Its tough to watch luge these days. It really is. Look: it was tough enough already, right? Dudes lay motionless on a slide in ugly spandex outfits with their packages jutting skyward while they slide down an ice chute. Down they would slide, and at the end, one of them slid the fastest because of imperceptible differences in body position and speed.

But with the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili during his last warmup before the games started, luge took on another possibility: either the men would lie motionless, or they would rocket off their sled into a support beam. It was, in other words, NASCAR: down and down they would go, and once in awhile there would be a spectacular crash.

Kumaritashvili's death has cast a pall over the games, as has the response: Olympic organizers put up a 6 foot tall wooden wall where he flew off the track and issued a report blaming him for the accident. Never mind for now the inherent disconnect in blaming the athlete on one hand and then making modifications to the track on the other. Whatever the cause, an athlete died doing what he loved on the eve of achieving what would be the pinnacle of his athletic career (and very likely his life). Its like Alanis Morrissette and O. Henry had a baby and named it "this exact situation".

So: given all that has happened, imagine my surprise when Olympic luge champion Armin Zoggeler was introduced by his nickname, The Cannibal.

THE CANNIBAL. Really? Really.

Hey, guess what, THE CANNIBAL, you're in luck! This track is killing dudes left and right! DINNER IS SERVED, MOTHERFUCKERS! Jesus. I guess they couldn't find a luger with the nickname "Fatal Blunt Force Trauma" or "The Steel Support Beam"?