SurferMag Message Boards: Laird Hamilton and his......bobsled?

Good article. Left a section out to make it a little shorter.

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Hockey, surfing stars making a bobsled run
Elliot Almond - Mercury News

The good folks of Greece might not know much about the NHL lockout, but they have become unintended beneficiaries of the prolonged labor dispute.

The Detroit Red Wings’ Chris Chelios, one of hockey’s all-time great defensemen, is spending his free time pursuing the 2006 Olympics with the Greek bobsled team. And Chelios, 42, has recruited renowned big-wave surfer Laird Hamilton to join him.

Celebrity athletes in their own sports, the two could do wonders for the threadbare Greek team, which is held together by pilot John-Andrew Kambanis, a two-time Olympian from Chicago.

“We never have a problem getting noticed four months before and after the Games,” said Kambanis, who comes across like a father character in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”

But like in many niche Olympic sports, the athletes fade into obscurity the rest of the time even as they need financial support to train. It cost the Greeks $130,000 to qualify for the Salt Lake Games two years ago.

Chelios and Hamilton aren’t the first celebrities to venture into bobsledding. The NFL’s Herschel Walker and Willie Gault tried it. Olympic hurdles champion Edwin Moses did, too.

Even Prince Albert of Monaco is a sledder.

But a hockey player and a surfer?

A THRILL RIDE

Chelios had no concept of the sport until squishing into a 450-pound sled and careening down a mile-long sheet of ice at 80 MPH. He didn’t have the luxury of seat belts or seats – nothing but fiberglass and steel between him and ice.

“They’re not made for comfort,” said Steve Holcomb, a US driver who chauffeured the newcomers at Lake Placid, NY this month.

In other words, something made for Hamilton, Chelios’ Malibu neighbor and off-season training buddy.

The mop-haired blond changed the face of his sport by promoting the use of Wave Runners to tow surfers into monstrous surf of Hawaii’s outer reefs. Hamilton, who is married to volleyball-player-turned-model-turned-golfer Gabrielle Reese, will try almost anything.

He once descended a 70-foot slide in a standing free fall after he and Chelios rented a water park in Anaheim to host a children’s birthday party.

“As soon as Laird did that, they closed it down on us,” Chelios recalled.

ROUGH RIDERS

Olympians say it takes speed, strength and durability to excel at pushing a sled. It also takes practice.

On Chelios’ virgin run at Lake Placid, he tried to brace himself all the way down.

“You just can’t hold on for a minute,” he said.

Lake Placid has a reputation for being difficult.

“The physics of bobsledding don’t work there,” said Holcomb, driver of USA No. 2. “If you can handle getting down this track, there aren’t many that are going to intimidate you.”

When a sled crashed behind them, Holcomb looked for their reactions.

Said Chelios: “I haven’t flipped over yet; I hope I don’t. As long as you can stay on the track, nothing major will happen.”

On his first run, Hamilton could barely stay in the sled. By his third try, he wasn’t “totally holding on for my life.”

The experience left him in pain.

“Your neck is sore,” and Hamilton, whose Greek connection comes from his biological father. “I had strawberries on my elbows and hands. My feet were sore from trying to squeeze in and not get slapped around. I underestimated it.”

FREE SPIRIT

Should the Greek team make the Olympics, Hamilton’s participation isn’t certain.

“Calendars restricts us from being free,” he said. “If I see a giant swell on the horizon, I’m not just going to go bobsledding.”

But Hamilton’s presence in Turin could inject life into the moribund Winter Games. In 1998, IOC officials introduced snowboarding to interest young audiences weaned on extreme sports.

Hamilton, who splits homes between California and Maui, has the kind of X-Games star power of skateboarder Tony Hawk.

When he arrived at Lake Placid this month, Hamilton walked around in sandals and T-shirts in 20-degree weather.

“He loosened things up,” said Chelios, who wants Hamilton to experience the Olympics more than the surfer.

Even in a 45-minute conversation, Hamilton’s view began changing.

“You are almost obligated,” he said. “If you have an opportunity to do something and you don’t take it, that’s like sin to me.”

And if the Greeks were to qualify with Hamilton aboard, he might make the ultimate surfer’s sacrifice.

“For that, I’ll miss whatever swell that comes,” he said.

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Si se puede!