I remember the good old days when I could kick back, have a cold beer and watch ski racing on the Outdoor Life Network Saturday afternoon. Well OLN became VERSUS and now they have neanderthalian shows like "Ultmate Cage Fighting" where they lock 2 brutes in cage and they beat each other up. Maybe the cavemen from the GEICO commercial or people with a similar undeveloped brain watch this show, but I sure don't.

Does anyone know where and when ski racing is on television? I sure miss watching ski racing and the US Ski Team.

Totally agree with you...I guess you can call it the dumbing of America... I have Dish Network at my Snowshoe condo and searched but couldn't find anything remotely resembling ski racing...

And I don't enjoy watching troglodytes in an unpadded cell...

As Comprex said, WCSN has the broadcast rights for most FIS skiing.

NBC carries early World Cup races (Beaver Creek and Aspen) in a slash-and-burn format: edited beyond recognition, broadcast a week after the races have completed. They also show domestic Freestyle World Cup competition in January.

But other than that, nothing more.

WCSN isn't carried by most cable and satellite providers (worth a call to see if it's possible, though), but it's available via web-based subscription and delivery. And it's great! You see every racer in the race, often live and always same-day. And you can watch any race on-demand, which is a nice perk. For $5/month or $50/year, it's not a bad deal.

WCSN also carries other sports that have fallen off the radar of most sports TV: road and track cycling, track & field, swimming, volleyball, equestrian, and many more. It's a great investment for the fan of the real world of sports!

Real sports??????

I'll have to disagree. Only thing worthwhile about watching any of the above is the occasional hot chick in a skimpy outfit. (Am I starting to sound like Crush? Is there some sort of therapy group for that?)

Many of the above are great to participate in (I'm an ex collegiate runner and played numerous volleyball tournaments back in the day), but why waste any time watching them on the tube?

Sadly, you almost have to throw NHL hockey in the above category.

For the Picksburgers on this forum,

Alex the Gr8 >>> Sid the Kid.

I'll agree with the quality of the format. Even worse is the coverage of all sports at the Olympics (only time I really care about ski racing, etc.) Numerous teasers about an event - later on in the broadcast a brief snippet of the actual event - break to a Lifetime Channel/Oprah profile of an athlete - an even briefer snippet of the action - commercial breaks - other events - repeat all of the above for the same event. All against a background mantra with chants USA! USA! USA! (I'll still watch numerous repeats of the 1980 hockey game or the move Miracle, but the real McCoy holds so much more drama than the subsequent attempts by the Olympic network to manufacture the next repeat.)

WCSN? I was not aware that it even existed. I have satelite so I'll have to check and see if it is one of the channels that I recieve. Based on the schedule of broadcasts, it looks like I missed the entire season! That is frustrating!
Thanks for the info.

JohnL - I agree about the Olympics coverage. They try to create drama and a tabloid style to gain interest from all of the folks out there with short attention spans (most of the viewing public). That is why I missed OLN, they justed showed the racing, had that great British annoucer for a while and let us enjoy the racers. I guess it didn't generate enough advertising.

Meanwhile the US had one of the best years ever!!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/16/AR2008031602513.html

"Bode Miller and Lindsey Vonn won overall titles yesterday in Bormio, Italy, for the first American sweep since Phil Mahre and Tamara McKinney 25 years ago. In all, U.S. skiers took home five crystal globes this season to just two for the Austrian "Wunderteam."

I have Direct TV and could not find wcsn. And it sounds like we missed an incredible ski racing season. Maybe this channel will be added to the Direct TV package.

It's an Internet channel, not a satellite channel.

BTW, http://www.laola1.at carries good freebie video, if you don't mind navigating menus in german.

Once in a while, I get lucky: turn on the TV and downhill racing might be on. Those are rare days, now replaced with "brutes" & "brains" (or lack there of).

One thing I have never seen on TV is telemark.
It would be nice to make a good "home" movie of the entire history of telemark and such.

In the meantime, I keep pocking at my camera, one shutter at a time - BUT if anyone hears of Telemark skiing on TV, please pick up the phone!!!