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"  You&amp;#039;re probably going to watch some part of the Winter Olympics. Even if you refuse to watch anything on tape delay because your New Year&amp;#039;s resolution was to &amp;quot;just live in the moment, Becky,&amp;quot; or you&amp;#039;re protesting Putin&amp;#039;s homophobic comments. Admit it. We all are. And if you&amp;#039;re just planning to stick to figure skating and men&amp;#039;s hockey, well, you&amp;#039;ll be missing out on a handful of completely weird, terrifying, thrilling sports you&amp;#039;ve probably never heard of. So here are six niche Winter Olympic sports you should watch instead, and how best to enjoy them. 1. Skeleton Nothing \u2014 including the bobsled, made famous by Cool Runnings, and the suggestive double luge, made infamous by the porn parody Dual Tonguings \u2014 NOTHING is as insane as skeleton. It even has a spooky name. In this sport, individual athletes throw themselves head-first down the track, reaching speeds of up to 80 mph, their chins hovering centimeters above the ice. It has only been part of the Winter Olympics since 2002, when Olympic officials decided it was so crazy that it just might work. How to watch: With your fingers over your eyes. This one&amp;#039;s about pure speed and sharp turns on ice. But seriously, someone should stop these maniacs. 2. Biathlon Skiing plus shooting! Where could you go wrong? Like the summer&amp;#039;s modern pentathlon, biathlon finds its roots in 19th-century military training. Created by the Norwegians as &amp;quot;military patrol,&amp;quot; the modern iteration took the name of biathlon, completely missing the insanely superior name of &amp;quot;gunski.&amp;quot; There are multiple biathlon events at the Olympics, but basically participants ski a distance with rifles on their backs, shoot at a set of targets from standing and prone positions, then ski back. Missed targets incur a time penalty. How to watch: With your friend who you secretly suspect is super pro-gun. During the longer cross-country parts, make some crack about concealed-carry laws, then sit back and watch them go wild with Second Amendment fervor. 3. Women&amp;#039;s Hockey Hockey is obviously not a niche sport, but the women&amp;#039;s tournament is always criminally overshadowed by the men&amp;#039;s. Since joining the Olympics in 1998, women&amp;#039;s hockey has quickly established itself with amazingly skilled and seriously tough athletes. The sport has consistently been dominated by two teams: Canada and the US. The US won gold in &amp;#039;98, but Canada has taken gold ever since. This might be the Winter Olympics&amp;#039; most epic rivalry. How to watch: With unreasonable patriotism. Expect, nay, DEMAND to see a North American rematch in the gold medal round. 4. Curling No, curling is not shuffleboard on ice. How dare you. Curling is a game of skill and patience and strategy. If anything, it&amp;#039;s bocce ball on ice. In curling, two teams of four take alternating turns sliding eight 42-pound granite stones down the long icy &amp;quot;sheet&amp;quot; into the &amp;quot;house&amp;quot; (what looks like the Target logo, and probably will be. Sponsors, amiright?) Every throw is directed by the team captain, or &amp;quot;skip,&amp;quot; unless it&amp;#039;s the skip&amp;#039;s turn to throw, at which point the &amp;quot;vice skip&amp;quot; takes over. Each round is called an &amp;quot;end,&amp;quot; and a team earns &amp;quot;points&amp;quot; by having however many of their stones closer to the house&amp;#039;s center, or &amp;quot;button,&amp;quot; than the other team&amp;#039;s first closest stone, or &amp;quot;stone.&amp;quot; At the end of ten ends the curling match ends. There are no golden snitches. Any more questions? Oh, &amp;quot;curling&amp;quot; is when the stone takes a curved path into the house, and the broom sweepers smooth out a path for the stone to follow. Whew. How to watch: Rowdily, with beer. Due to the length of the sheet, there&amp;#039;s a lot of hilarious yelling by the skip at the sweepers. Watch out for those Norwegians and their pants! What a bunch of goofballs. This sport is just crazy. 5. Snowboard Cross A personal favorite, the snowboard cross is the closest thing to a Mario Party game that you will find in modern sports. Four snowboarders race down the same course at the same time, timed by the same clock. Collisions and cutoffs are a regular occurrence. Embarrassingly showboaty tricks that end up costing you the gold medal?  Less so. How to watch: With your ears. There&amp;#039;s nothing better than listening to snowboard announcers trying to say words like &amp;quot;biff&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;tweak&amp;quot; with their very official Olympic gravitas. 6. Ice Dancing Ice dancing is basically extremely deluded Disney on Ice. (Which is a good thing?) It does involve more intricate footwork than figure skating, though. Make sure to watch out for the short dance routine and the required step sequence, lift, and sequential twizzles! The pairing of Meryl Davis and Charlie White, who took silver in 2010, look to be the America&amp;#039;s best shot at gold. How to watch: With your fashion sass on point. Since they don&amp;#039;t have to stay in place during jumps and flips, ice dancing costumes are usually, how do I put this, more flamboyant than figure skating garb. Photo Credit: Getty Images "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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