Silver Mine Hill just outside Eau Claire.

We all know we live in one of the winter sports havens of the United States. As noted in prior columns, we have thriving hockey, skiing, snowmobiling, and curling communities in our region. If not for a lack of a mountain range, one could argue that the Chippewa Valley would be a prime location for a Winter Olympics.

Apparently the folks in Springfield agree with this sentiment. In a recent episode of The Simpsons, Principal Skinner walks into the Simpsons’ household to inform Homer & Marge that there’s “astonishing news out of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The Olympic Committee has announced that mixed curling will be a demonstration event at the Winter Olympics.”

This resulted in two revelations. First: The Olympic Committee is headquartered in Eau Claire? And, Second: Our area’s reputation for being a hotbed of winter athletic activity must be more pervasive in national pop culture than I had imagined. Maybe the recent visit by NBC Nightly News to cover Olympic curling training in Eau Claire should have been a clue, but being the subject of parody on The Simpsons was final confirmation of our status as a prime American location for winter sports. In the wake of these two revelations, the thought crossed my mind: could Eau Claire actually host the Olympic Winter Games?

Size of the city does not matter. Recent host cities like Albertville (18,906) and Lillehammer (26,124) feature smaller populations than Eau Claire, while Sochi, host of the next Winter Olympics, has a population a little over twice that of the Eau Claire metropolitan area.

How about indoor facilities? Not a problem if the money can be found. The Olympics could be the incentive to finally build a new arena in Eau Claire, as has been discussed for decades. This arena could host figure skating and short-track speed skating. Hobbs Ice Center might be converted for curling. Hockey could be sent over to the Twin Cities and buildings like the Xcel Energy Center; after all, the State Of Hockey really should host the hockey competition. Another venue could be constructed for speed skating, maybe in Hudson, and converted for high school hockey post-Olympics.

    Silvermine Ski Jump may be too small or old for ski jumping, but if Eau Claire is hosting an Olympics, a new jump could be constructed or another taller hill could be found to build the two required ski jumps. This taller hill might also make for a good sliding center, maybe a hill like Afton Alps, which could also be appropriate for snowboarding and moguls. Cross-country skiing and biathlon could take advantage of trails in the northern part of the state.

The Olympic Stadium could be a temporary structure built on open land on the northwest side of town; Albertville’s “Théâtre des Cérémonies” was completely temporary, and some of the stands were sent to Barcelona for the Summer Olympics later that year.

All of this sounds promising, except for one slight problem: where is our mountain for Alpine skiing? The answer: we do not have one. While Alpine skiing venues are sometimes over an hour from the host city, there are no mountains of Olympic height in all of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the upper Peninsula of Michigan. What is Olympic height? If you’re going to host an Olympic Winter Games, you need a vertical drop of 2,000 feet, and the tallest drop in the region is Lutsen Mountain at 770 feet.

So, we’re never going to host a Winter Olympics. Should we really be too upset? Maybe not. We won’t have to deal with the expense of building the aforementioned facilities, or face the possibility of little post-Olympic use. Traffic is already getting a little crowded nowadays in town – now imagine Clairemont Avenue with the vehicles of the world taking up extra space.

Yeah, maybe an Olympic Winter Games wouldn’t be the best thing for the Chippewa Valley. Rather, we can be content with knowing that Eau Claire plays a notable role in training for winter sports like curling. The Olympic Committee wouldn’t have it any other way.