to tie the Czechs and finish group play at 1-1-1. Paul Kariya, current Mighty Duck, plays for Canada.

Canada has one more game to get its act together. Very quickly now, the Canadians have to find a way to turn this thing around. Because they probably won’t cut Kariya, their only move left is obvious: Bring on Patrick Roy.

Yeah, that would be the answer, except for one thing: Roy isn’t here. Why? Roy claims his body needed the rest as the Colorado Avalanche prepares to defend the Stanley Cup in the approaching NHL playoffs. Canadian media, however, speculate that Roy decided not to come to Salt Lake when Team Canada GM Wayne Gretzky wouldn’t promise him the starting goalie assignment.

Either way, that explains why Gretzky looks so pale whenever NBC aims a camera at him. Or why Gretzky went off during his postgame meeting with the media, saying that “it sickens my stomach to turn the TV on. It makes me ill to hear what’s being said about Canadian hockey.”

Gretzky accused the Czechs of dirty play and said, somewhat ominously, “They should remember that there’s payback in this game. And it won’t be pretty.”

Aside from figure skating protests and Roots apparel sales, it hasn’t been a great Games for Canada. The Canadian men’s Alpine ski team failed to win a medal, so Monday the Canadian Ski Assn. took what it thought was swift and appropriate action: It announced the immediate termination of its men’s Alpine program for the remainder of the season and fired of all its men’s coaches.

A word of caution, then, to future Canadian Alpine skiers and coaches. They should remember that there’s payback in this game. And it won’t be pretty.