Snow Mean Feat

Mr. Shawn White should understand something rare and immense about his victory lap run in the recent Olympics.

Shawn, you gave the rest of us snowboarders something cool we can carry around, even if we only just carve the corduroy, as I do.

You call your closing trick the "Tomahawk", and though it sure looks like one and not a man-stuffing steak, the rest of us have a slightly different take on the name.

If you don't mind, we'd like to continue calling it the Double McTwist 1260.

If we use that term, we at least sound as though we know what we're talking about, even if that's all we meat torpedoes have going for ourselves.

Also, that doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. Just saying all that in public shows--in some way--that we're willing to execute some lip-cramping skill to pay homage to the first person on any planet to stomp one in public on purpose.

Outside the sport of out-of-control skydiving, I couldn't imagine any other butterfly-in-a-hurricane tumble that would befit such a name.

Go ahead and call it the Tomahawk. It's your baby.

We, however, would like to carry around just a little bit of cool, thanks to you, and calling it the technical term is a modest way to display our companionship and our thanks for cutting one loose.

You have that wonderful gold medal you earned, but we have our own little souvenir of the moment we'd like to carry around for ourselves, if you don't mind.

And, of course, we may have a hint of imagination, somehow picturing ourselves knocking one off, somewhere at altitude, above the edge of a snowy halfpipe.

Where are the hurricanes in winter when we'd like to have one?