Jill Murray
I’m so sad I didn’t take the posters for this seriously! I saw them around, but the image was so hyperbolic, I dismissed it as marketing fantasy and ignored them altogether. And now I find out its real and its happening tonight, and I can’t even go to Quebec City to see it. Wouldn’t that make a great weekend? Museums, history, people smashing into each other down a 56-foot incline?
Shortly after my 15th birthday, I smashed up my face pretty good (broken tooth, stitches, root canal, plastic surgery) taking a speed bump the wrong way. It took me about a decade to lose the exact stomach-lurching, man-am-I-stupid instant-regret feeling of flying through the air, knowing how I was going to land, and not being fast enough to change my destiny. If I think about it hard enough, I can still bring it back.
Even with that haunting memory creeping through my intestines, when I see this video, my first thought is “want. want it now.” I am sitting on my couch, trying to convince myself that these people have it easy because
- They are wearing face-guards and head-to-toe padding
- You slide when you hit ice. It doesn’t grip your face like pavement does.
I’m wrong, of course. This is downhill, with people smashing into you. But I wouldn’t ever want to race anyway. I just want to try the course. But I guess there’s no official training facility for this anywhere. They probably just take a bunch of bladers and throw hockey gear on them and give them a shove. So OK, fine, that’s not me. But maybe next year I could at least go watch?
I do get to go to a vegetarian haggis party later, which is not entirely unadventurous, nor is it unfunny, though I do expect far less body checking.
P.S. On a quite-nearly-related note, I just finished reading Justine Larbalestier’s How to Ditch Your Fairy, which is adorable, clever, sparkly, and has an unexpected bobsledding scene!
P.P.S. Thanks to Brigitte for pointing out the reality of Crashed Ice on Facebook, and Fagstein for finding this particular video.
P.P.P.S. Another vastly (to borrow a turn of phrase from How to Ditch Your Fairy) entertaining scenario to think about with regards to this video is what would happen if they had picks on their skates. (You know, like figure skaters.)
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