Winter athletes move back into obscurity

The Winter Olympics are finally over, and the sports world has immediately been thrust back into its regular, late-winter sports routine - prepping for baseball season, gearing up for the NCAA basketball tournament and watching the last dredges of the NFL combine slip away.
But doggone it, these happen every single year.
Why don't I have a chance to watch winter sports except for every four years?
In the movie, "Dodgeball," there was a fictitious television channel called ESPN 8, "The Ocho," which aired obscure sports from around the globe. Some of the clips included a bamboo fight between two men and a squirrel on jet skis.
Now that's obscure. Too obscure for my liking, although the bamboo fight might give me pause on a channel-surfing spree.
But really, is the idea of "The Ocho" that far out there? Especially considering most of us with digital cable have way too many channels with nothing on anyway?
ESPN already has plenty of channels in addition to its flagship station - ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNNews, ESPN Classic, ESPN Deportes.
Sadly enough, I haven't even listed them all.
So really, what's one more?
I kinda like the idea of having an outlet where I can see things outside the realm of mainstream sports.
The big four - hockey, basketball, baseball and football - get plenty of press. If games aren't being shown, we're getting news on what's happening in each of these sports circles.
The same can be said for collegiate-level and other professional sports, such as golf and boxing.
But what happens to other sports, like those at the Winter Games?
Where am I going to see bobsledding and biathlons and speed skating?
I know we have events like the X Games, which do get insane play the week they're held.
And the X Games are a very big deal - so big, in fact, there's been debate that X Game athletes may hold the event in higher esteem than the Olympics.
But that still only caters to some of the sports seen at the Olympics. And I can't say I get as many updates about winter extreme sports athletes as I do with, say, LeBron James and where he's going to end up playing next year.
Sure, LeBron's a big deal to more people. But my point is that outlets for many seem more interesting than an outlet for a select few.
So many people moan about the Winter Olympics being less exciting than their summer counterparts, that many of the athletes are virtual unknowns who mostly disappear outside of four-year competition.
Perhaps if we gave them more press outside of the Winter Games, we'd be a bit more excited about them when it came time to compete for medals.
So I'm placing my vote now for an ESPN Olympics channel. Give our winter - and heck, even our summer - athletes a place to shine.
They spend so much of their time preparing in off-season competition. It would be great to have a chance to spend some of that time watching.