The Winter Olympics are here. The Winter Olympics are here. The 20th Winter Olympics are being held in Turin, Italy. Did you know? Of course you did, but do you care?

Don’t you want to see figure skater Michelle Kwan go out as an Olympic champion on her third and final try?

How about watching bad-boy skier Bode Miller back up his words and quiet his critics by winning several gold medals?

Maybe you want to see the popular American speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno defend his gold from the Salt Lake City games four years ago against the powerful South Korean team?

Well, none of these things happened in these winter games.

Kwan dropped out of the Turin games (or, as NBC likes to use, Torino games) after re-injuring her groin during practice.

Miller has skied downhill, combined, super-g and giant slalom, but has yet to win a single medal with only one event (the slalom) left.

Even though Ohno managed to get a bronze medal in the 1,000-meters, he failed to defend his crown at the 1,500-meters, eating shit in the semifinals.

There are no more big stars and no more big story lines. No wonder the ratings are low; this is no “American Idol.”

The way I look at it, the Summer Olympics are like a competition for football players: the quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, linebackers, linemen and so on, while the Winter Olympics are the games for the kickers.

I’m not saying that the Winter Olympians are not athletes, or that they don’t train hard — but figure skaters are no gymnasts, speed skaters and skiers are no track stars and hockey players are no basketball players.

So far, along with disappointments, there have been a lot of excuses. Miller has told the Italian press that he didn’t care about winning. He also complained about how the media and fans put too much pressure on him to succeed and that he shouldn’t have to try if he doesn’t want to do so.

American figure skater Johnny Weir blamed his bad performance on a late bus schedule, saying that his aura was disturbed and that he felt “black” inside.

We have even seen U.S. snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis, ahead by a mile and two jumps away from winning the gold in the snowboard cross, do a hot-dogging grab, only to fall and come in second.

Having said all this, there has been one good thing for the 2006 Winter Games — snowboarding. Snowboarding is fairly new to the Olympics, having made its debut in the 1998 Winter Games, but since then, it has continued to gain popularity every year.

Snowboarders Shaun White and Hannah Teter dominated the half-pipe, both winning gold for America and enjoying every moment of it.

Teter is a breath of fresh air — she is an easygoing, goofy girl who lists one of her favorite hobbies as making syrup out of sap from trees in her native Vermont.

After locking up the gold medal with her first run, she pushed even harder to improve that score on her “victory lap.”

“I just kind of felt the same standing up there,” Teter said. “It’s like, ‘Here we go again, another run on the pipe — but at the Olympics.’ I just felt super positive.”

She also snuck off about 20 minutes before her practice run with her U.S. teammate Gretchen Bleiler, who finished second to Teter, to get some fresh powder.

These two women went snowboarding before they had to compete in the half-pipe finals. That is pure love.

On the men’s side, San Diego native White — commonly known as “The Flying Tomato”— became a household name. He is just a 19-year-old kid who clearly owns his sport, but manages to stay humble and have some fun. Even with so many accomplishments on the slopes, he was still overcome with emotion after becoming an Olympic champion.

“It’s definitely one of the best things that’s ever happened to my career,” White said. “I came out here. I barely made it into finals. After that, I knew I could just do the best run I had planned.”

Even though snowboarding is one of the few positives in these Winter Games, it will be a couple more Olympics until it becomes the premiere event. And when it does, everyone will be watching.

We may not care as much about the Torino Games, but even if it is a competition of kickers, when it comes down to it, we want our team’s kicker to win.