17 Amazing New Events to Spice Up the Next Winter Olympics

Ice sculpting? Snow kiting? Worldwide snowball fight?? Please and thank you.

The Winter Olympics are finally, mercifully over, and not a moment too soon. The United States lost because we didn’t win, and viewers at home lost because we talked ourselves into watching cross country skiing and ice dancing for three weeks. Alas. It was either that or Celebrity Big Brother.

But all is not lost! The Beijing Winter Olympics are not until 2022, so that leaves us four entire years to fix this thing. No one is fixing the luge, but what if we added a few new events to spice things up?

Here they are: the 17 awesome new events that will make the 2022 Winter Olympics a heck of a lot more fun for everyone…

Polar Bear Plunge

The rules are simple.

Competitors wearing nothing but a Speedo warm up for 20 minutes in a sauna. At the buzzer, they have 30 seconds to sprint across a lake to a hole in the ice and jump into the icy cold water. They must keep everything from their shoulders down submerged at all times.

Last competitor in the water without waving the white flag or dying first wins.

We can even have temperature competition levels like boxing weight classes.

Ice Sculpting

Each country’s competitors get a giant block of ice and four hours to transform it into something artistic and beautiful. Stagger the start times by 15 minutes so we get to see the big finish for each country, and make sure the Russian judges are there so we get a little judging controversy. Think The Great British Baking Show, but international and on ice.

What a wonderful way to celebrate the beauty and art of each individual nation! Every single sculpture would honor a culture. We’d learn so much.

Just don’t let Edward Scissorhands anywhere near this thing.

Snowman Building

The children’s version of ice sculpting. Why should China be the only country that lets their pre-teens compete in the Olympics?

Besides, think of all the Frozen sponsorship opportunities just staring us in the face. Do you want to build a snowman?

Ice Cream Eating

The Olympics discriminate against non-athletes. Where are all the fat people of the world supposed to compete? Oh sure, we have a Special Olympics but no Fat Olympics? You’d watch the Fat Olympics.

We’ll settle for one Fatlympics event. We have competitors eat a million hot dogs on the 4th of July; why not let them race to eat a couple gallons of ice cream at the Winter Olympics?

Besides, America would kill at this event, and we need to invent some more Winter Olympics stuff we’re good at. Shaun White can’t snowboard forever.

Dog Sled Racing

We let our horses compete in the Summer Olympics, so why not?

Every dog has its day.

Fun fact: my dog’s day is Tuesday.

Broom Ball

Think hockey, but without skates… or hockey sticks.

Broom ball lives in that tiny happy place between floor hockey and ice hockey. It’s floor hockey on ice, with special shoes that give a little extra grip for running.

Broom ball could be the Winter Olympics version of handball, a fun team sport everyone remembers from gym class and thinks they’d be good at themselves even though they’d secretly be a disaster.

Family Ice Walk

The perfect event for stay-at-home moms and dads.

Competitors must first parallel park on an icy street two blocks from their home in the only spot they can find, then load up five bags of groceries because it’s too far to make a second trip. After that they’ll need to unbuckle two toddlers from their car seats and hold one of their hands crossing the street while carrying the second one without waking them up. When they arrive at the apartment, they’ll need to get the house key out of their pocket without removing their mittens and successfully open the door and get everyone and everything inside.

First one home wins.

Cross Country Skiing While Shooting Guns

Oh wait… That’s already an event.

Ice Fishing

The cricket of the Winter Olympics.

We’ll give the World Fishing Network 24–7 rights and they’ll air all the exhilarating footage of the two-week event in which competitors will day drink in an expensive ice house all day, play poker, eat junk food, and occasionally pretend to check a fishing line in a tiny hole cut into the ice. Competitors will be required to finish one 12-pack of beer every six hours or they’ll be disqualified.

Last one to actually catch a fish and have to go home to their family wins.

Snowmobile Racing

Honestly, how is this not an event?

The BMX races at Summer Olympics are low-key one of of the most fun events. Why not give them a four-cylinder motor? You haven’t lived until you’ve watched snowmobiles race around curves and up and down hills at actual breakneck speeds.

Do you realize high-end snowmobiles can achieve speeds in excess of 150 miles an hour? That’s like 3000 kilometers per hour in rest-of-the-world speed.

Hair Curling

Can’t be any stupider than ice shuffleboard.

At least this is useful in day-to-day life. And Canadians are probably still good at it anyway, so no hard feelings.

Netflix Binging

Competitors will compete in a virtual blizzard, trapped in their homes with nothing but a case of Natty Lite and a loaf of stale bread.

It’s a test of endurance. At the buzzer, competitors must activate their Netflix. They cannot fall asleep at any point and cannot leave the room to use the bathroom. Last one watching wins. Folks at home can tune in to the various viewing options, so you can flip from Team Iceland’s fish-brining documentary to Team Canada’s Fuller House marathon to Team Kyrgyzstan’s Borat.

We can do team events, too. Two-man Netflix binge, team binge, it’s all in play. And there’s definitely gonna be a “mixed doubles” Netflix event, if you know what I mean.

Badminton

Sure, badminton is already a Summer Olympics sport. But does it really have to be?

We’re not going to play badminton on ice, though let’s be honest, the name “bad-mitten” is just staring us right in the face. This thing takes place indoors anyway. There were 306 medal events at the 2016 Summer Olympics, a full three times as many as the 102 at these Winter Olympics. You’re telling me we can’t move a few of those to winter to balance things out?

We’ll keep the obvious outdoorsy summer stuff, and we won’t touch the holy trinity of swimming, track, and gymnastics. But who would it really hurt to move badminton to winter?

Boxing goes too, along with karate and taekwondo. So too table tennis, handball, and fencing. Team USA never wins those events anyways, and we already suck at Winter Olympics, so we might as well tilt it further in that direction and crush the summer table even more.

Snow Kiting

This is a real thing. Look, I brought pictures:

It’s basically kite boarding except, you know, on snow.

We’ll have skiing and snowboarding divisions and there’ll be races and artistic events. We’ll make a whole thing of it.

Ice Speedway

This is another real event that already exists, so why isn’t it at the Olympics? It’s fast-track speed skating… but on motorbikes.

You know how entertaining it is watching crazy speed skaters race around full speed with giant ice daggers on their feet? Those guys top out around 33 miles an hour. These bikes have dangerously spiked tires and hit 80 on straights, slowed only by the banked snow and flimsy straw bales holding everything together. It’s high-speed, it’s dangerous, and it’s fun.

Plus, like half the countries have to drive on the other side of the snowbank.

Snow Ball Fight

Don’t laugh. This is actually already a sport in Japan. They call it yukigassen, loosely translated as “snow battle,” and there are annual tournaments in Japan, Scandinavia, Russia, Australia, and North America.

Yukigassen is essentially capture the flag, but with snowballs instead of flags. It’s dodgeball plus snow plus capture the flag. How awesome is that?! Every high school in the Midwest should be playing yukigassen in gym class.

The closing ceremonies are fun and all, but you know what’d be even more fun? A giant yukigassen battle right there in the stadium before a live worldwide audience. Take the top ten countries in the medal chart and let them each pick their top seven athletes and duke it out for the final Olympic medal. Winner gets to host the next Olympics.

You’re not watching a worldwide snowball capture the flag fight? Please.

Day Drinking

This one’s just for you at home. There are no medals. It’s just you and your alcohol of choice, passing the time together as you wonder why you’re still watching the Winter Olympics.

Nobody wins. Or maybe everyone does.

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