There’s a new facebook group I saw today called “Snowboarders against Christine Brennan”  , which at the time of this blog post, had just over 3,000 members. I joined it immediately.

If you haven't had a chance to watch the ABC News piece about Kevin Pearce’s tragic injury entitled “Risky Manuever Lands Snowboarder in a Coma”, I'll paraphrase Ms. Brennann's comments, which appear after the initial story: She says the IOC needs to “rein in snowboarding” to stop these injuries that are the result of riding’s progression and that it’s their duty to do so because the “I.O.C. are the leaders of the sport.” Seriously? One the I.O.C. has jurisdiction over the Olympics, and nothing else. It doesn't run snowboarding. Snowboarding’s been around a lot longer than its presence in the Games, and if the I.O.C. banned Double Corks and other subsequent progression in snowboarding, it’d get pretty damn boring, pretty damn fast. Snowboarders would still be pushing the sport, they'd just be watching a more anemic version of it every four years, which would fail, since the best in the world either wouldn't be riding at their potential, or would jsut stay away fromt he games in protest.

Let’s face it—snowboarding can be dangerous at the highest levels of participation. And when you’ve got a few coveted spots on your country’s Olympic team and only a few contests to ensure that you’re on it—you’ve got to pull out all the stops, and in this case that means to throw Double Corks, or you don't go to the Games. This format for selection is also the best way to ensure that the best riders at that time are on the Olympic team. Perhaps the only real problem here is that there are about 10 people in the U.S. who could place Top 20 in Vancouver if allowed to go, and there are only three or four spots to fill.

Christine Brennann is just clearly out of touch here, and I'm so sick of talking heads like this on TV who have no real authority to be speaking about snowboarding, doing exactly that without anyone checking them and their views. Where's the balance? Is this Fox News?

Yeah, she's right that the I.O.C. brought snowboarding into the Olympics to attract a younger audience -- and that's because it was largely an older audience who were watching the Games -- but they also couldn't deny it's popularity anymore either. The whole ski industry likely would've died ages ago if it weren't for snowboarding bringing millions of people to the mountains (and Gnu/Lib Tech's Mike Olson developing progressive sidecuts, which are now used on "shaped skis". But to say that snowboarding’s progression needs to be “reined in” to prevent these sorts of injuries from happening is downright ludicrous. That’s like saying that figure skaters shouldn’t be spinning around as much, or that skiers in the downhill event should be forced to stay within a set speed limit, as some of the members of the Facebook group rightfully suggest. The Olympics are about the best—and sadly, there are risks on the road to excellence no matter what sport you’re participating in. Everyone at the pro level understands this, and its potential consequences.

Most importantly here, when reporting on this sort of issue, major TV news organizations really need to present multiple viewpoints, not just one presented as an "authority" who’s really just spewing her un-founded opinions. If only they brought in Snowboarder's Pat Bridges or Todd Richards to refute her comments live... Now that'd be TV worth watching.

--Scott Birke, editor, Snowboard Canada

P.S. -- In case you haven’t joined it yet, here’s the Facebook group to join to support Kevin Pearce’s recovery—let’s all hope he has a quick one. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Well-Wishes-to-our-Frend-Kevin-Pearce/232366118918?ref=ts