{"id":2453249,"date":"2020-01-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=319096"},"modified":"2020-01-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T07:00:00","slug":"sean-beckwith-you-cant-spell-espn-the-ocho-without-aspen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/sean-beckwith-you-cant-spell-espn-the-ocho-without-aspen\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean Beckwith: You can\u2019t spell ESPN The Ocho without Aspen"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There are certain things that Aspenites just don\u2019t do. Fast food is on that list and not just because people in town are fitness freaks. When Aspen had a McDonald\u2019s, it \u2014 like Domino\u2019s still is \u2014 was frequented quite often. I would posit that if Aspen had a dart league, it also would be popular with year-round residents.<\/p>\n

However, I\u2019m not here to lobby for more basketball courts or dart leagues or sand volleyball beer leagues. I\u2019ve already done that and \u2014 albeit with zero effort from myself \u2014 nothing has come to fruition.<\/p>\n

My ideas, taken from my time living in places where bar games doubled as exercise, clearly aren\u2019t hitting. So I\u2019ve taken these everyday, mundane activities and added an injection of Aspen.<\/p>\n

Here are a few suggestions for ESPN The Ocho-esque alternatives.<\/p>\n

Snowball fight league<\/p>\n

I played paintball once and walked away looking like I flew into some trees off Valhalla. Physical punishment isn\u2019t my idea of fun as is probably the case with most people, Tough Mudder psychos notwithstanding.<\/p>\n

That said, snowballs don\u2019t really hurt unless you\u2019re the kind of person who puts rocks in them. I don\u2019t think residents are taking enough advantage of the abundance of snow. Sure, skiing powder is fun but where are the snow forts? Where are the Calvin and Hobbes-type displays of snowman art?<\/p>\n

If there was a way to score a snowball fight, which would be hard without staining everyone\u2019s snow gear with food coloring, I think people would 100% commit to a snowball fight league. This isn\u2019t a fully developed idea but I am intrigued by the concept of a walk-off snowball.<\/p>\n

Lastly, the main reason for any recreational gathering \u2014 postgame drinks \u2014 is built in to the league. I wouldn\u2019t mind a face full of spiked hot chocolate after getting a face full of snow for an hour.<\/p>\n

SUP racing<\/p>\n

The thing about floating North Star is people don\u2019t get wet \u2014 and incidental splashing from paddling doesn\u2019t count. I\u2019m not a good paddleboarder because I don\u2019t see the point of learning. Who wants to float using the most difficult medium to drink beers? It makes no sense.<\/p>\n

If you gave me some incentive \u2014 more or less personal pride \u2014 I would dedicate myself to becoming to SUPing what Pele is to futbol (or at the very least Landon Donovan). Put SUPers head-to-head on North Star and the first person to the takeout wins. It would be full contact; think American Gladiators jousting but on paddleboards while traversing a river.<\/p>\n

It would finally give those guys you see paddling upriver a measurable reason to go. Plus, you have natural obstacles on and in the river. You ever played chicken with a moose? It also checks the recreational drinking box.<\/p>\n

Cooking on grass class<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure in some little hipster corner of Lodo or Brooklyn, there\u2019s some trust funder who managed to make it through culinary school only to find out that working in a kitchen was hard and transitioned to teaching people the intricacies of cooking with cannabis. This would not be that.<\/p>\n

I want \u201cstudents\u201d to fast all day. Then, right before they walk into City Market, hit them with a couple brain-melting dabs. Don\u2019t give them a list, just a 15-minute time limit. Then once they arrive at the classroom, more weed.<\/p>\n

Have you ever seen a stoner try to flip a random pantry of food into a meal like he\u2019s on \u201cChopped\u201d?<\/p>\n

An old roommate of mine, who actually gets paid to cook, made an open-face sandwich one time with rice and burrata. The instructor wouldn\u2019t be so much of a teacher as an enabler.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere take another trip to bing town and maybe you\u2019ll find a use for the maple syrup and Funions.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s the exact process used to come up with the Doritos Locos taco by the minds at Taco Bell.<\/p>\n

It would be like an ugly dog contest, where you can\u2019t look away. How big of a monstrosity could it really be, you ask? Have you ever had peanut and jelly fried rice with a Flaming Hot Cheeto crusted halibut? No? Well I haven\u2019t either but I\u2019m willing to laugh at you while you eat it with the same gusto as a 5-year-old picking at steamed broccoli.<\/p>\n

While this activity could involve recreational drinks, maybe save drunk cooking for its own night.<\/p>\n

Those are just three of a litany of possible recreational happenings rattling around up here. It would be nice to provide Aspen with a different dose of competition and creativity, because if someone suggests another cardio-oriented option, I\u2019m going to jog into oncoming traffic.<\/p>\n

Sean Beckwith is a copy editor at The Aspen Times. Email at sbeckwith@aspentimes.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are certain things that Aspenites just don\u2019t do. Fast food is on that list and not just because people in town are fitness freaks. When Aspen had a McDonald\u2019s, it \u2014 like Domino\u2019s still is \u2014 was frequented quite often. I would posit that if Aspen had a dart league, it also would be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2453249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-23 16:14:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2453249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2453249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2453249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2453249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}